So one month into the school year and we've only had one really awful day. I think I'll take that! We're really enjoying this Core from Sonlight and have finished our first chapter book! The kids really loved The Boxcar Children and thoroughly enjoyed transforming our little "set" that we built as the story went on. I'll have to take some updated pictures, but we added pine straw beds and some more grass and shrubs over the tracks, etc. I'm guessing we'll be reading more of those books as the months go on. They're not completely enjoying the book we're reading now for our "rug time" - it's got a TON of Old English-type vocabulary, etc. and that's just something they've not been exposed to in their young lives. But they still come running (most of the time) when I say it's rug time. I've found that it works especially well if I let them have a cracker or something while they listen. Then they leave each other alone and I can read :-) Andrew is now 6 months old and can make the school day quite challenging. But since they're young, we can get most of what we need to get done during his nap time, provided they're all ready to sit and listen during that time. I often use lunch time as a time to read anything that I still need to read - history especially. Again, they're eating so their mouths are occupied! Of course, this often means I go without lunch until much later in the day, but it helps ease some of the stress surrounding school. We've recently started attending a new church and are excited for the enrichment opportunities it offers. It's neat, too, that Sonlight is a pretty missionary-focused curriculum and Matthew's class at church is studying missionaries right now. That about sums up our life right now. Overall, it's been a good first month of school!

Today for science we were studying the various layers of the earth.  I was supposed to hardboil an egg to show the various levels (shell = crust, white = mantle, yolk = core), but last night was a rough night with the baby and I didn't want to heat up my house today boiling the water!  Luckily, we had apples in the house, so I cut one down the middle and improvised (skin = crust, pulp = mantle, core/seeds = core).  When we were done with the lesson, we of course had to eat the apple so that it wouldn't go bad

Matthew took a big bite and said, "Mmmmm!  This mantle sure is yummy!  And some magma just squirted into my mouth!" 

Kids are fun!

So it's upon us!  The start of another school year.  Matthew and I went out by ourselves yesterday for a special shopping trip for some last-minute school supplies.  It's rare to get out with any of them, let alone one-on-one time with them since Daddy's working 6 and 7 days a week now.  So we enjoyed it and tried to make the most out of it.  Got some good deals, too!

The kids were very eager to get started this morning.

 

We read the creation story this morning and made a melted-crayon earth to mark the beginning of our timeline.

 

They enjoyed their rug time reading with the Boxcar children and acting out the chapter with the little "dolls" they had made last week.  The girls need lots of work on listening and not interrupting, so we're trying to focus on that during rug time.

Our science reading was about where rain comes from.  After each part, Matthew would color the corresponding part on his water wheel.

 

When he was finished he put his two pieces together and could spin the back one to see the water cycle in action!

 

The girls did some freestyle coloring during all of this.

 

Then we took an impromptu trip outside to check out where the rain water on our street goes.

 

We also made a rainbow on the driveway with a glass of water.  After this picture we got a really good one with bright colors.  Ashlyn was the most fascinated with this experiment, while the others were more excited to run around the yard

 

They were excited about their new (cheap Target find!) lunch items.

 

Thankfully Andrew took a good morning nap today!  Once the girls went down for their rest time, Matthew did his spelling work.  It's supposed to take him a week to learn the words, but he spelled every one of them 100% correctly the very first time I said them.  I'm really trying to find a good Language Arts fit for him but it's not working too well!  With Sonlight, the grammar is way above his head while the spelling and reading are beneath him.  We'll keep trying to find a good fit.

In trying to add the girls in to Matthew's more advanced readers, I knew we had to do something to make it fun and keep their interest.  So, since our first book is The Boxcar Children, we made a little figure of each of the children and also made the boxcar.  The kids had so much fun doing this that they were wanting to play with them all day!

 

You can't tell in the pictures but we also made a railroad track that the boxcar is sitting on.  I hope this makes the story more fun for them!

Matthew decided he can't wait until the 31st so he wants to start school this week.  So tonight we took the kids for a back-to-school-bash ice cream treat from the dollar menu at McDonald's

 

 

(some kids don't need ice cream to be happy )

We've set our first "official" day of school this year as August 31st.  It's been a little crazy around here trying to prepare!  This year I'm planning to include the girls a whole lot more now that they're old enough to start to learn to sit still and listen more.  So they'll be participating in craft time and Matthew's Read Aloud time, as well as our family Bible time around the breakfast table.  I've got a CD of Matthew's memory verses set to music and am hoping they can learn them along with him.  They're about halfway through their memorization of the Lord's Prayer and are doing great with it!

So Read Aloud time is going to be our "rug time" or "circle time" or what have you.  I decided that sometimes I'll have a little coloring page or something for them to do while I read, so for those times they'll sit around Matthew's little table.  Other times they'll just sit quietly on the floor and give me their full attention.  I was trying to figure out how to make them recognize this reading time, even though it will have various forms.

I decided I would make them each a poster board with their name on it and they can find their name and know to sit at that spot and that's where they'll be while I read.  I'm only planning to use these during that Read Aloud time.  So hopefully they'll quickly recognize the correlation.

So yesterday they got to "decorate" their name card with stickers.  They had so much fun!

"School" has been difficult lately with a miserably-teething 3-month-old who wants to be held all day long.  But that doesn't mean the brains aren't engaged.  Ashlyn (2 1/2) can spell her way through an entire book (she'll literally look at each page and say "T-H-E  D-O-G  I-S  B-L-A-C-K" or whatever.) and Jessica (also 2 1/2) knows all of her letters and can do each sound.

As I was leaving my 4-year-old's room tonight after putting him to bed, he said, "Do you know what loud noises are called?  Cacophony."

Goodnight, Matthew...

Guess I'll quit feeling guilty about not doing much organized education these last few weeks...

I love Crayola's Color Wonder products.  It's SO wonderful to be able to give each of my 3 "coloring aged" kids markers at the same time and not have to hover and pounce when they stray from the paper.  It is wonderful to be able to sit nearby taking care of the baby or reading a book while they color and not having to worry about the walls and carpet!

The kids love them too

(I only WISH Crayola was paying me to say this!)

Matthew loves playing with calculators.  This week he's been testing to see that a number times the same number is always the same as the number squared.  (In other words, hitting 6x6= will always show the same answer as hitting 6 and the "squared" button.)  He gets overly excited when he sees that it always works.

Well today he just wanted to type big numbers.  After a very brief explanation from Daddy about what each "place" was and how you read big numbers, he was easily reading 5 and 6 digit numbers without missing anything.  He came up to me and read, without faltering or missing anything, the number 555,245,555.  I know some adults who can't do that and he's 4!  His brain just absorbs stuff so easily and I'm enjoying it while it lasts!!

Wow... 3 months, huh?  It's been a whirlwind.  We've still been trucking along with school, but have had a little trouble keeping up with everything with the new (very fussy) baby.  Blogging has sort of fallen by the wayside.

We had Matthew's 4 year check up last week (about half a year late but had to wait for insurance to cover it).  The doctor said he had a small fine motor delay because he couldn't hold the tiny little pen and write his name very legibly (he's used to fat markers at home).  While I don't think 4 years old is really old enough to be behind in much of ANYTHING, I still figured that as long as he didn't protest, we'd work a little more on his writing and drawing.  I found a John Deere letter coloring and sticker book at the dollar store (not the "we're going to end everything with .00 and call it a dollar store" but the "everything's a dollar" dollar store).  He loves John Deere because they sponsor the zambonis at the arena where Daddy works, so it was perfect.  He's had fun tracing letters in that today.

I've started doing some more focused preschool activities with the girls.  They love to color so it's great to get them all at the table coloring and then use that time (provided Andrew is sleeping or at least content in his swing or bouncy seat) to read some of Matthew's books to all of them.  The girls are learning to sit quietly for a little bit longer stretches as we do this, plus working on some fine motor skills at the same time ;-)  We're learning lots of active songs and they're blowing my mind with how much they're picking up about letters.  Matthew has an alphabet floor puzzle and it was all over the floor the other day and Jessica said, "Mommy, H - hhhhh, hhhhh, hhhhhh" (making the sound).  Then Ashlyn said, "Yeah Mommy, wook (look), S - ssssssssssssssss".  They got almost all of them right and were able to do the sounds.  I was impressed because I didn't realize they knew so many letters.

Today Matthew was drawing a picture and he said, "I'm going to draw our family.  Look, there's me, Daddy, Ashlyn, Jessica and Andrew on planet earth.  And here's you, Mommy (points to a person on a completely different part of the picture).  You're on Jupiter."  Thanks, bud!  He proceeded to tell me that Jupiter is the "bounciest" planet (so at least I was having fun) and that I had taken a rocket to get there.  I guess it's good to know he doesn't think that's where I originated or something

This is the final day in what has been a very enjoyable journey for us.  I know this will become more powerful for Matthew as the years go on and he is able to understand more, and I can't wait to include the girls in some of it next year.

The final symbol of Christmas we explored was Christmas dinner.  The Bible is FULL of examples of how much God loves a good feast.  The Old Testament is full of various feasts that the people were to observe.  Jesus is constantly shown reclining at the table with friends and even "sinners."  With all that was going on right before His death, He found it important to share a meal with his disciples.  And the Bible tells us that we will, as Christians, feast at the table in the Kingdom of Heaven!

So as we sit down at the table with friends and family, let us be reminded of Jesus - the baby born to die for our sins.  Our God is with us - He came on Christmas and never left us!  He lives at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for us.  His Spirit lives in us and guides us.

Praise His name!

Opening presents is perhaps the most famous of all Christmas traditions.  No matter where you go in the world, you will likely find gifts associated with Christmas.  No matter if the sleigh is pulled by reindeer or kangaroos, no matter if the gifts are opened on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, no matter if Christmas falls in summer or in winter, Christmas is characterized by gifts.

But the important part of receiving a gift is opening it.  You have to accept it.  You can't just leave it in the box, wrapped in the corner.

The act of OPENING is what makes giving presents so exciting.  So what will we do with the gift God has given us this Christmas?  The gift of His Son - the gift of Himself - Emmanuel!  We have to RECEIVE the gift and open our hearts to Him.  It's the best Christmas gift we could ever hope to receive - and it's available year-round!

It is highly unlikely that Jesus was born on December 25th.  So why do we celebrate Christmas on this day?  December 25th used to be a day of a huge and wild party that ended an entire week of feasting and worship of false gods in what the Romans called Saturnalia or "the birthday of the unconquerable sun."

But in the year 313, the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian.  As a Christian, he was appalled by the idol worship and partying that went on during this week which culminated on December 25th.  As emperor, he declared the 25th to instead be the Feast of the Nativity.  As the years passed, this became "Christ-mass" and finally Christmas.

How very like the story of God that something so dark and sinful would be redeemed into something beautiful and holy!

The wise men are often-misunderstood characters of the Christmas story.  They are represented by the number 3, although the Bible never gives a number to them.  They are present in every nativity, though by the time they came bearing their gifts (of which 3 are mentioned, possibly where we get that as the number of wise men), Jesus was a toddler.  We sing about them being kings, although again, this is not mentioned in their story (though some Old Testament prophecies suggest them to be kings).

But most interesting to study is the meaning of the gifts they brought, particularly knowing Jesus was a 2-year-old (or so) at the time of their presentation.

Gold - denoting royalty, portraying Jesus (even the toddler Jesus!) as the King of kings.

Frankincense - used in worship, pointing to the deity of Jesus

Myrrh - used in preparation for burial, foreshadowing the death of Jesus.

What strange gifts to bring to a child!  I love what she writes in the last line of today's lesson: "Who would give such strange gifts to a baby?  Wise men would." 

A nativity scene is an obvious symbol of Christmas.  One of Matthew's favorite things to do each day is open the door on our nativity calendar and pull out the next piece and hear how it fits into the overall Christmas story.

If your kids are at the age where the story is starting to lose its meaning, try bringing a new spin to it by finding just how many pieces of your nativity scene are direct fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy.  The story of Christmas didn't begin in Bethlehem!  It began the moment Adam and Eve sinned.  The Christmas story has a whole new meaning when you take it in the context of the entire story of God, not just as the "beginning of the New Testament."

Christmas Pageants.  The history fascinated me!  The word "pageant" actually comes from a word meaning "wagons" and with good reason.

In Medieval times, drams were performed on what we might consider modern-day floats.  The bottom half would be curtained off for use as a dressing room and then the top half would be used as a stage.  Each "wagon" contained a separate scene.  The floats would travel through cities, depicting the Christmas story.  At a time when most people couldn't read and the church services weren't in the language of the people, this was an evangelistic tool to reach people where they were - in their hometowns, in their language, in a very plain way.

As we hurry from place to place this Christmas season, we are also leaving a mark as we pass through.  Is it a mark left for Christ, or just a smudge left in a hurried, frazzled frenzy to get our holiday errands out of the way?

If you've never read the history of the story of Santa Claus, you really ought to do so.  We personally don't do the whole Santa thing with our kids, though they do recognize him with excitement around town.

The original St. Nicholas (pronounced Sinter Klaas in Dutch) was a man who loved God from an early age.  He came from a wealthy family and was known for giving his inheritance money to the poor.  The most famous story of his generosity is about 3 sisters who were too poor to pay their wedding dowries.  So Nicholas climbed onto their roof and threw a gold coin down the chimney (not wanting to receive credit for helping the girls).  The coin landed in the eldest sister's stocking which was hanging by the fireplace to dry.  This happened for all 3 sisters.

The important thing to remember, whether you use Santa in your celebrations or not, is that this kind of giving truly reflects the heart of God, who gave us His all at Christmas.

Giving gifts is a Christmas tradition that needs no explanation.  Of course there were the wise men who brought gifts to Jesus.  But the very act of Christmas was a gift from God to us - the ultimate gift of coming to earth wrapped in flesh - Emmanuel!

An neat tradition you could start with your family would be to take after the children of Holland long ago.  They would save their pennies all year in a "feast pig" (piggy bank) and then on the day after Christmas they would break open the pig and... hit the after-Christmas sales?  No.  They would give the money they had worked hard all year to save to the poor.  What a neat idea to put things back in perspective for all of us!

How funny that this lesson would fall on the day I finally decided to wrap some gifts!  Christmas gifts weren't always wrapped.  I'm sure there will be many, many people about a week from now who will wish this were still the case!

It used to be that gifts were always homemade.  As we got busier, we began purchasing gifts instead of making them, but we didn't want people to know we had bought them (much like we're now leaning toward re-gifting, but don't really ever want someone to know!)  So what better way to disguise a store-bought gift than to wrap it in paper and glue on some flowers or magazine clippings on it?

The wrapping of gifts reminds us that God came to earth wrapped in human flesh - a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  What a gift!

Thanks to the DVD "A WowieBOZowie Christmas," even my two-year-olds know the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas."  We don't typically consider the song to be "Christian" in nature, but rather more along the lines of Jingle Bells or Frosty the Snowman.

However, I remember when I learned the meaning behind the song as an older child and thought it was ingenious!  During the days when it was illegal to be Catholic in England, parents had to find creative ways to teach their children about God.  The "code" they taught their children was a song they could sing publicly while remembering basic Christian truths.  The "decoded" song is as follows:

My true love - God, the giver of the 12 gifts listed.

Partridge in a pear tree - Jesus and his gift given on the "tree"

Two Turtle Doves - the Old and New Testaments

Three French hens - faith, hope and love

Four calling birds - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Five Golden Rings - the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy)

Six geese-a-laying - days of creation

Seven swans-a-swimming - gifts of the Spirit listed in Romans 12:6-8

Eight maids a-milking - beatitudes mentioned in Matthew 5:3-10

Nine ladies dancing - fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23

Ten lords a-leaping - Ten Commandments

Eleven pipers piping - the faithful disciples

Twelve drummers drumming - the points of the Apostle's Creed

Caroling seems to be one of those traditions that is somewhat dying out, but what a shame!  Christmas carols were really the first "joyful" church songs.  Before Francis of Assisi introduced Christmas carols (people telling of their Christmas joy through song), standards for church music were - the more somber, the holier it was considered!  Christmas carols tended to stick with the people and instinctively make them joyful.

I know that still works for me!  The right kind of Christmas music can calm my mood and remind me of the important things in life.  How about you?  What's your favorite carol?