Posted in Encouragement and Inspiration
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One of the things I love about homeschooling is that it can be out of the box. I don't mean pulling all my curriculum out of a box and giving it to my kids, either. Today, my two older kids went on a field trip to visit the office of a local missions organization that works with the poor in 3rd world countries. One thing this organization does is it puts together gift packs for children that include hygiene packs of toothbrush, toothpaste, washcloth, and soap, as well as a few school supplies and usually a small toy, like the kind that comes with a kids' meal. Dancing Queen and Roboboy were involved with sorting toys to make sure they were not missing any parts or broken, and packing them into gift packs. It was a simple job that a kid could do, and it saved the adults in the missions organization a lot of time by not having to do it themselves. After they got home, we had a talk about how blessed and fortunate we are, and how the small toys in these packs may be the first and only toy many of these children have ever received. The kids were really touched by the experience, and enjoyed it too. They told me they'd like to go and volunteer regularly to help out. What more could I ask for? A day where the kids are thinking of others, doing something for someone other than themselves, and enjoying and finding satisfaction in it! A day where they're learning about missions, serving God and blessing others less fortunate than themselves. Meanwhile, I got to have some special one on one time with Bubbles after she got home from kindergarten, and she thoroughly enjoyed the extra attention. This is one of the many reasons I homeschool! |
Posted in Arts and Crafts
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A while back I remember reading a website that suggested using the 25th of each month as a day to set aside to prepare for Christmas. This can mean whatever people want it to. For the crafty, it may mean working at making homemade gifts, ornaments and decorations. I sort of put the idea on a back shelf in my mind, but mentioned it recently to my kids, who (of course!) loved the idea. For one thing, it means a day off from the books (always a good idea to them), and for another, I give a homemade gift to every single person on our church staff, as well as elders and close friends. With a staff team that's pushing 40 people, this is a huge undertaking. And for another thing, the kids have been making homemade gift tags, bags, and small gift items to sell to raise money for their own Christmas shopping, and for missions. We've done this for the past 2 or 3 years. But we've always put the books aside in December and worked madly on these projects every day through the month in a mad race to make the deadline. So, tomorrow we're having our first Christmas preparation day. We'll be making homemade and decorated gift tags and gift bags as these are our top seller, and we can never seem to make enough of them. Maybe I'll put on some Christmas music, blast the air-con, and make some hot chocolate to get us into the Christmas spirit, but my biggest goal is to make this December just as memorable, but a little less hectic. How do you deal with organizing for the holidays? |
Posted in Homeschooling
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As I have mentioned in other posts, my son is dyslexic. Thank God, He has been helping us step by step along the way, and my dear almost-10-year-old is reading pretty well on his own, and his reading comprehension is great! But, in general this sweet boy of mine doesn't enjoy reading or writing. I've tried all sorts of reading materials from comics to joke books, to chapter books, science fiction, non-fiction...you name it, and I believe I've tried it. I realize that he needs exposure and practice, so I've had to be creative and think outside the box to "sneak" reading and writing into his daily activities. Now, there are times when Roboboy does spontaneously read. I have not been able to find a pattern in this. Sometimes his sister points out interesting "news" pieces from Yahoo news, and he'll read those. Sometimes he'll read something we're reading over our shoulders. Sometimes he'll pick up a book and read. Sometimes he'll read every sign he sees. And sometimes he spontaneously writes too. But I know that he needs consistent practice at both these things. So, we have a daily quiet reading time. Sometimes he reads the next chapter in a chapter book he's currently reading. Sometimes he obediently sets the timer for 30 minutes and reads a comic, or a joke book, a magazine, whatever he happens to be interested in reading at the time. We also do reading aloud, and he enjoys listening to great literature, and gets very engrossed in the stories. He has done very well in his listening comprehension, even when I have thought the language a little difficult or complex for his age level, he has coped better than I ever expected. Writing has been our biggest challenge. He struggles with his handwriting, and putting thoughts to paper seems to be almost impossible. They lack rhyme or reason by the time he tortuously transfers his thoughts from his head to the printed word. How to get this boy to simply practice more? The answer came from an extremely unexpected source: blogging. My dear son saw me blogging, and his older sister blogging, and begged me to set up a blog of his own. I must confess, I really had my doubts. Eventually I gave in. He wrote several entries, and sort of tapered off. But my dear hubby and I have been talking about how to help this boy along in his writing skills, and so, I have been having him journal short entries almost daily for the past two weeks. It's been very simple. I try not to stress him. I assign things like 5 sentences about his best friend, or a paragraph about his swimming lessons. He edits his own entries, and then I edit them before posting them. I have observed that they have needed fewer and fewer grammar and spelling corrections by me as they go along. My expectations are simple: begin sentences and proper nouns with a capital letter, punctuation at the end of sentences, correct spelling of words he's familiar with, asking me for help on words he does not know how to spell. It's not much, but it's a start, and I'm beginning to see results as he is willingly typing for his blog what would have been sheer torture to write out in longhand. Stop by his blog (The Adventures of Roboboy) sometime, and leave him a note of encouragement. He is always thrilled to get a comment, ...even if it's usually from his mom or dad. And if you've got any other ideas for getting my boy reading or writing more, drop me a comment too. I'm open to ideas!! |
Posted in Family
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I have been trying to collect all Bubbles' little funny sayings. She is growing so fast that soon the days of "Bubble-isms" will be gone. She says so many funny things these days, I soon won’t be able to remember them all. So here is her latest collection.
She calls a Merry-go-round a “merry-go-Around”.
She calls Malaysia “Uh-laysia”. Her best friend Valencia is "Uh-lencia", and her sister and brother's friends Nathanael and Natasha are...you guessed it..."Uh-thanael" and "Uh-tasha". Another friend at the playground is "Mat-alie" (Natalie) and her teacher at school is Teacher Lancy (Nancy).
She sings, “Blah, blah, black sheep, where are you?” instead of “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?”
I heard her singing, “The wise man built his house upon a box…” the other day. Bubbles brings such joy to my days. She's recently started swimming lessons, and while she no longer calls her goggles "gobbles", she enters into her lessons with everything she's got. It's so fun to watch her jump up and launch herself full-length across the water, kicking and paddling with everything she's got. When she tires, she stops, stands up, catches her breath, and launches off again. What an unaffected zest for life she has! We've been working on some Scripture memory for her Sunday school class lately, and, as with everything else in life, she's trying so hard to learn those verses. We've also begun working our way through "Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons". (I found it at a second-hand bookstore for S$14.95. When I've been able to find it in local bookstores, it runs around S$50 brand new, so I was really excited over my find!) Oh, does she want to learn to read! The other day, we visited a Christian book store and she came to me with a book she wanted to get. I took it from her to have a look at what she had chosen. It said on the cover, "Children's Bible Stories" so I figured it was another children's Bible story picture book....no sirree! This book was all text, the thickness of a regular Bible (a good 2-3 inches thick!), and not a single picture--not even a black and white sketch! This is the kind of book she can't wait to read! Meanwhile, she's been "reading" her Beginner's Bible at night before bedtime. She will look at the pictures and tell herself the story. It's not that there's no one to read to her, but she wants so desperately to do it herself! Already, after only 8 lessons in "Teach Your Child To Read...", she's getting the hang of sounding out words. Today, looking for a workbook page to do, she was able to sound out enough letters of three words (Zip, Zero, and Zebra) to be able to match the words to their respective pictures. (At first, she did think zip was pizza, but considering the word pizza has all the letters in the words zip, and she's a lefty who tends to work right to left at times, and I didn't even know she would know the word pizza, I was pretty impressed!) Of course, she's also learning basic phonics (the letter sounds) at kindergarten, so I must give credit where it is due. I am so thankful for this little girl who is teaching me joy, and renewing my enthusiasm for life.
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Posted in Food for the Spirit
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The Lord has been challenging me to grow in a few areas lately. One of them is in the area of loving others. I tend to be a rather shy, private person. I don't have many close friends, and I have had a lot of people describe me as reserved, and even cold. I know that God wants me to love others. It's a part of His Great Commandment: " Jesus said, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:36-40) And elsewhere Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another. By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves]." (John 13:34-35) I knew it wouldn't be easy. I knew that when we ask to become better at loving, God specially gives us the unlovely and the unlovable to stretch us and help us to grow. I knew that I am generally selfish. I knew that He would give me tests, and that I would sometimes struggle... But I didn't expect to blow it so badly the very first day! A friend who's in town from overseas called my dear hubby and asked to use our place to gather a bunch of their friends together while they are visiting here in town. No problem. I readily agreed to that. But then, they called and asked me what food they should bring. I snapped off a comment to my husband that I'm not organizing this thing. I don't even know who all they're inviting and who can come, so how could I possibly organize what food everybody brings? Well, this got my dear hubby angry. He threatened to call the whole thing off and tell them to use another place. I scolded him, "Don't be like that." And he challenged me, "You can be however you want to be, but I can't 'be like that'?!?" He was right. I could have been nicer. I could have just said I hadn't thought about what food to bring, or just told them to bring whatever food they've been missing while living overseas, or just said, "Have everybody bring enough food to feed their family. It doesn't matter what it is." Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Three of the saddest words in the English language. (Never mind that they're not real words!) They are words that reflect regret. Shame. Blame. Conviction and condemnation. Will I ever get it right? Will I ever learn to stop, think, and choose to have the heart of Jesus Christ, who came, "not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45)? Will I ever be able to love like Jesus who, "being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:6-8) I realize that I am totally incapable in my human capacity to love like that. It is only with God's help, that Christ can love through me when I am able to yield myself to His control. Oh, Lord, even knowing the struggles that this prayer will bring, teach me to love! |
Posted in Food for the Spirit
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Sometimes I feel that my gifts, talents and abilities are a curse rather than a gift. Because I have always found so many things easy, I’m rarely willing to put forth a huge effort on anything. Not only that, I tend far too much to depend on myself and my own strength and abilities, rather than having total reliance on God.
In my head, I know everything I have, all my skills and abilities come from God. But I find myself lacking the absolute desperation for God that I believe I should have in every situation.
Why is it that I only find myself desperate for God and ready to look to Him for help when I’ve come to the end of myself, when I’ve messed up and blown it and gotten myself in too deep? How can I remember to look to God first, rather than depending on myself? What can I do to help myself remember what an absolute and total disaster I make of things when I try to do it all by myself? This shouldn’t be too hard to remember, as often as it’s happened, but somehow I keep finding myself in the same situation.
Lord, I have blown it so many times, and I feel so disappointed and even disgusted with myself, my own selfishness, my own stupidity, shallowness and sinfulness. Help me to look to You as the Source of everything. Help me to look to You for help in my daily living, in my family, in my relationships, in my work, in my health and energy level, in short, in everything! |
Posted in Food for the Spirit
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“Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.” --Philippians 2:14-16a
The kiddos and I are working at memorizing this passage right now, both for their benefit, as well as mine. I want so much to be a light in the darkness around me. But I find that I really struggle to let my light shine in a way that lets others see Jesus in me. So many times the Lord shows me my own ugly, sinful attitudes, my pride, my selfishness, my grumbling and complaining, my lack of love.
Paul tells us that we will ‘shine like stars in the universe’ if we can do everything without grumbling or complaining. This is a hard lesson for me. I tend to be a wee bit negative, and it shows. It shows when I hear my children spouting off remarks that are uncomfortably familiar. It shows when I see them grumbling and complaining about their school work, their chores, their siblings, or just about anything.
I am convinced that God gave me my beautiful children to help transform my character into Christlikeness. I'm also convinced that God put me in a situation that got me homeschooling to take me into more intensive character training. My three children are a very clear reflection of myself because they tend to begin to mimic my words and behaviors. I see myself through my children’s eyes, and they often help me to see myself through God’s eyes, and I am, more often than not, disappointed in what I see.
James talks about people who look into a mirror, and, after looking at themselves, walk away and immediately forget what they look like. Mirrors are to help us arrange ourselves to look as attractive and appropriate as we can in a given situation. But when I see and hear my mirrors (my children) reflecting my negativity, do I adjust myself and try to put on a positive, thankful spirit in place of the selfish, negative one? Lord, help me to do just that!
I choose gratitude. I choose grace. I choose forgiveness. I choose joy. I choose thankfulness. I choose purity. I choose loveliness. I choose goodness. I choose faith. I choose truth. I choose justice. I choose kindness. I choose self-control. I choose honesty. I choose faithfulness. I choose to shine!
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Posted in Food for the Spirit
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"Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way." (James 1:2-4, The Message) I don't know about you, but I don't like tests. Oh, I don't mean mid-term exams or finals, standardized tests, multiple-choice, true-false, or even essay tests. I can live with those any day. No, I'm talking about those tests that God sends us to help us grow. You know, those tests. And, yet, James instructs us to consider it a sheer gift when God sends us those kinds of tests. Personally, I prefer a nice bottle of lotion from Bath and Body Works or a new book, maybe a pair of earrings. A gift. A gift?!? I still find it hard to see it as a gift, but I have to admit that after the test is over, I can look back and see that, yes, I have grown, usually in ways I never imagined. But I still find it hard, when I'm faced with this particular test-gift, not to struggle. I have to admit, I usually want out of that situation-- as quickly as possible. But this particular gift of God usually requires time to do its work. I personally don't really like it when my faith-life is forced into the open to show its true colors. Because I rarely like what I see. You mean I still haven't got any more patience than that?? You mean I'm still grumbling and complaining like the children of Israel in the wilderness? Sometimes, I feel rather despondent when my true colors show through--because those true colors are usually the ugly stains of a sinful and selfish heart. So, here I am, God, sin-stained heart and all, offering it all up to you, and asking you to bleach out the stains as only You can. Help me to "...do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that I may become blameless and pure, ...[and] will shine among them like stars in the universe." (Philippians 2:14-15)
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Posted in Singapore
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With our resolution to be more active and get more fit this year, my dear hubby and I have been walking...a lot...almost every day. We have been enjoying the park near our home. It has great walking/jogging and cycling tracks, playgrounds, beaches, a great ocean view, and lots of barbecue pits. We've been really enjoying the walking tracks along the beach. It's so nice to walk in the cool of the evening, watching the sun set, listening to the waves roll in, and enjoying the breeze off the ocean. Here are a couple shots we've taken from various places not far from our home. This is the sea near Changi Village.
Didn't my hubby take some gorgeous shots? Unfortunately, when we've been at the park nearest our home lately, we haven't brought the camera with us. I'll have to try to get some shots of it so you can enjoy it too! Oh, by the way, our walking has been having its desired effect: Since our January health screening, dear hubby has lost around 25 pounds, and I've lost 15! |
Posted in Homeschooling
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This year I've been struggling with what to do with History/Geography as I have made gradual changes to our curriculum to better suit my children. Finally, after wandering through the ages of time for a while, I settled on a study of American history/geography. It actually began last year when we were planning our visit to the USA. I decided it would be a good idea for the kids to learn a little bit about the states we would be visiting (Kentucky, where their Grandma and Grandpa live, Ohio where G.G., our affectionate nickname for their Great-Grandma, lives, and Tennessee, where we love to spend time in the Smoky Mountains.) So I printed out some state coloring pages I found at Crayola.com. I decided it would be a good time for my children to get familiar with American geography, so we've continued with these coloring pages since the beginning of the school year. We've also been playing with an American States puzzle to try to remember where the states are located and how they're shaped. I mounted a blank blackline map of the USA to the wall in our schoolroom, and we've been working at trying to be able to fill in all the names of the states. We've also been working with state capital flashcards to try to learn the name of each state's capital city. I just made these out of index cards (50 cards with the state names and their 2-letter abbreviations on them, and another 50 cards with the state capital city names on them). We're focusing on just 10 states at a time. Right now we're trying to learn the West Coast states. Today we played concentration with just the 10 states and their capitals that we are focusing on. I've tried to keep this geography aspect very hands-on for my kinesthetic learner, and so far, he, and his sister, seem to be enjoying it. He was so proud that he went from being able to label only 4 states on the map yesterday to being able to label 17 today! Quite an accomplishment for this guy who, though American, lives halfway around the world from this country. For history, we've just begun reading aloud through the Little House book series. I got the idea when I saw Dancing Queen pull them out and begin reading them again. Roboboy has never read them, but I was given a boxed DVD set of the first season of the Little House on the Prairie TV show as a gift while we were in the USA, and he has loved it, so I thought I'd try him on the books again. (The last time, he was not ready for it.) So we're enjoying both reading the books, as well as watching some episodes. We're mapping out the travels of the Ingalls family on a map, and using some study guides courtesy of the Notebooking Corner. (Thanks, Lisa!) The children are working now on a chart of the various chores and tasks that had to be done in each of the four seasons. As I read aloud to them, they take note of any new chores that need to be added to their charts. We're learning to sing some of the folk songs mentioned in the books, and will be doing some journaling, as well as trying out some of the recipes and other activities provided in the study guides. Fun stuff! |