Nearly five...

Having turned two lychee is really enjoying being in Cosmo's swimming lesson and works really hard at keeping up and doing everything the teacher asks of her. I'm so proud of her!!

This term Cosmo will be turning five, which means that he is now eligible to join the sports classes that are run by the co-operative we're in. He had his first session yesterday and was so nervous and excited.

He did brilliantly and the coach was really great at giving him specific instructions that allowed him to join in with minimal stress.

Winning two games of 'rob the nest' and learning to dribble with his hockey stick were highlights of the day, and I was surprised by his dexterity.

We also made 'iced tea' yesterday, which was the perfect opportunity to talk about particles and diffusion. I'm pretty sure that he had no idea what I was talking about, but you never know... He had great fun crushing all the herbs we'd dried anyway, and brewing the tea required plenty of stirring which is always enjoyable.

In fact, having spent so much time in the kitchen, he asked if he could make dinner. Unfortunately I had already made dinner and it was going to come straight from the slow cooker. He wasted no time in reminding me that one day he was going to be a daddy and that if I didn't let him take responsibility and help out with chores how would he ever look after his own children? He is nearly five after all...

It's incredible hearing your child repeat back things that you have taught them and attitudes and expectations that you have for them. I was so pleased to hear him genuinely concerned about learning how to take on responsibility around the household. 

He had one more opportunity yesterday to show me how much he'd been learning too. Lychee was being a little impatient and pushing to get past him. He disappeared off, found our Plants Grown Up book (from DoorPosts), looked up a scripture on patience and copied it out onto a card for her to keep as a memory verse!! Not only had he chosen a gentle way to reprimand her, but he took the time to write the verse out in his best writing too. 

Times like that remind me why we take the time to be intentional with our discipline, and it's worth every effort!

Feast of Tabernacles

Looking for meaningful ways to celebrate the feast of tabernacles with your kids?

Here's what we'll be doing: Living in a Sukkah

For a more 'grown up' version of finding Jesus in the feast of tabernacles, you can read a great article here.

What's in the Bible discount

In case I haven't made it clear enough in the past, we LOVE 'What's in the Bible?' DVDs from JellyTelly.

JellyTelly actually have a tonne of free videos that you can watch, including some episodes of 'Adventures in Odyssey' and, my children's personal favourites, 'Clive and Ian's Wonderblimp of Knowledge' (how do they come up with this stuff?). My personal favourite's are Dr Von Schniffenhausen's science lessons.

Anyway, as much fun as the freebies are, the 'What's in The Bible?' DVDs are out of this world great. They bring together short, funny clips on a theme and introduce children to concepts such as 'salvation' and early church history in easy, manageable ways. My children have learnt loads and we've really enjoyed it too.

They make an excellent addition to any christian home, and right now JellyTelly are offering 20% off through a referral scheme. You get 20% off, I get a $10 gift certificate. Win, Win.

Click here for 20% off

And just to whet your appetites, here's a clip of one of my favourite songs from one of the DVDs. 

Lamplighter Publishing Offer!

Great news from Lamplighter Publishing!!

Recently a coupon code for their audio books accidentally got released. It was only supposed to go to 100 people who had attended a seminar, but somebody put it on facebook and... well they got enough downloads to crash the server.

I was so impressed with the way lamplighter handled this. I personally paid to download without realising the code was supposed to be exclusive, so they sent me a polite email, letting me know that they would be honouring my purchase, but requesting that I don't share the code with others.

I was so excited to have received the audio books (me and my children are enjoying them so much) but disappointed to not be able to share the offer with my friends.

Well, we are in luck! Lamplighter are doing another phenomenal deal, and this time we are allowed to share!

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There are several packages which have each been discounted to $7 (£4.30) each. That means that for £8.60 you could get all of the audio books that we have. I'm also spending the same amount again, this time to download the ebooks for some of the same stories and several new ones that weren't dramatized. My son will love reading through the books that he now knows the stories to - we had to listen to 'the hedge of thorns' four times through before he let me put on the next one - but I'm eager to read some of the new books to him as well, particularly titles like 'boys of grit who became men of honour' and 'The Giant killer'.

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This is genuinely a fantastic deal and I can't recommend it highly enough, but it's only for the next 24 hours. Once you have purchased you will have plenty of time to download, but you must make the purchase today.

Click here to buy!

We're coming to the end of Rosh Hashanah and it's nearly time for Yom Kippur. If you haven't already seen it there is a brilliant video called 'soul bigger' which we have been enjoying with the kids this year, as well as Cosmo getting the chance to wake everyone up with his trumpet that we made last year (in lieu of a shofar - you can find the instructions here)

Although Yom Kippur is not my children's favourite holiday (they love the feast of tabernacles), I try to stress that for the Jewish people this is probably the holiest and most important of days. We don't actually fast (I think my children are too young, but when they are older we may try it, just to get the full experience) but I do prepare very plain foods so that we can enjoy a celebration feast in the evening.

It's a great opportunity to talk about how sin  had separated from God so that even His chosen people were not allowed to enter His holy place except after ceremony on this one day of the year. Then we talk about how Jesus has atoned for our sins (this festival is also called the day of atonement) and we can come into His presence whenever we like, and that His spirit actually dwells inside of us all the time.

Although it should have been done during Rosh Hashanah, we are going to go to be throwing stones into the river on Yom Kippur and learning the memory verse from Micah 7:18,19:

Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
19 You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

Freebie: Daily Learning Notebook

I just had to share with you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Preschool Daily Learning Notebook. I think it's awesome and we will totally be printing this out for Cosmo to use this term. Here's why I love it:

1. It follows the same format every day. My boy loves routine, and so do I. All round winner.
2. Because it follows the same format, he can work on it independently and take responsibility for getting it done. Great skills to practice.
3. It has handwriting in it, getting him to write is like pulling teeth, but this has a small, finite amount for him to practice everyday.
4. It's short. Because it doesn't take too long, we can easily fit it in everyday, even when we have other plans (like pirate day or a  trip to london).

Go get yourself a copy , you won't regret it!

Pirate Day!

 

Today was Pirate day for our Homeschool Group which involved everyone meeting up at the Priory Marina for a day packed full of activities.

The first challenge was a team work challenge, that involved moving treasure chests. The puzzle goes something like this:

There are five 'treasure chests' labelled 1 - 5 and three 'boats'. You have to get all of the chests from one boat to either of the others, but you can only move one at a time and cannot put a chest with a larger number on top of one with a smaller number.

Ironically, Cosmo actually knows how to do this puzzle, having completed it before at our church 'olympics challenge' day (although the puzzle was worded differently, because pirate themed olympics would be weird), however once the other children started having idea he ended up in tears and having to be taken to one side to calm down. He was overwhelmed with the number of people talking and the other children not giving him clear enough instructions (eg. 'put that there' with a pointed finger doesn't work. He needs you to say 'put box one in the yellow hoop').

The other children completed the challenge in a fairly good time though, and he was happy to watch from a distance.

The second challenge was like a giant team game of snakes and ladders. The children had to roll the dice, then choose who was the most appropriate person to move, with the end goal of getting everyone to finish. Along the way there were sharks (move back 3 spaces), the black pearl (go back to the start) and Jack Sparrow (your whole team goes back to the start); as well as ropes (climb up a level) and a desert island (the whole team can move to the finish). It took the children quite a long time to understand that this was a team game and that just because they rolled the dice didn't necessarily make them the best person to move forward. 

After that it was finally time to get into some sailing, and the kids had a great time learning how to turn the boat and using just the wind to get all the way around the lake, including zig-zagging back to get to shore when the wind is against you.

 

After lunch it was time for some orienteering around the park and then into the katakanu's for a paddle around the lake.



The final activity of the day was to tie a couple of katakanu's together and let the children have a tug of war. Exhausting, but so much fun!