Connections

One of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is the chance to make connections along with my children. I find it fascinating how one piece of information leads to another and another....

Our most recent Around the World card featured Chinese pagodas. The first was the Big Wild Goose Pagoda built in 652. While searching around the web, I found an article about the largest pagoda in the world, the Tianning Pagoda, which is 13 stories high. The picture shows Buddhist monks attending the inauguration of the Zen Buddhist pagoda.

Levi remembered seeing pictures of Buddhist monks and statues in the fabulous picture book People by Peter Spier. This book alone provides hours of 'people watching' with seemingly endless detailed illustrations. (As an aside, I wish my childhood bookshelf would have included any of Peter Spier's works. I could have spent hours pouring over his illustrations!)





We moved on to a discussion of the various ways people around the world worship using The Usborne Encyclopedia of World Religions. Upon opening the book, Levi immediately spied a photograph of the Wailing Wall (or Western Wall) in Jerusalem, Israel, which was added to our Around the World cards after I read The Silver Chalice.

And who knew that a short geography lesson would also add saffron to our color palette?! One of our books described the monks' robes as being saffron, and Levi was searching for a saffron ribbon in the ribbon drawer this morning. (How many times can I use the word saffron in one paragraph?)