Veronica Boulden

There's no hidden knowledge; It's all quite plain. Behold the Truth  In everything! Every door open, Every debt paid,  Every captive free, Every way made, Any serpent crushed,  Whenever wine is poured,  Wherever bread is broken,  Even one lame restored. But we prefer a world More sophisticated A garden more private Than that the Highest and Best Reveals Himself  In mundane ways To mundane things, Yet a child is born A son is given Lord of Earth, indeed! The Same! Who formed the clay And breathed into it  Fills it still As the water fills the sea A curtain torn The Spirit loose Creation restored  And humble dirt  Is wholly saturated  Could be wholly satiated  With the knowledge  Of her God.  By Veronica Boulden

We started easing back into our regular homeschool routine all of last week. The girls did the majority of their schoolwork everyday, though this week and for many more weeks, there will be even more schoolwork each day.  We are still beginning school days by listening to Scripture and drawing. I've illustrated another Sertillanges quote. See the picture above. I'm thinking of making a calendar of quotes once I have twelve or more.  The youth group and 56ers, the fifth and sixth grade group at church, started up again last week. This week, both our co-ops, art classes, piano lessons, and dodgeball also start up, so we will be back into a fuller than full swing of things by week's end.  I spent the majority of Friday and Saturday, and even a few hours Sunday, quietly building the spring schedule for one of our co-ops where I serve as their Coverage Coordinator. At this particular co-op, there are between ten and twenty classes for three hours in a row, approximately forty

I found a miniature Jenga set at the Dollar Store while Christmas shopping, so I purchased that to use as a review game with my Foundations class.  My daughter and I tested the game out at home before using it in class. The test was a fun review for her, and we confirmed that this will definitely be a fun game to play in class.  Materials: Jenga Game  Sharpie Memory Work Flashcards (or Foundations guide) Geography Trivium Tables (or Foundations maps)  Set up: I labeled each Jenga piece with a subject "Science, Timeline, History, etc." on one side using a Sharpie.  Then I pulled out the Memory Work Flashcards for the current cycle and the current weeks we are reviewing in every subject.  I made piles for each subject with the weeks in random order.  We also got our maps out and ready so we could easily point to the places on the maps if we pulled a "Geography" piece off the tower.  We stacked the Jenga blocks appropriately (three blocks horizontal, three blocks verti

Norah returns to work tomorrow, and she'll return to college at the end of the week.  We all had one, final day off together, so we asked her what she wanted to do, and she answered, "The Met." So we got up early, made a quiche to eat for breakfast on the way, and arrived at The Met even before it opened.  We toured the Greek and Roman section, the Medieval section, had lunch in the Cafeteria, then toured the Dutch Masters exhibit, The American Wing, and ended our visit after The European Paintings. We paid special attention to the artists we will be studying in Classical Conversations this year including Monet and Renoir.  We left in the early afternoon. Since we brought drinks on ice in the cooler and homemade cookies Norah had made the night before, that's what we had for snacks on the way home, so no one was hungry until a few hours after we'd arrived back home. So we took showers and read silently for a few hours. It was nice to sit down in the quiet after st