One of the nice things about homeschooling is choosing the curriculum that works best for us. One of the yuk things is not being able to find what you want. For two years I have been looking round for a really good bible study. What makes it really hard is I don't even know what I want...BUT...I'll know it when I see it!Honestly, bible is the bugbear in our homeschool. [math is just beyond the pale ~ I'll explain the pale later, trust me, it's bad.] Ditz has chosen to just read a chapter a day of her bible & while slow this is reasonably effective, only she started in Genesis. Yep, folks, she hasn't hit all the begats yet but if she reads straight through like she says, she is going to be reading a lot of begats & somehow I can't see Ditz finding those all that interesting. I don't want her to find the bible [& by default God] dull & boring. I remember one of my sons pulling that stunt. I handed him God's Smuggler.
A while back, before I crashed my 2nd blog in two years, I talked about Considering God's Creation, which has been fantastic for us & better from a learning perspective than Apologia. Now I like Apologia but it is not a particularly good fit for Ditz. Our umbrella school likes Apologia; they do *proper science*...as opposed to what? And hey folks, we ditched the experiments 3 terms ago, ever since Ditz stood on a chair dropping things & saying, 'See, I told you they wouldn't hit the ground together!' The forces of gravity suspend themselves for Ditz's convenience. No, we do not do well with experiments. We manage to disprove scientific facts!
This does not bother me terribly. Ditz is not about to become a rocket scientist & she knows more about the theory of music by instinct than I will ever grasp. We are not the math/science duo. That would be Liddy & her dad...oh & Jossie was pretty good at science. I like the speculative theory of science, otherwise, ho~hum, I have more interesting things to do.
Anyway...I have got leery about forking out good hard cash for curriculum I'm pretty sure I'll hate, & that I'm pretty sure Ditz will hate & which we will gag over until we can't stand looking at it any more then hide at the back of a cupboard. Yes, folks, I admit it, I have hidden curriculum so neither of us has to deal with it. No, I am not the one who hides the math curriculum. That would be Ditz. No, Ditz says not. Gremlins! I tell you, they're a pesky bunch!
So I have been considering Remembering God's Awesome Acts & Remembering God's chosen Children for about 2 terms now. When I get a little surplus cash before Christmas I am going to order them. They are put out by Eagles Wings, the same lot who do Considering God's Creation, so I am really, really hopeful they will be a good fit for us.
Now, back to the *Pale.* Back when Henry VIII & Queen Elizabeth I thought civilising the barbaric Irish was a good idea [please don't take this as gospel, folks; this is the racy version] & attempted to make all the good Catholic bog men Anglican [remembering we are talking about a people who had a king who was quoted as saying something along the lines of, 'If we can't kill them all we'll breed them out,' of the Scots but that is a whole 'nother story!] they dispossessed the Irish Gentry of their holdings which were then given to the younger sons & riff~raff of the English. The English being so very English built a stockade to keep the Barbaric Irish out. *sigh* If you were Irish & lived outside the pale you were the scum of the earth & *beyond the pale*. Yes, there is a good deal more to it than that of course but I don't really think anyone wants an lesson in Irish history according to me!
