Meaning in the Mundane: Order from Chaos

Like a dog chasing its tail, I could spend hours a day following my children around trying to keep the house in order. A few days neglect and the washing basket is overflowing. A morning of schoolwork and the dining room table and floor are covered with scraps of paper, pencils and flecks of rubber. Separating and sorting things back into their rightful place feels mundane… but is it?

On the very first page of the Bible, we see a God who creates the world from a formless void. Much of this is done by separating one thing from another. On day one, God separated the light from the darkness. On day two, he separated the waters in the sky from the waters on the ground. Day three, he separates sea from land. Day four, he separates day from night.

God created an orderly world so that humans could live and thrive. Because of the predictability of the seasons farmers can grow food. Having fixed hours of daylight allows us to plan our work, travel and much needed sleep!

When we spend time ordering our own little corners of the world, we are reflecting something of our great God. Whether we are separating out light and dark washing or placing plates back in the cupboard, we are creating an environment in which our families can live and thrive.

When motivated by love, each time we tidy up, we point to a God who created and sustains the whole ordered universe out of his own overflowing love for us.

The Wild West

Our history topic last week was ‘The Wild West’. We learnt about how settlers moved into the wild, uninhabited lands on the western side of North America, and built themselves homes and communities in which they could live and grow.  

We use the classic version of the ‘Layers of Learning’ curriculum to study history. This includes a printable timeline, a useful explanation of the main events, a booklist for additional reading, and some activity ideas and printables suitable for a range of ages.

After reading the summary and sticking our timeline labels in the right place, the children chose their own activities to complete. For the youngest, this was mostly just colouring. For the older children, they researched an area of interest and wrote a short narration about it using these three books.

A couple of the children also drew and painted their own scenes from the wild west.

Finally, we learnt a bit about the gold rush in California and gold panning.

Through our membership to homeeducated.org.uk, we get a school subscription to Epic books. One of the books available was ‘Explore the Wild West’ by Anita Yasuda. Scrolling through it gave me an idea for this fun activity.

First we painted some small rocks with waterproof gold paint and left them to dry.

I used the bottom of our garden swing ball set, and filled it with plain rocks, sand and our gold rocks, making sure they were well hidden among the rest. I covered the whole lot with water. Then I gave the children ‘pans’ -we used large plant pot saucers. They each took turns fishing out some rubble, swirling it round and seeing if they got lucky. After a few competitions to see who could find the most, I left the girls in the garden playing with it while the boys moved on to football!

Much fun was had by all. And of course much tidying was needed afterwards, along with a few warm showers to bring things back into a state of order!