For The Children's Sake

This book came with My Father's World Kindergarten Deluxe Package. I originally did not plan on reading it. I had many other books to read that I bought at the convention that I preferred. While I was flipping through this book and so many paragraphs caught my attention that I decided to read it. WoW! It was good! I started this book at the beginning of July and just finished it last week. It is only 158 pages but sometimes one page was so full that I wanted to stop, pray, and take it in. I have 31 pages of notes in my notebook! As hard as it is I'm picking out two points that stuck out the most to me from each chapter.

Chapter 1: was an introduction mainly. So I'm applying my points for that one to another chapter. :)

Chapter 2:

• Respect children. Don't see them as something o prune, form, or mold. They are individuals who think, act, and feel. They are separate human beings whose strength lie in who they are, not who they will become.
• Our generation is prone to watching a brief program or reading a few paragraphs on a subject and then thinking we "know" about that subject. All we are doing is amusing our interest. This is not education.

Chapter 3:

• Do not smash your children. Lead them. Just as a Shepard leads his sheep. The pasture itself has boundaries but there is freedom within the pasture.
• Children will treat others as they should when they are used to consideration, time, and care themselves.

Chapter 4:

• A child flourishes in an atmosphere where they are liked as a person. Their ideas and choices count.
• Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.

Chapter 5: the most filled chapter

• No division between secular and christian. The whole of reality is God's reality.
• Let the child, God, and His Word work out their own relationship together.
• Time must be unhurried and TV free to encourage the gentle art of learning.
• A part of life is learning how to regulate one's time, responsibilities, and one's limits.

Chapter 6:

• We hinder the child's worth ("just as I am") when we set up artificial development schedules which they must learn grade by grade. We push the "slow", bore the "quick", and ignore the living mind.
• Don't feel guilty about enjoying the whole of life. God created this world and all that's in it for us. Learn to balance each area of your life and enjoy each part of it whole. Whether it's work, sex, eating, reading, watching the sunset, playing a game, etc. It's yours.

There is so much and I've already started applying some things and planning on how to apply others! I strongly recommend this book to all teachers. It's not just for homeschool teachers. Most of the book she referring to how a specific school was ran. You can view inside this book on Amazon here.

Bookmarks

I've had this bookmark tutorial bookmarked since it was first posted! So yes since 2008! I finally made them. I love the idea of a "handcrafted" or "homemade" Christmas! These bookmarks are Christmas gifts for the girls in my book club. I found the charms on clearance a few weeks back at Michael's. Now I'm going to keep my eye out for charm clearances as I would like to make some for myself and a few other ladies who read frequently!

They are super easy.

Supplies Needed: + a lighter to burn the edges to keep from fraying. How They Turned Out:
Gift Ready:

In Nikki's Tutorial she has really cute pics. of them in use and all the details!

MFW Break

School is started here this week and we are officially breaking from My Father's World for 3 weeks! In case you don't know - I'm 39 weeks today! This break was planned for two, I'm just adding on a week. The boys will be doing trays, handicrafts, arts, and read a louds. I personally will be concentrating on keeping house tasks caught up, my own arts, crafts, projects, and reading. I also will be posting things I've been wanting to post on but haven't had the time.

During last week I've found some great deals on some handicrafts & arts! These are some of the activities we'll be doing and I just can't wait:

Michael's: Has had great clearances lately! 2(6pc) Plaster kits, 1 box (makes 10) foam boys, workbook (Chris will ♥), water color pastel crayons, 2 acrylic paint bottles, and a box of colored macaroni $12

Border's: Awesome Handicraft books ~ $10

AC Moore: 2 sketch books (one for me & one for Chris), a little sketch pad (Zack),
pencil set $15I would normally only do one of these trips a week. (scoping clearances for future homeschooling projects) but since we're taking off for 3 weeks and this is what we will be doing. I figure it evens out. I most likely will not be doing any scoping after the baby comes. I plan on digging into all our projects that have been building up!

I'm a little nervous about labor & delivery but excited for what all this break will bring!

Lesson 5 - Nest

Lesson 5 was OK. Honestly Chris is starting to get bored with the curriculum. It's pretty repetitive. You do the exact same thing just with a different letter each week. He's actually complaining about having to do the worksheets and he's always been a workbook fanatic (doing them since 2 & only because he loves them!) The parts he's liked the most are the parts I'm adding in. So some debate is going on in my head. We'll see how the break does and I'm doing some research to see if the first grade one is the same. Anyway - here's some activities we did this week:

Number Chart: A better picture of what we've been doing for the "count to 100". He really likes learning to count by 5s. And on his own time has been studying addition and multiplication.

Paint a bird nest:


Animal Homes Lap Book: He really enjoyed this. I found this cute animal home lap book at DLTK right here. I'm pretty sure this was his favorite activity of the week.

Books:

• Animals at Home by David Lock (Reading Level 1)
• What's Inside? Animal Homes
• Animal Homes by Angela Wilkes
• Animal Homes by Barbara Taylor

We usually read all of one or two and then go over the rest. Unless he asks to read all of every book.

That's about all the "extra" we did for animal homes.

Making Diaper Care Products

I've done a good bit of sewing and crafts this summer and I wanted to post on some of it. I had a huge pile of projects and have been doing my best to work on it each week. I know I will have less time for a little while when the baby comes!

So my biggest project was making cloth diapers and wipes! This took me the longest to accomplish.

Wipes: I cut 9 x 9 squares and serged around. That is it! I used all left over fabric and stained soft t-shirts. So my total was $0!

Diapers: Took a bit longer as I did tons of research to find the best quality for the best price. Once I decided I would make them - I then had to choose a pattern! After reading cloth diaper blogs and talking w/cloth diaperers I went with Rita's Rump Pocket Pattern. I used material on hand for the outer part of the diaper. At first for the inside I used some old soft "burp cloths" and then I ran out. So I went to Jo-Anns and they actually have a material called Cloth Diaper! It's the same material that women used back in the day to cloth diaper their babies and it so rocks! I totally would have used it instead of the burp clothes for the others! So for 17 diapers my total cost came to $6 (rounded up).

My first batch

Some More - later on - so better :)

Inserts: You have to make or have inserts for Rita's Rump Pocket diapers. My stepmom bought a huge pack of washcloths and I just folded them to fit and sewn! I did end up cutting off the binding and serging it because I found it to be too bulky. I thought it would be uncomfortable.

Diaper Covers: I decided for now to buy diaper covers. For a few reasons - one being that I was feeling a bit overwhelmed w/all my sewing to do and I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed before the baby came. The last thing I wanted was to not have everything finished and convert back to disposables after all the effort I was putting in. I saved the bulk of the money through making the diapers, wipes, and inserts as that is what you need the most of. You only need a few diaper covers. So I went with Thirsties diaper covers. I found them to have the best reviews with the best price. I want to purchase a wool diaper cover but I'm having trouble with the price. I would like to have one for each size and use mainly for night time. They are suppose to be awesome.

Well I can't wait until I can post on how all these products work! Soon! Soon!

ToT School

Zack is 39 months old

I've been wanting for some time now to post on the things we're doing with Zack as well. I really enjoy this blog and she does a ToT School post link up every Sunday. I think this is a great way to post about Zack! Plus I'll get to see what others are doing with their tots.

Trays: You can see all of Zack's trays for this month here. Funnels is his favorite! He spends on average 30 minutes with this tray! When I seen him get some trucks for this tray I was about to say no but then he started using them. I realized he modified the tray and took it to the next level! It requires more skill on his part to use his trucks than just the funnel.

Paint an Apple: Big brother was learning about apples this week so I try to include him when I can. :)
Bowling with Daddy: ~ while Mommy was at an OB appointment
Rain Walk: We LOVE rain walks. There is so much to learn & explore after the rain!
Chalk: Daddy set up the easel for me (which is chalk on one side and dry erase on the other) in our "utility room" so art could be easier for me to accomplish closer to the due date. Zack loves the chalk!

Reading Big Brother Books: We've been checking out big brother books to help prepare him for baby brother coming. Daddy found an awesome one at the library last week called What Baby Needs. It has pictures of the baby nursing mommy, in a sling, bed side sleeping, and show what big brother can do with baby and how he can manage his feelings when upset with baby! Awesome!

Lesson 4 - Apple

I may have taken less pictures this week than last! As it gets closer to time for the baby to come I'm just happy school is going well! Here's some of what we did:

Number Chart: I can't remember what blog I seen this idea on but we started it this week now that he is on number 25. I'll have a better picture next time to see. It's cool though because he is learning how to count by 5s this way.

Books:

More Books: That made me wish we had much more than these past two weeks to go over leaves and trees and such.

• Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
• The Brook Book exploring the smallest streams by Jim Arnosky
• Tell Me, Tree by Gail Gibbons
• Be a Friend to Trees by Patricia Lauber
  

Rain Walk: I grew up "rain walking" and I had many friends who loved to be at my house when it rained because my mom would let us go out in the rain. I'm so glad to do this with my boys and together as a family, we LOVE it!! There is nothing like it!

Paint an Apple:

Bowling with Daddy: Chris actually got a free bowling pass from our library by completing 4 newspaper activities featured in the Sunday paper. So "the guys" went while I had an OB appointment.

Well that's all I got! Like I said I wish we could dig in more but the kindergarten curriculum is a basic overview. All in time. :)

Gifted Hands

I've wanted our oldest to watch this movie for sometime but it's always so expensive (usually between $18 - $20). I've never paid more than $10 for a movie and $5 is my average. So we don't own a lot of movies and that doesn't bother me a bit. Recently our Hollywood Video went out of business and guess what my husband got for $1?? Yes!! Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story!!

Sunday evening we put it in and WoW! Did he love it!! He asked so many questions that evening and then more came with breakfast the following morning. It opened up so much conversation. We talked about anger (something he struggled with), not controlling our anger, where depression comes from (something his mother struggled with), God's provision and protection even in the midst of our sin, the affects of TV, use of our imagination, God's will for our lives, and a few other things. What's the best is that it all stemmed from his own thoughts. We didn't force these conversations on him! Yesterday he wanted to listen to classical music pretty much all day! (Ben Carson listens to classical music while he operates)

Just such amazing conversation and influence this had on him. As I was poking around I found this children's version of his biography and was able to read a good bit of the sample and I think it will be great. I'm going to order it as soon as possible and it will be our next read aloud! I'm so excited about this. :)

Lesson 3 - Leaf

I didn't take as much pictures for this week as I have the previous weeks. Here are some of the highlights:

Books: We read these books and used them for identifying leaves. They were all very good.


Observation Journal:

• Backyard Leaves - We got a leaf from each tree and traced and colored it. Then identified it and read about that tree it grew on.
• Science Experiment - How does a leaf drink water? - see pics. below
• Nature Walk - pictures and leaf rubbings from nature walk w/daddy
  

Science Experiment: How does a leaf drink water?

Day 1

Day 6

Nature Walk: Daddy took them on a nature walk while I had a few OB appointments to attend. They each had a backpack w/snacks, journal, markers, and crayons. So Cute!!
Well that's all the fun stuff I can think of that we did w/last week's leaf lesson.

August Trays

Well our trays last month went great. The boys love them and I'm pretty sure it is their favorite part of "school". I think one month is perfect and taking time to extend what needs to be extending. I found that the trays they struggled with they were doing perfect by the end of the last week and had a few days to practice it doing it well.

Most are taken from the book Mommy, Teach Me! by Barbara Curtis. You can find the link to this book at the top right under "Our Curriculum".

Beading:

Clothespins:

In case you were wondering what they do with them ;)

Foundational Value: eye-hand coordination; development of concentration; gross motor coordination;

Lesson Craft: This changes three times a week and coordinates with the subject of the week.

File Folder: This changes weekly and they love their file folders. File Folder Fun!
Funnels:

Foundational Value: eye-hand coordination; development of concentration; gross and fine motor control; early work in capacity and measurement

Wringing Sponge:

Foundational Value: practical living skills; eye-hand coordination; development of concentration; strengthening of hand muscles

The boys were so excited this morning about their new trays. They spent about a hour and a half wanting to do the trays over and over. I've enjoyed watching the development in them that I know is linked to the trays and look forward to new developments this month.