Navigating the Star of Bethlehem in Modern Time

Our daughters saw two bright stars on our way home. It reminded us of the news about the "Star of Bethlehem " phenomenon which can be seen for the first time in 2,000 years on June 30, 2015 (July 1 in PH). We're still lucky to have a glimpse though not as bright due to cloudy skies but we thank God for the opportunity and reminding us through our kids.

Good thing, we recalled the astronomy apps downloaded by our ever diligent principal (my husband, Marvin) so we have an instant astronomy class inside the car. We rushed to get home since viewing it inside a moving vehicle wouldn't provide us accurate results as the app needs re-calibration most of the time.

Following The Star of Bethlehem on our way home.

So after taking a swift dinner, everyone went out of the house and explored the sky using the apps like little astronomers.

Homeschooling at night

Since today is Pasig Day (hubby's work holiday), we met with our discipleship group (DGroup) for early breakfast and got the chance to stroll around after, the kids' schedule of homeschool lessons and activities were put on hold. I'm actually still adjusting to unlearn the conventional way of schooling because I still somehow bring the conventional school system in our homeschool which should not be the case. Anyway, by God's grace, the timeframe to learn to unlearn it has begun because we're able to promptly shove away frustrations and allowed adjustments. In short, we embraced flexibility in our homeschooling. The result? We homeschooled at night for the first time! :)

We loved to see the awe in our kids faces as they pointed the smartphones in the sky while the app concurrently displays the images of the stars, planets and space stations.

Spotted Saturn!

The moon's location (though not exact when this
photo was taken due to calibration issue)

The kids also experienced the perspective of the earth's roundness (or spherical as what Bree told me) as they pointed the smartphones up to see the moon and pointed it down the opposite direction to see the sun together with Mars and Mercury. All the while we felt like the sun just moved to the West at dusk to set to give way to the moon at night.

The Star of Bethlehem aka Jupiter and Venus

Planet Mercury when we pointed the app downward.

Bree found the location of the Hubble Space Telescope

As well the the International Space Station

The sun at the opposite side of the moon along
with other planets close to it, Mercury and Mars.

Supplementing technology in our homeschool curriculum gives us the flexibility we need and an unlimited stream of information. This is one of the reasons we chose to take the homeschooling journey and we've been enjoying it so far.