Quiet Times with God

Jodi of Granola mom has asked for us to share our quiet times with God. I felt compelled to write even though my quiet times with God have been mostly happening as I fall asleep, praying over my children and husband, asking for forgiveness for all my failures throughout the day.  Or sometimes on my potty breaks, I will carry my Bible with me and stay on the toilet a few extra minutes, reading a Proverbs or Psalm.  My husband thinks that reading on the toilet is weird, but it's truly the only time I have some days.

True, there are many days though that I have time - time to blog, time to watch movies with my husband - completely mismanaged time.

I've tried getting up early, which is my favorite time to do my quiet time.  But every time I hit the bottom steps to our living room, I immediately hear my almost two year old climbing down from our bed to search for me.  There is no sneaking out of that bed!

Before kids, I would wake early - 4:45 to be exact, make a tea and read My Utmost for the Highest (Oswald Chambers) online.  I would copy the text and paste it into a word document and then journal underneath it as the devotion spoke to me that day.  I would pray for each and everyone of my students (I was a 3rd grade teacher at the time) and then I would go workout, shower and then go teach! I can't even fathom that kind of energy these days!

Quiet times with God are something I am striving to do again.  Even before Jodi's post I had started leaving my Bible at our couch, where I do devotions and Bible reading with the kids, and trying to read right before going to bed.  I bought The Power of a Praying Parent to help me get a focus for prayer for my children.  I try to read a prayer from that book every day.  I really need to write my prayers down; it's what makes me feel I really prayed (even though it isn't true), but I don't always have time to do so.  I guess writing is what keeps me from being distracted.  My mind wanders if I just pray silently.  If I can't journal, the next best thing for me is to read prayers that have already been written, that say what I want to say.

It's important to know though, that as important as quiet time with God is, it can be achieved anytime, anywhere.  A quick prayer while in line at the supermarket.  Another one while washing dishes or folding laundry.  Listening to some worship CDs in the car.  What I've had to adjust the most as a mom are my expectations of what quiet time with God should look like. Don't compare your quiet time with someone else's quiet time because God just meets you where ever you are.

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Writing Folder

Right before Bear finished her Montessori preschool for the summer, she was bringing home stories she had written during her work time.  When we would get home, she would go straight to her table and start writing more stories!  I remembered her teacher telling me that each child, once ready, got a writing folder in which to keep their stories and then got to take the folder home at the end of the year. For some reason, Bear never got a folder. However, I had just received a folder in the mail from Timberdoodle and thought it would make the perfect writing folder.  Bear helped me glue white paper on the front and back of the folder.  The paper wasn't quite big enough so we added a pink strip as a binding.  Then I gave her all the fancy scrapbooking stickers my mom keeps giving her that I was saving for a special project.  Bear was delighted to decorate her folder.  She decorated both sides, in fact.

I printed out story paper and slid them into the right side of the folder.  Her finished stories go on the left.

The story below was written at school.  After she showed it to me and I exclaimed over it in astonishment that she could write that much at once, I gave her a mini lesson on spacing.  I actually couldn't read most of that story because I couldn't make out where her words started and ended.  Unfortunately, she couldn't either so she couldn't totally retell her own story!

She got busy right away and wrote a second story with much better spacing.  She had also made a sight word booklet at school and we use the back of that now for a list of words she uses frequently.  I write the correct spelling for her and if she needs help spelling "the" or "icecream", she can find it there.

You can see her spacing is much better.  The story reads:
Mom took a wok all by her sulf. She met a vere bad wolf so she dsided to run.

The Writing Folder sits on the writing shelf for easy access and she has written every day during her quiet time this week.  I hope her love of writing continues all through school.

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2011-2012 Curriculum Decisions

After much prayer, and Bear's permission, we've decided to pull Bear from her Montessori preschool and enroll her in Classical Conversations in the Fall.  It meets one morning a week.  (She'll do one more month of Montessori preschool in August so she can celebrate her birthday in the Montessori way and then we will move on.)  As much as we love the school, the long drive, the tuition, and my intense desire to homeschool have made us reevaluate where we think Bear needs to be.  I spent most of last week at a CC parent practicum to learn more about it (hence my lack of posting last week) and finally we decided that not only would we enroll Bear, but I would become a tutor for a new CC "school" starting near us.

We will continue to do Montessori at home, but will be following a bit more of the Classical Conversations subjects and ideas.  Since Bear is advanced for her age, I did order a couple first grade resources; they are in bold.

Language Arts:

• All About Spelling Level 1 

• Writing Folders (I'll post about this at some point)
• Reading anything that appears to be her reading level (using All About Spelling to help with phonics rules) but using the Houghton Mifflin lists as a guide.

Math:

• Singapore Primary Math Level 1A  

• Montessori math

I love Montessori math and we will continue with that but I needed something to help me know where Bear was (grade-wise) and also to ensure I wasn't skipping over anything by mistake.  Bear doesn't need much repetition and though most of the moms I met at the CC practicum use Saxon math, I just knew it wouldn't be a good fit.

History:

• CC goes through yearly memorization of the Saxon History flashcards (all five sets) as well as cycles through three time periods of historical facts over three years.  This year is Cycle 3 which has a History Focus of the United States.  We will try to do activities (gleaned from the internet) in conjunction with the memory fact of the week.  I like the way Singapore Math presents number stories and shows another depiction of addition and subtraction.  

Geography:

• The United States - memorizing the States and capitals.  I will be using Carisa's USA geography powerpoint (from her Member's Only site) and many ideas from Adventures in Mommyness and Montessori Tidbits in addition to the map activities we will do at CC.
• Karen Tyler's Geography album

Science:

• Human Body - I will use Karen Tyler's album a bit for this, along with other resources, but I haven't quite looked at how I will do this. 

 Foreign Language:

• It's my goal to have Bear and J-jo speaking more in their two other languages (French and Spanish) by this time next year.  Although they understand all that is asked of them in those languages, they mostly respond in English. We are going to spend about an hour a day role playing in French - doctor, store, restaurant, library... - to learn useful phrases as we play.  We will also play board games in that hour and make sure we speak French as we play.  Any books read in that hour will also have to be in French.  I am hoping my husband will do that hour of intense play with them on weekends so they can have the same experience in Spanish.  I will initially be giving Bear rewards for her efforts (checks on a chart that can be traded in for a prize when the chart is full - that usually works well enough for her) to spark her interest a bit as currently she has no desire to even try. 
• Classical Conversations has Latin memory work.  This year it involves learning John 1:1-7 in Latin.  I'm not sure how well this will go, but apparently kids her age like it because the words feel and sound funny to them.

Bible:

• We started with Creation last week and are going through each major Bible story, memorizing a verse that fits the story and engaging in some Godly Play activities. 

 

As you can probably tell, we are schooling through the summer, but keeping the emphasis on spelling, reading, Bible, math, and French during the hottest hours of the day.  Although, the French playing could be done outside as well.

I'll post what all of this will look like on a weekly basis because it looks like an overwhelming amount when you look at it in this long list, but I did calculate that it wouldn't be more than 3 hours of "school" per day, which is less than she would get at the Montessori preschool.  (I didn't calculate the French playing in there, since that would technically be playing.)


Have you posted about your curriculum decisions for 2011-2012? If so, please feel free to post the link in the comments. Or just tell me your favorite curriculum decision.  I love to see what everyone else uses.  It's so helpful in making decisions.

Edited to add June 24,2011 - Educating layton is hosting a link up about what curriculum everyone is using for the 2011- 2012 year.  I'm adding this post there.

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Help Your Preschooler Build a Better Brain by John Bowman - Review and Giveaway

I am loving Help Your Preschooler Build a Better Brain: Early Learning Activities for 2-6 Year Old Children  by John Bowman.  It is full of Montessori activities that can easily be done in the home, and although we can find a lot of these activities online or in our Montessori albums, not every parent has the time to browse through numerous blogs or the money to afford the albums.  This book, though, brings it all concisely to you.  It is well-organized so the activities are easy to find and there are black and white photos to break up the text.  It is the perfect book for any parent who wants to provide educational enrichment in the home.  Even a parent who has children in daycare or preschool could find the time to do these activities at home.  It's the book I needed when Bear was 18 months and I started my blogging journey in desperation to find out what I should be doing with a toddler!

I am especially excited by the Math Activities with Money and the Math in Everyday Life section (there's a section on telling time and some really useful suggestions about watching a clock with a second hand with your child to observe the difference between the length of a second, a minute, and an hour) and can't wait to try out those ideas with Bear over the next few weeks.  John also has some very simple (as in easy to demonstrate), yet great, Science ideas that I am looking forward to trying out. Actually, pretty much every other page has a sticky note in it!  It's that good.

The photographs of the activities are useful for visual people like myself.  I only wish they were in color like in his PDF book, Montessori at Home.  I like that he has a photographic list of the essential Montessori materials needed so you can see exactly what the material is.  John must have been thinking of those not familiar with Montessori when he chose to make that list that way.   Many, if not most, of the activities in the book, however, do not require special materials and can be accomplished quite inexpensively.

Would you like a copy?

John Bowman has generously agreed to give away one CD of the Montessori at Home book and one copy of Help Your Preschooler Build a Better Brain to one lucky winner! Just leave a comment with your email.

For additional entries (leave a separate comment for each):

• "Like" The Adventures of Bear on Facebook.
• Follow The Adventures of Bear through Networked Blogs (see right side bar).

Giveaway closes Monday, June 6, 2011 and is open to US mailing addresses only.  Goodluck!

This giveaway is now closed.  
Congratulations to What My Child is Learning.

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Another great resource for Creation

This lesson shows how to draw out Creation on one page as you tell the story.  You separate the page into three sections and draw out Days 1,2, and 3, then go back to the top of the page to add in the elements God created in Days 4, 5, and 6 (in a different color).  It is very effective and helped both Bear and I actually remember the order of Creation.  The link actually shows the procession of the drawings and how simple the whole lesson really is. 

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Godly Play - Creation

Here are some good resources for using Godly Play to present the story of Creation from the Bible.  Godly Play is a Montessori approach that lets children experience the stories and parables from the Bible through beautiful (and expensive) wooden sets.

• Working at Play has pictures of the Creation story cards.
• This YouTube video shows the presentation.  The link is for the first part; there are three or four videos to see the whole presentation.
• I found the script through a Google search, but it originates from here.

I finally bought the book Young Children and Worship and am hoping to incorporate it into our Bible time.  I hope to use two shelves in our living room for Godly Play where I can rotate in and out the different play sets for the Bible stories.  Considering how Bear likes to act out stories, this should be a hit.

Here are the story cards I made.  I just used construction paper and will laminate them once my new laminating pouches arrive. Day 7 is just a plain white card.

How many of you use Godly Play at home?

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Two bright and colorful, rhyming and rollicking books

Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae is a fun rhyming adventure through the jungle to learn about the different animals that live there.  Chimpanzee, lion, elephant, zebra, snake, giraffe, and so many more animals are all featured in this brightly illustrated book..  I love that the poems actually do teach you something about each animals; they aren't just silly poems (like Shel Silverstein poems), although, they are humorous educational ones.  

From Bear: I like the illustrations because the thick paint leaves paintbrush strokes (mostly in the grass).  The gorilla poem is so funny and I like the part where the gorilla wallops his chest. (wallop was a word in the poem).

The great thing is that Totally Tots featured this book as one of their "Once Upon a Book" books and the post has songs and activities to tie in with it.  I will surely be trying to find time to fit them into our week for J-jo and maybe trying to come up with companion activities for the next book on my list too.  Rumble in the Jungle would be a wonderful book as a tie in for a jungle theme study.

Commotion in the Ocean, also by Giles Andreae, is a similar lively, rollicky rhyming adventure, but through the ocean, with many sea creatures, including the deepest dwellers.  This would be a wonderful book to include in an ocean study.


Tiger Tales sent us these titles as bigger-than-average board books.  I love that I don't have to worry about such beautiful books in J-jo's sometimes grubby and clumsy toddler hands.

Linked to What My Child is Reading.


Disclaimer: I received these books from Tiger Tales in exchange for the review, but the opinion in this post is my own true appreciation of the books..

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15 Fascinating Facts About the History of Homeschooling

This article is quite interesting for homeschoolers or those just fascinated by homeschoolers.  Did you education in the United States was mostly homebound until the 1830's?  Did you also know that between 1990 and 1995, the number of homeschoolers practically doubled? The most interesting thing I learned was that there is actually a college specifically geared for homeschoolers (Purcellville, Virginia-based Patrick Henry College). 

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A Sampling of this week's Montessori Preschool

 Sensorial:

 Knobless cylinder extension.  

Practical Life:

 Sweeping beans into the square and then sweeping them into the dustpan.  She doesn't actually need the square, but since I have it there for J-jo, she is using it.

 Grating cheese for pizza.  This mini cheese grater is from Montessori Services.

Writing:

 Montessori Tidbits reminded me about this fun "art" penmanship exercise that is in our Karen Tyler albums.  Since Bear is reversing her s and f a lot, I thought this would be a fun way for her to get some repetition.  She really enjoyed this.  Basically, you take a letter template (I just drew ours.  There are many free online - but why use ink when you don't need to?) and the child traces the outline over and over each time with a different color until the template is filled.

Language:

 We are going through the series of Grammar lessons.  I love Montessori for introduction to grammar as it is very concrete and hands on.  Here Bear is working with the Grammar Farm (see Counting Coconuts great post listing many resources for the Grammar Farm) and labeling the nouns on the farm.  

She also worked on sorting nouns into Person, Place or Thing, Singular and Plural, and Proper and Common.  (These are grammar materials I printed out from Montessori for Learning a long while back.)

linked to The Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations

and to Montessori Mondays at One Hook Wonder.

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Adaptations and Extensions in Our Montessori Classroom

Often Bear(3.5) sees J-jo(1.5) doing practical life work and wants to do the same.  However, J-jo's practical life work poses no challenge to Bear.  While there is benefit to doing the easier work - such as rest from more challenging academic work - I do want to present Bear with a bit of a challenge.  Consequently, I often provide an extra tool to add that challenge for Bear.

For instance, in this "place the marble on the suction cup" exercise that I set up for J-jo,

I added a tiny spoon (from sampling ice cream at Baskin Robins) for Bear.  You have to tilt the spoon just so to get the marble onto the suction cup.

In this "spoon the marble from the bowl to the tray" exercise, I added training chopsticks for Bear to use to grab the marble.

And in this "push the golf tees into play dough" exercise, I provided a hammer for Bear to hit the tees with.

How do you deal with working with and teaching two children of different abilities in your home?

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Be Kind Be Sweet, be nice to everyone you meet - A giveaway for you

We're always working on manners at our house.  We're blessed with very good, nice kids, but they still sometimes forget to say please and thank you.  I was happy to be able to review this delightful hardcover book by Tricia Lowenfield and Mary Moore Lowenfield that incorporates counting with learning manners.  I just love the lilt of title, Be Kind Be Sweet, be nice to everyone you meet.  On each page there are kind words to count and a rhyme about a particular manner.  A thought about the manner and a Bible verse to accompany the manner follow the rhyme.  Bear immediately was attracted to the book and though I was too busy to read it to her, she buried herself in it and deciphered the beautiful, fancy script to read it on her own.  The charming illustrations are colorful and appealed to Bear, who, after reading it through once, kept herself busy a long time counting the kind words on each page.

We were also sent S is for Shepherd, a book which teaches children the ABC's through scripture, just as many Presidents did through the New England Primer.  The illustrations are once again sweet, simple, and colorful.  The text is in cursive though, which made it harder for Bear to read. Bear loves all things related to the Bible and loved this book.  What we really especially liked was that it came with a CD of 13 upbeat songs to reinforce the lessons in the book. 

Tracy has generously sent me an extra copy of each book to give away. 

To enter just leave a comment as to how you would use these books at home. 

Please include your email so I can contact you if you win.

Open only to US mailing addresses.

Winner will be picked Friday, May 20.

Disclosure: I was sent these books free to review, but the opinions expressed are my own.  I do have to pay shipping to the winner (just so you know).

linked to WMCR at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

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Montessori Toddler Activities - Loads of Practical Life Work

Practical Life

Setting the table.  He does this every morning, as soon as Bear opens the pantry door for him.

You can see where we store all the art supplies in the pantry in the background :) These are the "extra" supplies.  I have trays set out in the school/play room for their every day type of art.

 Serving himself a snack.  He gets all the stuff he needs (bowl, placemat etc) from their "homes" and counts two handfuls.

 Trying to sweep.  He largely ignored the square he was supposed to sweep into.

 Placing marbles on the bath math.  (Those are from Target.)

 Placing the correct lid on each jar.

 Rolling out pizza dough.

 Spreading sauce and cheese.

 Squeezing water from one side to another.

Art

 Painting.

Language

 Reading the Sound Box Books.  We now go fetch as many of the items they talk about in the books and act out the book.  He did a bit of flower arranging with the violets in the pinch pot. 

 Practicing the "pencil finger" in the salt box.

Culture

After I sang the continent song to him with the continent map, I witnessed this later in the afternoon.  He had placed some of the puzzle pieces and the animals correctly!!!  I had left it on the table and he'd sat down to start using it. 

Linked to Montessori Monday and 1+1+1=1

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Self-Serve Water for Toddlers

J-jo is 21 months. He is finally able to serve his own drink at our water station. It is very hard for him to keep the cup under the spigot still while pushing down the tab, but his perseverance and effort are amazing to witness.

 

In the photo below, my hand is holding the glass steady so he can manage better.

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How to make your own continent map

When Bear was 20 months, we lived abroad and I couldn't purchase real Montessori materials. Consequently, I made her a continent puzzle by printing the world map from here. I printed on cardstock and then cut what should have been the control apart for the puzzle pieces. I put pieces of magnetic strip on the back of the control map and of the puzzle pieces and put the whole thing on the fridge.

Now for J-jo, I have set it up on a cookie sheet, along with a little basket featuring one animal from each continent.

J-jo spent some nice cuddling, snuggling time on my lap this morning as I sang this continent song and moved the pieces to the right section of the map for him. He especially loved when I put the animals onto the correct continents.

Soon, he will be able to do this work himself. I'm leaving it on his shelf to do with me for now.

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A Noun Game

What do you see in this photo?  

Whatever you answered,

I am certain you didn't guess "a grammar lesson".

But that is exactly what is taking place.  

We are playing a noun game.

I merely told her nouns named things.  

Me: "Nouns are labels.  Let's label everything around us with their noun labels.  I'll go first. 'tree'."

Bear: "Root."

Me: "J-jo, can you name something?"

J-jo: "Mo-mo mo (more)." I think he just wanted me to push him more on the swing at this point.
Me: "Mmm, more isn't a noun. It doesn't name something. Name something."

J-jo: "Sing (swing)."

Me: "Good one.  Bush. Your turn Bear."

Bear: "Grass."

Well, you get the idea.  J-jo can't really name much yet.  Most of his words are sound effects.  He'll be a great cartoonist one day if this is how his vocabulary continues!  But he even seemed to get that he was supposed to say object words.

Learning can happen everywhere and anytime.  This is why when people ask if we homeschool through the summer, I always say yes.  We play outside a lot and hopefully we will be parked at the poolside most of the summer, but during those little moments, I'll squeeze in a lot of teaching.  I like to call it power-teaching. 

How do you sneak teaching into the day?

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Artists and Art - Impasto Painting

Impasto painting is the technique of laying paint onto the canvas so thickly that you can see the brush strokes.  It is a technique that leaves a lot of texture.  Impasto is actually an Italian word meaning paste.  Usually impasto is done with oil or acrylic paints.  Watercolors and tempera are too thin to impasto with, unless you add a thickening medium.  You can buy mediums at an art store, but you can also create the same effect with glue and toilet paper.  

Here's how.

• First, tear up your toilet paper into small pieces and drop into your foil lined bowl (or just a plain old bowl reserved only for painting and other crafts).

• Second add a lot of white glue until you get a pasty mixture.  

•  Next, slop the mixture onto your canvas. We used watercolor paper and it worked fine.  I don't recommend regular paper however.

•  Let dry at least overnight.  We had to wait two days.

• Paint over the dry paste with tempera paint. 

•  Admire the textured effect.

Some impasto artists include Vincent van Gogh

image from Darthblender.com

and also Rembrandt.

image from wikipedia

The idea for this project came from here, but they recommended this lesson for grades 4 and up.  I did this with an almost 2 year old and almost 4 year old.  Just remind yourself it is the process, not the product that counts! 

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