I finally had some time to do some planning for our post-Columbus studies. I just realized that I never really shared much about our studies in Columbus. I don't know how much anyone cares, but we read his log book (well, what somebody copied from it...the original was lost long ago.) We also read the book of Daniel. We compared these two men. From the beginning, Daniel "purposed in his heart not to defile himself" and he was able to rise to great things from a human perspective and still not get distracted from his faith in God. Columbus started out all right. He felt called by God to go West...to bring the message of God to the peoples of East Asia. But already in the King's court you could see difficulties. He was already getting consumed by the desire for wealth and recognition. He was a poor leader, and chose men whom he should have known better than to bring.
By the time he got to what he thought was the Indies, he was really more interested in the gold than anything else.
Next in the plan is a concentration on a new principle, "How the seed of local self-government is planted." This we will be discovering through studying Jamestown and the early colonial settlements. I need to go through my books, but I think I have some of their early writings and contracts which will be interesting to look at. Our next math unit is on money, which I am holding off on until we get started. We currently are working more on addition to 100 until I'm ready to start. The reason for this is that one of the big topics that will come up will the use and responsibility for personal property. Jamestown almost failed because they had no personal property. They almost starved in this new wilderness because of their communal mindset. I thought that studying about money, its value, what it represents and good stewardship of it would be a fitting math topic to study alongside our history.
Also, for anyone interested, we reported our first findings to FeederWatch. The list for Nebraska may be found here. Eleven whole sites in my state reporting currently...that may increase. Some people do theirs on paper and mail it in and some wait days, weeks and even months to turn in their counts. We reported: 2 white breasted nuthatches, 1 red-bellied woodpecker, 1 downy woodpecker, 5 American goldfinches, 5 American robins, 14 house sparrows, 7 European starlings, 1 house finch, and 3 blue jays. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary for this area...none of our more interesting birds showed up to be counted!
By the time he got to what he thought was the Indies, he was really more interested in the gold than anything else.
Next in the plan is a concentration on a new principle, "How the seed of local self-government is planted." This we will be discovering through studying Jamestown and the early colonial settlements. I need to go through my books, but I think I have some of their early writings and contracts which will be interesting to look at. Our next math unit is on money, which I am holding off on until we get started. We currently are working more on addition to 100 until I'm ready to start. The reason for this is that one of the big topics that will come up will the use and responsibility for personal property. Jamestown almost failed because they had no personal property. They almost starved in this new wilderness because of their communal mindset. I thought that studying about money, its value, what it represents and good stewardship of it would be a fitting math topic to study alongside our history.
Also, for anyone interested, we reported our first findings to FeederWatch. The list for Nebraska may be found here. Eleven whole sites in my state reporting currently...that may increase. Some people do theirs on paper and mail it in and some wait days, weeks and even months to turn in their counts. We reported: 2 white breasted nuthatches, 1 red-bellied woodpecker, 1 downy woodpecker, 5 American goldfinches, 5 American robins, 14 house sparrows, 7 European starlings, 1 house finch, and 3 blue jays. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary for this area...none of our more interesting birds showed up to be counted!
