Winning...

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I've now officially started my ribbon collection - here's the poster I did for Earth Day, with an interesting addition in the bottom right corner.

In case you can't tell, that is a BIG sun, and the earth and another little tiny earth in front of the sun.  And a blue snake on the side.  Because I wanted to draw a snake.  And some extra yellow paint. Because I felt like painting yellow.  But not the on the sun, of course.

Speaking of winning, and posters, congrats to lilyk on winning the 16 x 20 Rolled Canvas print from LargeFormatPosters.com!

Wordless Wednesday: Spring

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For more Wordless Wednesdays, visit

• 5 Minutes for Mom
• Crazyland
• Experimental Mommy
  
• Extraordinary Mothers
• From Val's Kitchen
  
• Go Graham Go!
• Here and There
• Look What Mom Found
• Momdot
• Mom Knows It All
  
• What's That Smell?
• WillTaft.com
  
• Wordless Wednesday
• 7 Clown Circus - Wordful Wednesday

Tiny Talk Tuesday

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Esmé (3yo) is correcting our grammar. She was eating food in a bowl. Or rather, NOT eating it.

Pappa: It's good to finish the food on your plate.

Esmé: It's not a plate, it's a BOWL.

Pappa: OK, it’s good to finish the food on your bowl.

Esmé: It's not on your bowl, it’s IN your bowl.

How are we gonna make it through the teen years?

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She corrects us on lots of other things, too. Like television network names.

Pappa was talking about a clip he watched on NBC of a 2yo who knows all the countries and their capitals. (Boy, are we behind...)

Esmé (interrupting): Let me tell you something! Let me tell you something! (All is quiet.) It's NOT NBC. It's ABC. Do you want to sing the ABCDEFG song?

Pappa explains how there television networks use initials for identification. There are ABC, and NBC, and CNN, and CBC, and FOX networks.

Esmé: NO! It's NOT FOX network. It's Swiper the Fox. He's the bad fox that swipes things. NOT FOX network!

Which network is Dora on, by the way?

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And I was reading a book to her, starting with the title and author.

Mommy: ...by [Author's Name].

Esmé: No! It's not by [Author's Name]. It's BUY DOT COM!

Uh. Huh.

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Esmé (to Mommy, stick in hand): I'm going to give you a spanking!

Mommy (gotta nip this in the bud): No! You must never spank adults. In fact, you must not spank anyone!

Esmé: Not even a little one?

Mommy: Not even a little one.

Esmé (after thinking a bit, in all seriousness): Is it OK for you to spank me? Is it OK for you to spank me?

Uh?  What's the right answer? In 3yo terms?

Real World Parents

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Esmé's Mom here...

You may have sensed an underlying current in posts of late - a sense of frustration in the area of discipline - a sense of needing to do more in teaching Christian values and beliefs to my daughter - a sense of wanting to stamp out the narcissistic self-centered tendencies she we all have and instill a spirit of servanthood.

I am feeling convicted to do more, though I'm still grappling with what "more" consists of.  I'm planning to resurrect Mission Sunday in May, but that's just a start.

One great book I recently had a chance to review is Real World Parents:  Christian Parenting for Families Living in the Real World by Mark Matlock.  (We're giving it away over at Winning Readings, by the way.)  

I love some of the interview questions author Mark Matlock answers, and wanted to share them here:

Why don't you devote more time in the book discussing kids' behavior?  Shouldn't parents teach their children to behave?

That's a good question.  When my kids came along, though, and I started making my way through all the different kinds of Christian parenting books, I noticed that a lot of them focused on helping me figure out how to raise well-behaved, well-mannered kids.  And while that's an important element, not much focused on raising kids to have hearts that seek after Christ.  Of course we can't force that kind of spiritual openness and connectedness with God onto our kids, but we can learn to create in our Real World homes environments that promote such growth...

What we don't want to generate are well-behaved kids who mindlessly follow our directions without ever willfully owning the faith in Jesus they see in us.  The goal of parenting, in the long run, isn't for our kids to be known for how well behaved they are, but for how well they know and respond to God.

Since changing our children's behavior is not the point of parenting, what should parents be focusing on?

In a way, our children's behavior is kind of like the tip of an iceberg.  From countless illustrations we all know that the part of the iceberg that sits above the waterline is just a fraction of the object's total size.  As such, you could conceivably make all kinds of alterations to the exposed part of the iceberg - i.e. the outward stuff (behaviors) - without significantly altering the iceberg itself.

What we've got to get at in our own lives and in the lives of our kids is the 80 or so percent of the berg that's under the waterline.  In our illustration, that represents one's worldview.  We believe that our behaviors are ultimately driven by our understanding of the way the world works, of what we believe to be true and false about the universe, of our perception of reality.

Why don't more parents communicate God's worldview to their children?  What would you say to those parents who aren't sure to begin?

Too often we believe it is the church's job to tell our kids God's story, to make sure they know God, Scripture, and their responsibility to follow both.  But research shows that the teenagers who really take ownership of their parents' understanding of the story of God are the ones who have heard and seen it at home.  As researcher Christian Smith puts it, a parent is "the most important pastor a teenager will ever have."

But don't worry!  This is not about holding family devotionals or any other prescribed "spiritual activity."  Every four or five months my own dad would hear some program on Christian radio about family devotions, and he would come home determined to make the idea work for our family, but it never worked because in our house, that felt forced and unnatural.  And yet, all four of my father's sons grew into men with a real passion and appreciation for God's Word.

Why?  Ultimately we were convinced of the world view contained in the pages of Scripture because we saw our parents openly endorsing it, talking about it, learning from it, and living it out day after day, year after year.  That was enough for us - despite the failed attempts at family devotions.

I don't know of any other way to communicate God's story than living in it ourselves day after day - to make talking about God and God's Word as natural a part of our family life as talking about school or sports and what's for dinner.  If our kids don't hear and observe that God's revelation through His Word is important to us, why would we expect it to be important to them?

See www.realworldparents.com for more info.

M4 - April Week 3

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This was Earth Day week, so we got to go to an Earth Day fair, plus children's day at the Wildlife Safari. Way fun - and lots of science!

Motion

Bridge

We've been studying The Three Billy Goats Gruff, so we decided to experiment with bridges.  We read Cross a Bridge by Ryan Ann Hunter, about different building materials.

First we created the platforms from two stacks of blocks, and then we put the bridge sheet on.  We tested the bridge with my tiny, tiny billy goats tripping and trapping to see if it would hold up...

We tried these materials:  plastic wrap, aluminum foil, paper, styrofoam, cardboard, plastic lid, and craft foam.  The  plastic wrap and the foil and the paper really did not work!  The styrofoam was light and worked the best.

Matter

Decay and Compost

We talked about recycling - what it means and what kinds of stuff you can recycle, and what you can use as compost.  I flipped through some Earth Day cards as Mom told me what they were all about.  (Mom's note - I printed these half-size, so they were cute, itty-bitty cards!)

We watched some videos on decay (http://pbskids.org/sid/videoplayer.html, look for Decay Investigation and Decay Song).  Then we went outside to the orchard to see if we could find some decayed apples from last fall.  Here's one!  (Mom's note:  we didn't have time within the week to see the whole decay process, but we will follow through with one...)

We are going to start a compost pile for our garden!  Here is a cool composting website Mom is using.

Mitosis

Plant a Tree

Well, first of all, I adopted a baby tree!  I heard it crying, so I sat real close to it and even gave it hugs!

Then we got a seedling from the Earth Day fair, and I helped dig a hole for it, and put it in the ground, and cover up the roots with dirt,

and water it with my green bucket.  Cuz that's what you got to do for baby trees to help them grow.

And Me

Balance

Did you know your eyes help you balance?  I practiced balancing on one foot this week, kind of like the flamingos we saw at Wildlife Safari.  I did really good with my eyes open...

...but it was LOTS harder with my eyes closed!  (Try it with a stopwatch if you don't believe me.)

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To celebrate Earth Day, we sang some cool songs:  What a Wonderful World (sadly, the Louis Armstrong live version got removed from YouTube for copyright reasons in the past couple of days...) and All Things Bright and Beautiful.  And we watched that Planet Earth episode we downloaded, too.  That was way cool - lots of cute baby animals and an amazing bird dance!

Oh - that Earth Day fair and Wildlife Safari excursion?  The camera battery died on us shortly after we got there.  Here are a few photos, and you may see more if we can figure out how to get photos off the cell phone.

Here I am making fish runs with big equipment - did you know that technology and big machines make good partners in protecting wildlife?

And I got to touch a real live owl!

I also made a birdhouse, with a little help...  Now we just need to make sure it doesn't fall apart and then hang it up somewhere!

We're playing along with this fun blog hop... - check it out if you're interested in more kids' activities...

Review: The Bubble

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Title: The Bubble
Author: Brian D. McClure
Illustrator:  Buddy Plumlee
Genre: Children's book for ages 1-100 (reading level 9-12 years)
Publisher: Universal Flag Publishing
Physical Description: 64-page illustrated hardcover
List Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1933426051

Synopsis:

Once there was a little boy,
who didn't want anyone to play with any of his toys...

As the little boy grows into a man, he only cares about his many material possessions. He meticulously cares for his things and keeps them only for himself. Because of his selfishness, one by one, the things he cares about most begin to leave his life. Soon he finds himself all alone, trapped inside a bubble.

The Bubble is a delightful story that will help both children and adults remember what truly matters in life.

Three-year-old Esmé's Review  (Mom's questions in bold):

• What is this book about?  It's about a bubble!
• Is it your book?  Yeah, we buyed it.  No, we got a review copy through The Cadence Group. Really, we did! We really buyed that book! 
• Do you like the book?  Yeah, I do!
• What is that letter? (pointing to Mom's notes)  It's a "D."  Is my handwriting bad?  Do you want to write?  Uh uh, it is not writing bad.  OK, you ready to read the book yet?  Yeah!
• What's wrong with the boy?  He wants to be alone.  Now he's not a little boy any more.  He's a man!  He owns lots of things.
• Do you own lots of things?  Yes.  Unicorns and ponies.  Do you let other kids play with them?  Yes.  My friends love unicorns and ponies.  And even me!
• Look how high the man's fence is!  Is 12 feet more than four?  Yeah.  As high as Daddy!  Almost twice as high as Daddy.  Yeah!
• Read it again! 
  

What Mommy Liked:  The story has a great lesson to it - all about sharing rather than hoarding what you have.  It uses the concept of a bubble, and what kid doesn't love bubbles?!  Even though it seemed a little old for Esmé at times, she enjoyed the colorful pictures, the analogies, and the storyline.  And I loved all the vocabulary lesson opportunities: words like meticulous, possessions, trespassing, mantra, exotic.

What Mommy Didn't Like:  There is one typo and a few punctuation issues that threw me off a little, but for the most part I loved the book.  Until the last page.  There is this one little sentence that I skipped over and didn't read:  "You are One with everything there is!"  As a Christian, I think some of my beliefs differ from the author's significantly - his message of interconnection, interjected on that last page, goes beyond the principles of sharing and caring I want to pass on to my daughter.

Thanks to The Cadence Group for organizing the review copy of this book.

Tot School: Fish

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This post is about One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Seuss. This is one of the books Mommy brought with us on the long trip from Mozambique to the US via South Africa and Scotland - I didn't have to wait 9 months for it to come by shipment - so I know it real well!  She picked it because it's got SO MUCH stuff in it!  And that means there was tons to do!

Other books we read - these are all old favorites I love...:

• Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss
• The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
• Go, Dog, Go! by P. D. Eastman
• Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood
• The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
• Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni

Of course, we needed some colored Goldfish crackers for the week.  As soon as Mommy put them out, I decided to sort them by color and put them in their own separate little pipe cleaner ponds.



Then I illustrated my very own One Fish, Two Fish book... (printable from our Itty-Bitty Bookworm curriculum)

We did a pollution demonstration.  Mommy cut out two blue fishes from sponge, and we made two ponds.


The first pond had clean, fresh water.  We put all kinds of gunk and oil and food in the other pond.  It looked yucky!  Mommy asked which pond I would want to live in if I was a fish, and I said I didn't want to live in a pond - I wanted to live in a great big sea!


I went fishing in a blue towel of a pond!  We used a magnet on the fishing pole and paperclips on a bunch of paper fish with 2-letter words.  So I had to read each fish I caught - with Mom's help.  (If you'd rather do letters, here's a place to print alphafish out, but I know all my letters already.)


We painted lima bean fish - blue on one side and red on the other.  To make it quicker, we used Do a Dot markers.


After we waited a LONG time for them to dry, I got to shake them in a cup and pour them out on a plate.  I was supposed to sort them by color and count the blues and reds.  Since 15 was our number of the week, there were 15 beans.  After I counted one color, Pappa would guess how many of the other there was - and he was always right!



We colored some fish with crayons, and then painted over the coloring with blue liquid watercolors.  The wax stood out nicely as long as you didn't drown it with watercolor.



Another round of the classic tissue-paper/paper-plate fish.  I wasn't feeling well that day so never fully got into it with my pink fish.  Mom made a cool rainbow fish that I totally claimed, though!


We used Do-a-dot markers on fish...(Ocean themed magnet pages here)


Here's a rainbow fish (fish pattern here) that Mom started and I totally took over.


We did lots of fish worksheets.  Here's one about same or different - I didn't say I did it all right!  I do everything my OWN way.


Another worksheet matching shapes.  There appears to be an error on this sheet - we never found the oval fish to go in the oval tank.


And I put a fish puzzle together.


Also a counting/coloring page and a counting/gluing page (not pictured).

Mom printed some fish on cardstock and glued felt strips on the back so I could use them on my felt board.  We sang 5 Little Fish Teasing Mr. Shark over and over while I acted it out with the felts.



Sometimes when we journal, Mom asks me a question and writes down my answers in the journal.  This week's prompt was "If I was a fish..."

• I would swim in the ocean.
• I would be caught by a shark, a GREEN one.
• I would hide from the green shark.
• I would eat little, little, little, tiny fish.
• I would play with seahorses and crabs.
• I would swim slow because someone bit my fin.

Now, the Dr. Seuss book has lots more than fish in it, so we did other nonfishy stuff, too.  We worked on some lists.  I told Mom I liked to go SLOW!  Then I named some things that move fast and some things that move slow...


Mom named some activities, like eating breakfast, or taking a bath.  I had to turn my day/night card whichever way was right - like eating breakfast means the sun is showing!


I also did a drawing of day and night.  That's a pink egg in a pink next, by the way.  And the night is moon and stars covered with black.


I matched some rhyming fish - like bat & cat, or bee and key.



We played another rhyming game - Mom drew some things on my easel, and then she said some words.  I had to find a rhyming picture for each word and cross it off with a black marker.  The first couple were hard, and then I got the hang of it and did perfectly.  Though she had tricky stuff on there, like car and star both rhyme with far and tar.



We also did opposites.  Mom would say a word, and I'd have to show her the opposite.  Here I am showing her the opposite of little!


I painted funny Thing 1 and Thing 2 by making one painting and then folding the paper in half to mirror the paint on both sides.  But I decided to cut them into pieces with my handy dandy scissors before we got to elaborate on them with google eyes and yarn hair and all that stuff.


I plucked diamonds from the night sky!  (Rock salt on black felt.  Mom's note:  I've seen tweezer activities that I wanted to try, but never found that perfect child's pair of tweezers.  So I decided just to grab the tweezers from the medicine cabinet for this one, and she did great with them - under supervision!)


S was our letter of the week, so here's my S collage.  Bet you'd never guess which things I colored and which one Mom colored!  I'm very careful with my coloring - sometimes...


Of course, a fish study is never complete without an ACTIVE game of kitchen tennis with my very own tennis racket.  Daddy makes sure I've got all the good stuff.



I helped make fresh orange juice!  Mom finally decided to get the citrus juicer add-on for our Bosch out - it was packed away for our trip back to Africa...  I don't like orange juice plain so much, but put the fresh stuff (plus juice from one lemon) in the blender with some sweet frozen Bing cherries, and that's something I can down - plus it gives me a pink mustache!



It's definitely spring here, and my nose has been telling me all about it.  Even with allergy medicine, it's been doing lots of running.  But I do love the white lilacs by our front door!  They have tiny tiny baby flowers and smell lovely!