How did I teach Cosmo to read?

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2011 Challenge

''If you’re going to risk and maybe fail, fail at something that matters. Fail gloriously so that even in failure, lives change''

-John Acuff

What a great quote. You can find it in John's new book and you should. He is one of the funniest and most honest people I've read.

But that's not why it's my quote for the year. It's my quote for the year because I want to get more done in a way that is life changing and glorious. I may fail spectacularly, but if we learn from it, then it wasn't wasted. I regularly tell Will that it's okay to make mistakes, that is how we learn. Will it ever sink in if I don't model it for him?

So I've been thinking about it a lot lately and my personal conclusion is that as educators and parents we would do our children a great service if we told them it's okay to fail.  "If something appeals to you, try it!  Give it your best effort and maybe it'll work out well.  Maybe it won't.  It's okay to try and fail!"  I think in our society our appreciation of childhood (and adult) excellence and success far outweighs our appreciation of real effort.  The dangerous outcome of that for some is a sense of defeat before they even try.

Acknowledging that great plans and best efforts might nonetheless fail and that sometimes failure is perfectly okay will remove the fear of the social stigma and embarrassment of failure.  These same kids will pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and try again or try something else without a sense of total defeat from the first failure.

Remember, Michael Jordan went home crying when he was cut from his high school basketball team because he wasn't good enough.  The rest is history.

Daily Devotionals

Okay, so things have been a little hectic recently (buying a house, serving an eviction notice on the previous owners who refused to leave, renovating said house, car breaking, christmas, new year, relatives, house guests, sick children, etc...) and I have had much chance to be blogging, so my apologies for that. I haven't forgotten you and I will try to do better!



I'm sure I've blogged before about devotionals, if I haven't I certainly intended to. We have a family devotional time, which my husband leads, at breakfast and dinner. But I want my children to regularly build into their routines their own devotional time (quite a tall order for a 5 month old and a 3 year old!)

Still, even though they probably can't manage entirely alone yet, I want to have the habit set. So we are going to start visiting the Kids 4 truth website everyday. If you've never been on it I encourage you to. It really is a great resource. There are new devotionals put up every day, written in a style that is simple for children to understand, and for non-readers (or lazy readers!) they have audio files with the devotional read out to you. They are well produced and short enough to keep the children interested.

There's also some great little animations for older kids, the watchmaker would make a particularly interesting study alongside some basic apologetics.

We've also been enjoying the very silly, but fun and wholesome jellytelly from Focus on the Family. It introduces and explains bible verses, but also fun facts about 'God's amazing animals', 'Missionary stories' and much more. There's new free content available weekly, but you can also register for free and subscribe to get more content.



With the kids being ill it's been a real blessing to have access to this kind of material instead of nickelodeon or cBeebies on all day. What's great about content like this, is that there is a start and a finish. When the show is over, it's over - and I don't have to deal with nagging about being allowed to watch the next thing which has been advertised.

I'm still looking forward to warmer weather, stronger immune systems and longer days to get outside though!

Making a Pinata

So it's nearly time for Cosmo's birthday and I figure as he's going to be three, he is definitely old enough to enjoy smashing up a pinata. More importantly, it could be a fun craft project for us!

Stage one was designing a dinosaur. We used balloons, egg cartons, toilet rolls, cereal boxes and a tupperware. After chatting about different types of dinosaur Cosmo wanted it to have three horns like a triceratops and spikes like a stegosaurus. I did point out that this makes it look a lot like a baby dragon, but he wasn't caring so much about authenticity.



Next it was time to cover it in paper mache. We used newspaper and white PVA glue 1:1 with water. Cosmo helped me measure it out and mix it together. I know the usual recipe is 2:1, but I was being a little tight.

Problem was that meant the glue was VERY wet, so our tape didn't stick well and we lost a couple of legs...



No problem though, we only needed one leg to fill it from. When it was dry we burst the balloons, filled it with candy (and I mean really filled it!), sealed up the whole with paper mache, and added new legs.

Today we started painting it with left over emulsion paint from my mums kitchen. Apparently you need to do this layer first to i) hide the news print and ii) make your artistic design stay on the glue (sometimes it repels some paints).



So there you have it, the beginnings of a dinosaur pinata. We'll update you with photos of the finished product when it's done.

The Lesson

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and

gathering them around him, he taught them saying:

Then Jesus took his disciples up the mountain and gathering them around him, he taught them saying:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the meek, Blessed are they who mourn.

Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are they who thirst for justice.

Blessed are you when persecuted. Blessed are you when you suffer.

Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great.

Then Simon Peter said “Do we have to write this down?”

and Andrew said “Do we have to turn it in?”

and James said “Does spelling count?”

Philip said “Will this be on the test?”

and Bartholomew said “What if we don’t know it?”

and John said “The other disciples didn’t have to learn this!”

and Matthew said “When do we get out of here?”

and Judas said “What does this have to do with real life?”

and the other disciples likewise.

Then one of the Pharisees who was present asked to see Jesus’ lesson plan and inquired of Jesus His terminal objectives in the cognitive domain.

And Jesus wept.

Sometimes it's too easy to get caught up in keeping records and trying to achieve goals or finish a curriculum. My prayer this week is to keep the main goal in focus. I'm discipling God's children.

Today I removed Cosmo from his gymnastics class before it had finished for poor behaviour. This meant he missed out on receiving a badge which he had been working towards because he hadn't finished displaying all the disciplines. I'm not really sure what happened if I'm honest, the whole class were out of control and the coach was not able to command their attention. Cosmo was by no means behaving any worse than the other children, but I hold him accountable to a higher standard. I was torn because he was receiving assessment and I was so tempted by imaginings of his proud little face when he would bring his badge home to show daddy. But in the end his character is more important to me than any qualification and his behaviour today was not acceptable.

Hopefully he will treat the coach with a bit more respect next week :-(

Five days a week

I just loved this quote and wanted to share it with you:

"Too many parents who would never send their children to a church on Sunday that taught doctrines they believed to be wrong, have had no problem placing them in state schools five days a week where they are taught conflicting doctrines and ideas."

- Cal Thomas

This is why we home school. This is why I choose not to take advantage of the free babysitting service offered by the state. I choose to disciple my own children (Deut 6:6,7). To teach them morals and values that are acceptable to us, not the morals and values that are exhibited by most of society. My children are called for something greater. We have a purpose and a destiny - to be salt and light (Matt 5:13). Society may not appreciate why my children are home schooled, but we will be a blessing to them none-the-less.

Cosmo's first song

Cosmo made up his first song today (well, the first one that wasn't just random syllables thrown together!)

I was really excited, but he was really embarrassed that I'd overheard him singing :o(

It went like this:

King of Glory

King of Glory

Have some Glory

King of Glory

You died for me

Tell the story

about the glory

King of Glory