St. Luke's "Little Summer" (and more)
October 18, 2011
It's the Feast of Saint Luke! And according to legend (as well as the Boston forecast), we'll have a touch of unseasonably warm weather today. With a cold and dark winter just around the corner, we'll take every day like this we can get!
So, our plans for today (and moving forward) ...
* Earlybird and I will read two of Luke's gospel stories from Tomie dePaola's Book of Bible Stories: "An Angel Visits Mary" (Luke 1:26-38), and "Jesus is Born" (Luke 2:1-20).
* With the nativity story fresh in our minds, I'll bring out the wooden farm and a basket of related bits and bobs. We'll begin a unit on farm animals this week, and since St. Luke's symbol is the ox (and a winged ox at that!), we'll start with this mighty creature and how it was once an important source of farming "power."
* We'll read one of our favorite autumn books ~ The Ox-Cart Man ~ a fantastic farm-unit story! We'll also watch the Reading Rainbow episode online.
* (I have my eye on this sweet, small wooden ox - and I may order one later this week. I try to add a new piece to our nativity set each year.)
* I've requested these two books from the inter-library loan system:
Old Crump: The True Story of a Trip West
* EB will begin reading Farmer Boy (with me) as well as some independent readers from the "My First Little House" series:
* As St. Luke is the patron of butchers, I'll serve a beef pie for supper (we picked one up at a favorite local farm yesterday), along with baked potatoes, brussels sprouts, and a dark, crusty beer bread. (St. Luke is also the patron of brewers!)
* And since we'll be reading about the Christmas story today, there will be "Christmas" cookies for dessert tonight! Crackerjack just so happens to have an orthodontist appointment today and his orthodontist's office just so happens to be located above our favorite bakery WHICH just so happens to make THE best little butter cookies! :)
* I'll also set up my holiday planner this afternoon. It will take its place upfront in my homekeeping binder ...
(I'll do a post on my holiday planner later this week.)
Well, whatever your plans are for your day, I hope it's a good one! And if the weather unexpectedly warms up ... you'll know who to thank! ;)
See you all again very soon ...
:)