Homeschooling in 2013

Homeschooling has changed so much since we first started - you know, a million years ago. ;)

Tonight, I picked up a little bag of Holy Land souvenirs we bought at the used curriculum sale last year and said to Anna that we really should look through it since we've had it a year and hadn't even opened it to see what we'd bought.  It was an interesting little packet, mostly tiny bags of things stapled to cards that told about each item, where they were from, what they are used for and so on.  We began with a large sheet of papyrus paper.  Well, of course we already knew the basics, but we didn't know exactly *how* it was made - so we went to youtube to find out.  She's hard to understand, but we caught the important parts. ;)  Next up - flax.  How DO they turn a plant like that into thread?  Back to youtube again!  No one talks, but we understood better. ;)  Oh, and look!  A hackle (heckling tool) looks like the flower frog I found at the Salvation Army thrift store!  I wonder if it's really a hackle, or really a flower frog?  (Google couldn't, or wouldn't, tell us.)  If we *could* use it as a hackle, could we buy some flax to try to make our own thread?  Off to ebay!  :)  I couldn't find flax to buy, but we can buy flax seeds, and attempt to grow our own. 

So we're just a few cards into the bag, and already we've been all over the place online.  Back in the day, as they say, we could have wondered, perhaps pulled the set of encyclopedias out to look things up, but there would have been no way to find videos of it !  Try to explain scutching without being able to see what is being done.  Difficult, no? 
Homeschooling in 2013 is worlds easier than homeschooling in 2000 was - and not just because my kids are older.