Domestic Culture

Remember my category called "Localitas"? I thought I needed a category to put all the mundane, local, community, and well, DOMESTIC little goals, habits, or ideas that fly into my mind occasionally but fly back out without a net to put them in. Another name above: Domestic Culture. It might sound a little less pretentious and abstruse than Localitas.

(The picture is of the shells Kieron got to collect on the beach when we were up in Oregon last week)

I lost the document where I was writing these categories so I think there are some missing, but here are the ones I can remember. There is plenty of overlap among these but this is to help me remember and brainstorm:

• Liturgical Year/Church Activities -- activities related to the liturgical season, things going on in our church, family and family devotions and sacraments.
• Calendar -- following the secular seasonal cycle -- a place for things like that "Fire Awareness Week", "Novel in a Month", and that type of thing.
• Field Trips/Local Events -- the type of thing that's announced in our local newspaper.
• Personal Knowledge -- things like address, tying shoes, mundane things.
• Habits -- Character as expressed through action.
• Life Skills -- knowing how to do various things.
• Nature Study -- pretty obvious -- our ventures into our local area.
• Local Geography -- same as above, with hands-on geography component.
• Community Opportunities & History -- sort of like "community events" but less temporal -- more about the long-standing unique fixtures in our local area, and the lore and culture.
• Family and Friends -- pretty obvious -- letters to grandma, playdates, etc.
• Family Heritage -- our history, our "lore", all the family tales that come up in conversation.
• Household Chores & Doings -- our regular jobs around the house, and seasonal work as well.
• Physical Therapy -- this counts physical exercise for the healthy ones in the house.
• Handicrafts -- obvious -- teaching things like knitting, sewing, woodworking etc.
• Vocational Abilities -- about the transition process -- never too early to start thinking about that.

I am going to develop a list of books and websites to help me decide on what's important. For example, I found a very inexpensive book on Do It Yourself that is a book form of "E-How" (which is also often very useful for me). This may seem unnecessarily complicated, but this mom didn't teach her first three children to tie their shoes. They picked it up on their own and then taught their little siblings. Of course, this is OK some of the time, but I'd still like to be a little more... .intentional.

A lot of this type of thing can be incorporated into Morning Time (an idea which I find SO useful) and carried out informally during the day.

How to Plan for Domestic Culture:

Right now I'm simply keeping a running list, which goes somewhat like this-- I can add things as I see the need:

Put shoes away in consistent place

Bathroom hygiene

Appointments for dentist

Write to grandma and grandpa

Stack firewood

Make map of neighborhood -- put natural features in it with key.

Fire awareness.... find out what they already know.

Read about bats.

Start thinking about costumes for Halloween.

Apple Orchard -- visit?

Visit Pumpkin Patch -- with homeschool group.

Pray for our priest.

Make a seasonal display for our table -- get the kids to help.

and so on -- you see how it goes.