The whole world in our family room

            We don’t watch television.  There are many reasons why.  Most of all, though we just find the vast majority of programming to be incredibly worldly and shockingly immoral.  Even the commercials, or should I say, especially the commercials are offensive.  

            There is one kind of programming I do like though.  I love documentaries.  So, I decided to start adding some to our school curriculum.  A month or so ago we watched an extremely informative movie all about telescopes.  It went along perfectly with the astronomy unit we had been working on all year.  

Then the other night, the kids really wanted to watch a movie but it was getting close to bedtime and we only had time for something short so we decided to check out what educational options Netflix had to offer on streaming.  We all agreed on “The Riddle of the Sphinx” and ended up learning a lot about ancient Egyptian history, beliefs, and culture and even some things about geology and archeology and art.  

This week, I am super excited because I borrowed a documentary from the library entitled, “Jesus and the Shroud of Turin”.  I watched a show about the Shroud of Turin years ago and was fascinated by it.  I thought it would be perfect for Holy Week and, though I could not find the exact program I saw before, the one I did find looks very promising.  

Documentaries are such a wonderful resource for learning and they make the world around us come alive in full color.  They introduce us to a world of experts and allow them to share their passions with us in the comfort of our own home.   And even better--  they keep the children’s attention and require no extra work or planning on my part, and at least on Netflix or library dvd’s—there are no commercials! :)