I just put up my review of In Search of London, which I LOVED. I have got to get more of his books. The only other one at the library by him is In the Steps of the Master, a tour of the Holy Land which I checked out, and I can tell it's wonderful too, but it's huge and I don't have time right now so I don't want to start it. Karen Cushman's new book, Alchemy and Meggy Swann, is also there. I just started Locke's 2nd essay on civil gov't, which is the famous one. I tried to read the 1st one first, and found out why it isn't famous. It's entirely a rebuttal of a book that no one has ever heard of, defending absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings. It's no fun, don't read it. As for reading something about the founding of our country, I shall now take the opportunity to plug my new reading challenge blog, The American Primary Sources Challenge. It starts today, and July is colonial month. I won't be posting here on WTM about it every week, so subscribe if you want to keep up!

Oh, I totally cried.

Not in this weather. In winter I might, but somehow broccoli left out feels like it will taste weird even if it isn't bad. (I love broccoli.)

I started off quilting my quilts and only started sending them out (sometimes) a few years ago. Quilting is fun! If you're planning to do much quilting, a walking foot is important to get. I can't tell you which foot to get--I don't know what kind of machine you have! Ask at the store. You will probably want a mid-range one. I paid $100 for mine, because I have a high-end machine, but my daughter's more average machine takes a $30 foot. I would not advise you to pay over $80 unless you're planning to do a lot of quilting! Log cabins lend themselves well to quilting patterns that go diagonally across the blocks, if you don't want to quilt each. and. every. seam. For example if you arrange the blocks in a diamond pattern, you can quilt diamonds. Or zig-zags on a zig-zag pattern. Etc.

I think it's important to ask the group what the deal with the SOF is. I think the default is probably that you're signing it saying that you believe the things on the list, so I wouldn't sign one unless we'd all made it very clear that all it meant was that I wouldn't argue. In fact I'd write out a little addendum stating that on the contract before signing. I like my inclusive group, where everyone is welcome.

Did you read the Swedish article from Rohus I linked to? There was some great information in there. The problem is that there are Swedes who want the freedom to homeschool and they have had that freedom denied to them. Swedish legislators do not really know much about homeschooling and tend to assume that homeschoolers are all religious fanatics who need to be stopped anyway. The Rohus efforts at educating legislators won some sympathizers in the government, but the feeling seems to have been that the education package was an all-or-nothing deal and the rights of a few hundred people weren't important enough to worry about. The main way homeschoolers from other countries tried to help was by writing letters explaining that homeschoolers come in all flavors, that the prevailing myths about us are not accurate, and that homeschooling is a great addition to a country's resources, rather than a problem to be crushed. I think that's a perfectly appropriate thing to do.

Yeah, SOFs are usually worded to keep people like me out of the club. I guess that's OK, since I don't approve of them on principle anyway.

Yes, it's very discouraging. Here is a very good article from the Swedish homeschooling organization on exactly what it means. I wrote some letters to Swedish legislators, and of course we should still keep trying to get this changed. But I don't think that homeschoolers ever had much of a chance in this fight. :(

Last year I discovered Elizabeth Goudge, who wrote in the 30's-50's. I really like her books--am currently finishing the Eliot chronicles. (It's a 3-generation family story, and I don't usually go for those. It's the only one she wrote AFAIK.) I also loved City of Bells.

Well, I do realize that (I was an exchange student, a LOT of the support materials were all about that sort of thing). But while of course I will be teaching my kids about it, IME when people start talking about "teaching worldview" it means one particular evangelical thing that I'm not doing.

Well said, MamaSheep!

Bump so I can get a little input! I posted too late last night.

I, too, feel this very strongly. I believe that God is not a liar who would deliberately trick us.

I like that, Saille, that really expresses what we try to teach our kids. The term "teaching worldview" is something of an evangelical buzzword, as far as I can tell. It's not a term I use. I try to teach our kids truth as we understand it, and to teach them that we should respect other people and their beliefs.

He was with his mother at the time, right? It hardly seems likely that he was actually trying to kidnap a little girl. Trying to help, but a little clueless as to how to do it, seems much more plausible.

OK, here are some rough divisions into 12 monthly themes. It's quite difficult! I'm not sure how to divide them up evenly and I'd need about 20 divisions really. It's possible that I am not the best person to come up with this schedule, since the whole point is that I'm no good at US history....but anyway! Colonial period pre-1750 Revolutionary era 1750-1789 Federalist period 1789-1815 Jacksonian era? 1815-1850 Civil War era 1850-1865 Reconstruction Westward Expansion Gilded Age/Immigration WWI/Prohibition era Depression WWII Cold War/post-1950 Come and post, I'm feeling lonely. :) I have a button now! It's desperately amateur, but what the hey.

I believe that God created the universe and life, and that evolution is a natural process that is how He accomplishes some of His purposes. I have no quarrel with evolution, I find it fascinating (though it is not something I have faith in, since it's not a religious tenet; I accept that the evidence for it is good). I believe that the Bible account is not meant to be an exact report of the precise methodology involved in the creation of the earth, but a poetic account that tells us why it was created and why we are here--which is much more important. I believe that Adam and Eve were real people who made an important choice, and a necessary one, and there is no reason to castigate them for it. I didn't choose an option, wasn't sure what you meant by all of them.

I think I like the idea of monthly themes/time periods. I'll work something up.

My mom just got that and I'm looking forward to reading it! This week I'm covering The Making of Americans and the latest Terry Pratchett book.

Hm, I guess I hadn't thought of having topics. Would that be more work? :D And nope, this project was born in my head back in January; I just wanted to launch it around the 4th of July for fun, and to give myself time to learn about the whole blogging deal because I only started a blog in order to do the 52 Weeks thing this year. Also my friend promised to have the background done by then! :lol: I don't know what the evil threads were about, but I really don't want this to be a political thing. I'll ponder the topics idea. I was going to start at the beginning and work forward, sort of. Thanks for the suggestion!

It's a historical free-for-all! You pick and tell everyone about what you read. If you want to focus on one particular topic, go for it--the links I put up at the side feature tons of reading on any topic you can think of. Here are the relevant rules I came up with. Should I be more specific? I've never done this before and am pretty clueless. I may have missed the evil threads. I guess I should be thankful?

Yay, thanks!

Hey everyone, I'm starting a new blog with a reading challenge--Primary Sources. It's not supposed to be difficult, just a little challenge to get more educated about American history (or wherever you may live). I know I need it! So if you'd like to join, come on over and sign up. It will be much prettier in a few days, sorry it's not much right now. :hat: <<dude who knows a lot about history, that's why the stripy hat

This is my thought too. To be specific, the books get quite dark. Harry is (justifiably) a POd teenager--he's angry. And scary, dark things happen. There's not much sexual, except the occasional reference to snogging. I didn't want my daughter reading them until at least 10--there is a ton of excellent fantasy for kids out there (Diana Wynne Jones!) and there's no need to rush into HP. But she read the entire Lord of the Rings, which I had not thought to forbid :001_huh: and after that I figured there wasn't much point. I don't think she got more than about 50% of LOTR but either way it's pretty dark in spots too. So she read HP at 9, I guess, and loves them.

Oops, forgot to post! This week we have Beautiful Girlhood and a great book on self-justification titled Mistakes were made...but not by ME. I finished my great London book and will be posting on it soon!