Outdoor Hour in the Snow

Last Saturday, I took four young children on a plane and traveled across the country to visit my family on the East Coast.  Yes, that was as harrowing and horrible as it sounds.  But that’s a story for another time.

The awesome thing is that my California born and bred children and I arrived just after a great snow storm.  The kids have never seen snow and so this has been a very fun week for us!  All of our outdoor hours have been spent in exploring the snow- it’s sight and smell and sound and taste and feel.

On our first full day on the East Coast, we donned a bunch of borrowed snow gear and headed out to my mom’s back yard.

Bundled up for their first foray into the snow

That first day in the snow was an absolute blast.  We stomped in the crunchy snow, had snow fights, built a snowman, and made actual snow angels (no sand angels this time- winter fun truly achieved!) and built a snowman.  We also all rolled down the hill a few times too.  It was fun, but wow, was I ever dizzy.

Snow Fight!

Crunching the snow beneath our feet, Rolling down the hill, and our Snowman

Snow Angels! (I made this after I rolled down the hill and was too dizzy to get up)

The next day the kids were so excited to head outside again.  We found big chunks of snow and they started throwing them and it was a really good thing that they had such bad aim.  Those chunks of snow were hard.

More snow fights

To distract them and get them to stop throwing ice chunks at me and each other, I got out the cardboard box again to see if we would have better success in sliding down the hill than we had the day before.

Cardboard box sledding

It totally worked.  And it was so fun.  I joined right in with the kids flying down the hill and then running back up to do it again.

Snow exploration

After awhile we were tired, so we wandered around the yard looking at the way the snow glistened and sparkled, the way it was stacked up on the edge of the road and feeling how deep it was when our boots sank into it.  We wrote letters and messages in the snow and when we talked about what snow was made of, X-man decided to taste it.  He then exclaimed, “I didn’t know that snow was so tasty!  This is like a treat!”  For the next few days, all that kid wanted for dessert was snowballs.

“I didn’t know that snow was so tasty!”

Princess K then decided that her hands were cold and she was done with playing in the snow for the day.  She went inside for snack and hot cocoa with Grandma and X-man and I went back to sliding down the hill and playing in the snow.  I used some snowy ice chunks to build myself a snow wall that I called my Ice Castle.  X-man, in true little boy fashion, saw a snow structure and decided to take it down.

My Ice Castle is Conquered

Hail the Conquering Hero

Looks Cozy

The next day, the snow was beginning to melt.  Now the other kids were more willing to join us outside, though only barely.  More snowball fights and stomping in snow ensued.  X-man came up with a brilliant game called “Let’s throw snowballs at the wall and see how high we can get them.”  Honestly, for a 6 year old, the height was impressive.

Shortstop stayed determinedly in the part of the backyard without snow.

X-man’s Snowball Game

I’m pretty sure that I think that all this fun in the snow and of course the time with my family has made up for that plane trip.  Almost.

Teaching Among Tornadoes: Preschool Time

Several months ago, I wrote a post listing 5 tips for homeschooling with preschoolers present.  Since then, I have written a number of posts about different tricks I’ve tried to keep my toddler and preschooler occupied during school time.  All of these posts have been my fulfilling Tip #1- to Plan Ahead- prepare toys, activities, crafts for preschoolers to use or do during school time.  And I will get back to these again in my subsequent posts.  But today, I am going to write about Tip #2- Start the day with Preschool Time.

The idea behind Preschool Time is that since there are good chunks of the day where Mommy’s attention must be on her school aged children, starting the day with quality time with the littlest ones is important for a number of reasons.  We need to invest time in our relationship with each of our children and they are just as important as the older ones.  Setting aside time -first- for them communicates their importance and helps you to not neglect the younger children.  Also, they need Mommy’s attention and if you don’t give it to them in positive ways, they’ll find ways to gain your attention.  Ways you might not entirely appreciate.

Puzzles

I’m not perfect at making sure I spend this time with my preschoolers every day, but it is my goal to make Preschool Time a daily habit.  We actually do Bible first- with breakfast- because it is important to me that the kids see that God and His Word and our relationship with Him is our priority.  Preschool Time comes after that- but before we get into the rest of our day.

Games

We choose one of three different activities every day.  Most of the time I let Z-urchin choose what he wants to do.

1.  Books.  Shortstop often chooses a book as well, and so I cuddle up with the two little boys (with the older ones hanging out with us because if Mommy starts reading, no one wants to be left out) and read a book for each preschooler.

2. Games.  Zingo, Sequence for Kids, and Candyland are a few favorites.  Again, the older ones tend to want to join in and Z-urchin’s opinion is along the lines of “the more, the merrier!”

3.  Puzzles.  We have a whole bunch of different puzzles we can put together, so Z-urchin will choose one and we’ll put it together… together.  Occasionally, we will play charades with our foam animal puzzles.  We will take turns choosing a puzzle piece to act out while the other tries to guess the animal.

Dinosaur Puzzle Charades

The quality time spent with my preschoolers is worth the effort I put in to make it happen.  They love the time with Mommy and Mommy loves the time with them.  That’s a win-win!

Discipleship with Children: 7 Principles (Part 2)

When I first began homeschooling, my wise mother, who homeschooled my brother and sister for a few years in our childhood, gave me a piece of very excellent advice.  She told me that as a creative homeschooler, I would come up with and find and hear about a great many wonderful ideas for lessons, crafts, projects, activities, and so on.  These awesome and creative lessons, crafts, projects, and activities are the icing on the cake of homeschooling- and add fun and life and excitement to our educational pursuits.  However, education is not my only responsibility and other obligations would crop up and compete in my daily schedule.

So she told me to have a short list of basic requirements that we do every day.  Then, in our day to day life, if we have time for the extras- go for it and enjoy.  But success is measured by the short list and not on the extras.  This, she assured me, would free me from massive amounts of guilt, when reality inevitably does not match up with my dreams.

The first item on my short list, then, is Bible.  Since biblical knowledge of God gives us everything we need that pertains to life and godliness, this subject is first in priority and in our schedule.  We sing a hymn before breakfast and I read our Bible passage while they eat.  Discipleship, the fostering of my children’s personal relationships with the Lord, occurs throughout the day as it comes up.

Discipling my children is a priority in my heart and a topic I have been studying.  I have been reading the Gospel of Mark in my personal devotion time and have been looking carefully at the ultimate example of Jesus and how He discipled His followers.  A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the first three principles of discipleship I noticed in my studies which were, briefly: Time, Identify, and Teachable Moments.  Today I would like to write about two more principles I saw.

Guided Practice

4. A Teacher Provides Opportunities for Practice

My college degree is in Elementary Education.  I took several classes on methods of teaching and creating lessons.  In the course of a well crafted lesson, you have an introduction (that relates the material to be taught to the student so as to make a meaningful connection), explanation of the new material, modeling (often by completing an example), guided practice (in the presence of the teacher who is available to assist and reteach, if necessary), and then independent practice (which is often homework).

In the Gospels, I see this pattern of lessons in Jesus’ ministry.  He taught the crowds using miracles or parables to help them understand his teachings.  He modeled what He taught in how He lived.  Then He gave His disciples opportunities for Guided Practice.  One notable example of this is in Mark 6.  “And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits… The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. ” (v 7, 30).  They were to preach and do miracles.  They were, in fact, practicing the mission Jesus would give them when He eventually left Earth and ascended into Heaven.

As disciples of Jesus, He will give us, too, opportunities to practice ministry.  Serving under someone’s mentoring leadership paves the way for us to minister and mentor others ourselves.  Younger women should be on the lookout for older women to mentor them, teach them, advise them, encourage them.

Then we, as mothers, should both model to our children how to live and minister and serve and also give our children opportunities to learn how to minister and serve others.  My  mother brought me to teach Sunday School to 1st graders under her leadership when I was in high school.  Later, in college, I took over teaching the 3rd and 4th grade Sunday School classes.  I have had my children help me make a meal and go with me to deliver that meal to a new mom or a grieving family.  We are teaching our children to do housework and yard work by helping us as we do it.  In a few years, they can be a part of helping out an elderly or sick member of our congregation.  Finally, my hope is that they will continue this practice of serving others for God’s glory as they grow into adulthood.

5.  A Teacher Prays for His Students and Teaches Them to Pray

In the first chapter of Mark, Jesus retreats to a lonely place to pray and there his disciples find Him.  In Mark 11, the disciples are in awe that the fig tree that Jesus cursed had withered overnight.  He replies to them,  “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (v 24-25)

Thus, in His example and in His words, He teaches the disciples the importance, power, and method of prayer.  The Gospel of John chapter 17 records a beautiful prayer that Jesus prayed for His disciples.  He prays for God’s glory and for their unity, protection, sanctification, and joy that the Father’s mission may be accomplished in them.

As faithful disciples of Jesus, we should make prayer a daily- even hourly- habit.  In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster says, “Of all the Spiritual Disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father” (p 33).  He also says, “Real prayer is something we learn” (p 36).  To do this, we can study the prayers of Old Testament and New Testament saints.  We can read about the prayers of missionaries and listen to the prayers of the pastors, teachers, and elders in our lives.

Then, we must pass on what we learn about prayer to our children.  They must be taught the importance of prayer in the life of a disciple of Jesus.  They must be taught the power of the prayers of a believer who prays in faith.  They must be taught how to pray.  They can learn from your example, and then you can be sure to read to them the examples of the prayers of the saints in the Bible and read to them missionary stories where prayer is a powerful vehicle for change and the miraculous work of God.

We must also pray for our children.  I received this beautiful poem in a baby shower gift several years back:

I Have A Mother Who Prays

Some have had kings in their lineage,
Some to whom honor was paid.
I don’t have those as my ancestors
But I have a mother who prays.

I have a mother who prays for me
And pleads with the Lord every day for me.
Oh what a difference it makes for me
I have a mother who prays.

My mother’s prayers cannot save me,
Only mine can avail;
But Mother introduced me to someone,
someone who never could fail.

Oh yes…I have a mother who prays for me
And pleads with the Lord every day for me.
O what a difference it makes for me
I have a mother who prays.

Author unknown

Next time, I will talk about the last two principles for discipling children.

Memorable Moments from January: Skating, Space & Surveying

This month, we have been struggling to get back into a normal routine after the holiday season.  With the stomach flu tearing through our house (twice) and my trip to Hawaii with my sister (I’m grinning right now, thinking about it), we’ve really only had time for the basics.  I’m anxious to get back to doing all the fun creative things that add richness, depth, and life to my kids’ education.  Meanwhile, there have definitely been some really awesome moments this month.

1.  Ice Skating lessons with a homeschool group.  My kids are loving it!

2.  Learning about shapes (and finishing our first math book: Right Start A!)- I placed several objects that were spheres, rectangular prisms, cylinders, and cones on the kitchen table and I taught the kids the names of the objects and then we identified them together.  The next day, I pulled out some play-dough and had them form a cone, cylinder, sphere, and rectangular prism.  They really enjoyed this math lesson- the last lesson of Right Start Level A.  We are now a few lessons into Right Start B.  Woohoo!

Princess K pretends to lick her play-dough cone.

3.  X-man teaching himself multiplication.  Earlier this week, a Rhett & Link  song led my husband to explain what one times one means.  The next day, in the car, X-man was contemplating this.  He stated, “2 times 2 is 4.”  And then he asked, “What is 4 times 4?”  We talked it through together and he figured it out himself.  I’m so proud!  (And so is Daddy!)

4.  Being Surveyors.  This week, our history reading was George Washington by the D’Aulaires.  The first day, we read about his childhood and the kids decided to draw George Washington on a pony for their notebook page.  The second day we read about Washington’s young adulthood spent surveying and mapmaking.  X-man came up with a brilliant idea: instead of drawing a picture for his notebook page, he wanted to go outside and survey our yard and make a map of it.  So that’s what they did.  And their maps were impressive.

Surveyors

5.  Studying Space.  We’ve read Sunshine Makes the Seasons and The Moon Book.  The kids had great questions and good comprehension in our reading and our subsequent discussions about the earth, the sun, and the moon.  I demonstrated the earth’s revolution and rotation using our inflatable globe and using the overhead light as our sun.  X-man and Princess K were both able to relate some interesting facts about what they learned to their daddy at the dinner table.

6.  Free Time Fun with Art- their Auntie got them art things for Christmas- instruction books for X-man and a little light projector drawing toy for Princess K.  They have had so much fun during quiet time working on their drawings.

7.  Our Hymn Study- We’ve been learning the hymn, “Jesus What a Friend for Sinners.”  Princess K told me the other day, “Mommy, I can’t get our new hymn out of my head!”  Ah, yes, dear!  That’s the point.

8.  Shortstop’s Drawing.  He draws over everything he can reach as often as he can.  He loves drawing.  And I must say, I’m impressed with his pencil holding skills.  None of my other kids were able to hold pencils correctly at that age.  Maybe he’s going to be the artist of the family.  Based on his current favorite medium, I expect he’ll paint murals on walls… or floors… or doors.  (Thank goodness for Magic Eraser!)