Weekly Wrap-Up

It’s raining – I hope the temperature drops!

My life this week

was a continuation of building habits: a morning walk, starting the day with breakfast, Bible and Scripture memorization practice, hands-free during school , and planning the Charlotte Mason elements of next year’s schedule.

In our homeschool this week

Grace finished up her compare and contrast essay on Ibn Battuta and Benjamin of Tudela, as well as her Missionary Biography note-booking pages on Mary Slessor. I’m seeing a lot of improvement in her writing organization! We also finished our Read Aloud “Journey to Jo-burg” by Beverly Naidoo, spent quite a while discussing race relations, and decided that we will read the sequel “Chain of Fire.” We started the final books of our exploration of the Eastern Hemisphere with a biography of “David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer” , “A Glorious Age in Africa,” and a fun book of African folktales that rock and roll off the tongue, “Beat the Story Drum Pum Pum.”

I find myself inspired by

many of people at the IRD, Institute on Religion and Democracy – Faith McDonnell for striving to bring persecuted Christians to the forefront of national news, to the desktops of those with the power to act on their behalf, and to the hearts and minds of fickle and distracted American Christians – no easy task. Mark Tooley for his true love for the United Methodist Church. Honestly, I don’t know how he continues to work with such hope.

Places and people this week

are the people that we always see. The kids were greeted like old friends at Subway by the staff who no longer need to ask what they want. (A favorite Wednesday night outing for the two of them while Mr. Garner and I are at choir) . #1 Son said he’s going to miss them when he goes to George Mason Univ! We went by our local library branch to pick up a few additional books on Africa and talked to Allison, our wonderful librarian. We went to the Book Exchange and found out that Kevin’s wife had her baby! And found some really great books: “Post Captain” by Patrick O’Brien (Mr. Garner and I love this series and are tickled that Ian is reading it now!), a slightly larger atlas for Grace to use for mapping, Usborn’e Complete Book of Caligraphy that should work well for Medieval history and Art Appreciation, “Abraham Lincoln’s World“ by Genevieve Foster, and “Digging Up the Past: Biblical Sites” to augment our study of Ancient History. Tomorrow we’ll head out to Grandma Midge’s to take her shopping and possibly visit a farm stand or possibly the beach!

A thought I keep having:

I’m already planning too much for next year…

I’m reading

Rodney Stark’s “The Victory of Reason” for my Summer Apologetics course, and “Mara: Daughter of the Nile,” by Elois Jarvis McGraw (pre-reading for next year’s Ancient History section).