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Our real-life family friend Edmund, who is a mathematician and artist, recently co-created a coloring book called Snowflake Seashell Star , and gifted us with a copy for Christmas. We've been playing around with it for a couple of days, and found some great extensions to some of the math concepts introduced within it. This Ted-ED video discusses the debate over whether mathematics were discovered or invented.  "So, is mathematics an invention or a discovery? an artificial construct or a universal truth? human product or natural--possibly divine--creation? These questions are so deep, the debate often becomes spiritual in nature." And that video led nicely into some activities taken from the UUA's new "Miracles" curriculum, specifically session 2 , which uses poet May Sarton's work to talk about looking at the natural world with close attention. "If one looks like enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a sto...

Many UU families, for a variety of reasons, take a blended and eclectic approach to December, mixing secular and religious customs, as well as family-of-origin, borrowed, and newly created traditions. Susan Katz, Miller author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family , argues that there is great benefit in these blended and eclectic approaches to ritual, celebrations, shared belief systems, and observances. The families she interviewed conscientiously created rich and meaningful experiences where their children were doubly-blessed with two faith heritages rather than feeling pulled to one or the other, or removed entirely from a religions perspective that they could claim. (Katz Miller was the featured speaker at this year's national conference for UU religious educators, and found in that audience many with whom her ideas strongly resonated.) Within the framework of both/and, a UU homeschooler can go in a lot of directions this month, inspired by t...