Mystery of History

I'm not sure how many other people are using the Mystery of History curriculum, but I really love it. It's a great way to piece together world history (so much of what I covered at school focused solely on the UK!) and covers a wide range of other topics in a chronological way.

The only problem I have had with it is that it's sooooo expensive. I mean, it's fine if you live in the US, but shipping to the UK nearly doubles the price of the curriculum, especially if you get charged import tax by customs (yes, even though it was marked educational resources, they decided to charge me anyway).

So I was super excited when I found out you can get volumes I and II on kindle!! Not only that, but there appears to be some kind of promotion on, because despite each quarter of volume II being listed as £6.34, when I bought it I was only charged £1.06! Not only that, but I had promotional credit from my prime account, so I all of volume two on my kindle for FREE.

Pretty sweet deal.

Sadly it doesn't have volumes three and four, but hopefully they'll be released before we get to them, and with all the money I've saved I'm going to go and download the MP3's so we can listen to volume one for revision in the car. 

In your image...

This week we've started our mystery of history curriculum again. Lychee is now old enough to join in and get something from it, which makes it a whole lot easier than it was last time around!

To be honest, we stopped because we moved house and taking our timeline off the wall meant we would have to reconstruct everything we'd done and I couldn't face doing it at the time. Starting again means rebuilding slowly, which is a lot more manageable. 

Today the children are using play doh to create men in their own image... Which quickly descended into creating their own "beasts of the field" and "birds of the air".  Cosmo is enjoying it so much more having a sibling to encourage creativity. First time around he wanted to make everything look perfect, exactly like a real person. 

Second time around, with a little encouragement from his sister, he's created a six legged, long necked, mammal that swims and has a number on its back which changes each year to tell you how old it is. 

I love how they inspire each other and learn from each other in ways that I couldn't teach. 

Family learning is the best! 

You Are There - Lamplighter Theatre

We love audio books, not only in the car, but Cosmo is really enjoying listening to them at bed time. Audible credits are a cheap way to get regular audio books and we've really enjoyed the Inspired by the Bible Experience audio with Samuel L Jackson, Denzel Washington and some other really big names. We also love the Adventures in Odyssey series for fun and light hearted entertaining stories.

By far and away though, my children's favourite audio we've ever bought has been the Lamplighter Theatre plays. The stories are incredibly engaging, with fantastic truths hidden in them and really inspirational heroes. They are exceptionally well produced and every child (and adult) I know who has listened has loved them. So I was super excited when Lamplighter brought out the 'You Are There' Series.


It's a dramatisation of Bible stories for young children. The bible experience is word for word scripture read and acted, which is fantastic; but this is something different, so I don't mind investing in both. Thanks to YNAB we had some money in our 'homeschool: Curriculum' budget, so when I saw that Lamplighter had a half price deal on I jumped at it. We got the MP3 downloads (shipping to the uk is pricey!) and I can't wait to start listening to them with the kids.

Here's the promo video:

And some longer interviews about the series:

If you order them quick, they are down to $99 for the entire set (that's about £62 in English money).

Enjoy!

Yes He Is (Death is Not Natural)

Okay, so this isn't technically a homeschooling resource, but I recently discovered this website that is full of media to make sharing your faith on things like facebook and twitter easier. The thing is, it has such simple, clear summaries of the gospel, that it is actually perfect for little ones to get a grip of the metanarrative of the gospel.

The website is called Yes He is and you can see a sample video, called 'Death is not Natural' here:

Lovely animations, which would make a great change to devotional time, and with a few basic questions you could easily make it a comprehension task, whilst all the while reinforcing the truth of the gospel. 

Go to Yesheis.com and you can view hundreds more videos and images that portray biblical truth in a simple and eye-pleasing way :0)

Half term

So we've just had half-term, but with this being a homeschool the learning never stops!!

This holidays we signed Cosmo up for his first ever holiday-club with Wilstead evangelical church and he had a fantastic time. It was for two hours every morning and he came home having learned new songs and games, as well as a memory verse.

There were some competitions, including boat building, for homework and he worked so hard to create a boat that actually floated - experimenting with gluing coins and pebbles to counter weight his beautiful sail (those are ants that he drew on it), and covering the whole base in cling film to make sure no water would get in it.

There were also homework sheets, with word searches and crosswords and he won gold medals for completing those too.

At the end of the week there was a medal ceremony and he was presented with a certificate and a sticker book which he is very proud of.

He did miss two days of holiday club as we went to stay at my mothers to spend a little time with my sister who is about to emigrate half-way around the world :o(


We had a great time and celebrated a cousins birthday with a family trip to gulliver's land which was obviously a huge hit.

My aunt also stopped by on the second day with a box load of Math resources and games for us and we've been excitedly sorting through them, looking at which ones we'd like to play now and which ones to put in our 'soon' shelf in the school room.

And finally I've spent some time with Lychee on the new iPad (yes! I've finally got one!) and been working on the Montessori pre-language opposites app and starfall ABCs. Both are excellent and I highly recommend them, although it can make it hard to limit screen time as the children get really into the 'work' they are doing.

So that's been our half-term. Did you do anything exciting? 

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!

GAPS friendly Easter Cookies

Courtney over at Women Living Well has a tradition of making Easter Cookies with her children. Personally I would call them meringues, but semantics aside, these are a great way to teach your children about the Easter story. 


Unfortunately we are on the GAPS diet and these cookies contain a whole cup of sugar. 


So I set to work and I have created the GAPS friendly version. The recipe is almost identical, but you have to be a little more careful with things like ensuring the egg whites are at room temperature (they will not whip up properly with honey if they are cold). 


So here it is:

1 cup whole pecans
1 tsp. white/ distilled vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch of salt

2/3 cup honey

Preheat oven to 180c (don't forget this step!!)

Place pecans inside a sandwich bag and let children smash them up with a rolling pin. Explain that after Jesus was arrested, He was beaten by the Romans soldiers. Read John 19:1-3.

Let each child taste a small amount of the vinegar. Put 1 tsp. vinegar into mixing bowl. Explain that when Jesus was thirsty on the cross, He was given vinegar to drink. Read John 19:28-30.

Add egg whites to vinegar. Eggs represent life. Explain that Jesus gave His life to give us life. Read John 10:10-11.

Sprinkle a little salt into each child’s hand. Let them taste it and brush the rest into the bowl. Explain that this represents the salty tears shed by Jesus’ followers, and the bitterness of our own sin. Read Luke 23:27.

let the children taste a little honey and then add 2/3 cup to the mixing bowl. Explain that the sweetest part of the story is that Jesus died because He loves us. He wants us to know and belong to Him. Read Ps. 34:8 and John 3:16.

Beat with a mixer on high speed for 12 to 15 minutes until stiff peaks are formed. This works really well with my version of the recipe, as initially the mixture will be brown (due to the honey) but will eventually turn white when it's ready. Explain that the color white represents the purity in God’s eyes of those whose sins have been cleansed by Jesus. Read Isa. 1:18 and John 3:1-3.

Fold in broken nuts and then dollop blobs of it onto a lined baking sheet. Explain that each mound represents the rocky tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. Read Matt. 27:57-60.

Put the cookie sheet in the oven, close the door and turn the oven OFF. Give each child a piece of tape and seal the oven door. Explain that Jesus’ tomb was sealed. Read Matt. 27:65-66.

GO TO BED! Explain that they may feel sad to leave the cookies in the Oven overnight. Jesus’ followers were in despair when the tomb was sealed. Read John 16:20 and 22.

On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Notice the cracked surface and take a bite. The cookies are hollow! On the first Easter, Jesus’ followers were amazed to find the tomb open and empty. Read Matt. 28:1-9.

Well, Courtney says to do this over night and on Easter morning, and I think I probably will next year. This year I wanted to do it prior to Easter to check it works. It did. It worked brilliantly. I will definitely be adding this to our family traditions to do at this time of year. 

The photos are from her blog, because they are much prettier than mine. 

Free Copy Work Practice

Cosmo is about ready for copy work now, so we started out yesterday. The first line took nearly thirty minutes (he's quite the perfectionist) but as he got into the swing of things, he managed to complete the next three lines in seven minutes.

He's so proud of himself for being able to write a full sentence.

If you want to start copy work, you don't need to spend a lot of money on handwriting practice books. We are using a website called Handwriting Worksheets Maker (which is free) where you can choose the style of worksheet (Print, D'Nealian or Cursive), dots, dashes, hollow letter styles and whether you want them to trace the letters or just have the starting dots.

You then type in your words or sentences that you'd like, we're using his memory verses so that it's familiar, and it's done. Super easy, totally customisable and free; what more could you want?

For best results, remember to set your printer to landscape mode.

Bible Islands

We have just bought a member ship for 'Bible Islands' and it is fantastic.



Cosmo had been playing far too much jumpstart for my liking, and though I wanted to encourage his computer skills and fine motor (dramatic improvement since he started using a mouse), I wasn't always keen on the content. To their credit, jumpstart have a little note saying which areas are designed for each age group, but the problem was that there was nothing to stop a curious three year old clicking on an area designed for 11 -14 years old. To be honest, he also found the 3-5 year old content a little too easy and dull.

The constant ' to access this feature, ask your parents if you can become a member' was also really starting to upset him, to the point that when someone in the queue at the library asked about becoming a member he got really upset.

We talked a LOT about getting him a membership, but we really felt that some of the content was just unsuitable. We let it slide for a month because we thought it might just be halloween stuff, and by thanksgiving they would be done with it, but that hasn't been the case. The reality is that a lot of the game areas are based on enchantments, witchcraft and ghosts. It's are real shame because the educational content is fantastic.

That's when we rediscovered Bible Islands. You get a 7 day free membership to try it out, but even before that was up we knew we were going to buy it for him. He absolutely loves it, the games are simpler, he's drip fed scripture, and he's actually learning hebrew.

Yes, you heard that right. My 3 year old is learning hebrew.

More annoyingly, he's picking it up faster than I did.

Pushing my jealousy aside, I can see that it would be great to have him learn as we will be able to encourage and help each other with it. I'm shocked at how quickly he is picking up the alephbet, but I guess to a child who has just learnt all the alphabet, number and mat symbols, throwing in another set is no big deal. He learns through games like 'pairs' and earns reward coins. The coins can be used to go to the cinema (a new Max Lucado Hermie & Friends Cartoon every day), buy and trade cards for albums which tell bible stories, and much more.

There's logic puzzles and quizzes, a museum, an art gallery (where you can create works of art and showcase them, as well as looking at other peoples), geography and biology... and we've only just begun.

I think it's going to be worth every penny.



If you want to know more (please note, I am not affiliated or receiving any benefit for plugging this) here is a video I found on youtube.

Shana Tova

We've been celebrating Rosh Hashanah, although we are Christian, we believe the Hebrew festivals are a shadow of Christ's life and of things to come.

Rosh Hashanah celebrates the anniversary of creation, and one of the things we have been doing is telling the creation story at breakfast and dinner each day by candlelight.


Cosmo is now very good at telling the facts of the story (the order things were made in, what Adam and eve did) but still struggles with questions like 'how did God feel when they disobeyed him?' or 'what do you think Adam and Eve felt like when they left the garden?'

I know it's in part because of the ASD, but it still always surprises me how well he can memorise facts, but how difficult he finds interpretation.

We've really enjoyed making a trumpet out of paper mâché and decorating it too. You can find directions on how to make the basic trumpet shape here. Cosmo especially likes waking daddy up with his trumpet in the mornings!

Israel enjoy fruits dipped in honey, a reminder of sweetness, as they wish each other a 'sweet and good new year'. We had fruits dipped in honey, and chocolate sauce, because nothing says 'sweet' to my children like chocolate!

Cosmo helped make the sauce, by melting chocolate in the microwave and stirring in double cream and milk. He's actually getting pretty good at using the microwave without help and can stir without spilling everywhere now. Hooray for fine motor improvement!

Most excitingly, he also wrote hi own name in a 'Shana Tova' card we made to send his cousins. Lychee painted the front and he wrote inside. It's the second time his managed to wrote his name, the first time being nearly two months ago, with no attempts in between.

It is frustrating to know that he can, but won't practise. He's still very unenthusiastic about writing or colouring, but lychee is the complete opposite. Colouring and painting are her two favourite activities.

Later today we shall go and perform our 'tashlikh' or 'casting off'. We are going to throw some stones in the river as we confess our shortcomings, to remind us that God will wash away our sins. This has been cosmos favourite part of the festival in the past, and I'm sure he will enjoy it this year too.

So, have a sweet and good new year, may your name be inscribed in the book of life!

Catechism

The Puritans used catechisms, creeds, and confessions to disciple their flocks.  A catechism is the process of instructing believers both young and old in the basics of the Christian faith.  The Greek word for "instruct" or "teach" is katecheo from which we get our English word "catechize."

 

Catechisms provide basic summaries of the church’s teachings to ensure that all members of the church understand the essentials of the faith for themselves. Most catechisms generally have questions and answers accompanied by biblical support and explanations.

 

The Puritans developed their own catechisms, including theWestminster Catechisms in the 1640s. Written to provide children, new believers, and church members alike a short but comprehensive summary of the Reformed church’s doctrines, theWestminster Catechisms are the most important and influential of all the Reformed catechisms.

Helpful Catechism Resources

• The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th-Century Catechism, by Kevin DeYoung


• Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God, by Bruce Ware


• The Big Book of Questions and Answers, by Sinclair Ferguson


• Small Children’s Catechism, by Chris Schlect


• A Catechism for Boys and Girls, from Sojourn Church Louisville.

 

Have any good ideas on how we can use catechisms in the church today?

Let me know in the comments section.

 

Cynical? Me?

Last week Cosmo's daddy was tucking him up in bed and during their chat Cosmo asked Jesus to be his friend. His dad was very pleased with this, but I was pretty cynical. The fact is, I don't think a three year old understands what he is saying when he says something like this. I think what he means is 'right now that sounds cool' rather than 'I want to dedicate my life to God'.

 

Turns out I might be wrong.

 

A few days later, it was Sunday and time to go to church.  We've had a little trouble recently, because there is a boy in children's church who doesn't get on with Cosmo. I'm told that Cosmo didn't start it, but I'm not dumb enough to think that he is completely innocent either. I've walked in to see him kicking that boy.

 

Over breakfast though, Cosmo suddenly announces that today, at church, he is going to forgive his nemesis. Really? I think, but out loud I say 'what a great idea'.

'Yes', he continues 'because God and Jesus have forgiven me and I am going to forgive him'.  Cue my jaw hitting the floor. Maybe he really does get it...

'And then I can ask him if he wants to be Jesus' friend too!' Now I really am wandering if this is all some elaborate dream, but I hold back on my excitement and think it is probably best to reserve judgement until after church and see how they manage 90 minutes in a confined space together.

 

I needn't have.

 

When we went to get him from children's work the leaders were all gushing about how wonderful he had been. Further questioning has revealed that his nemesis did not want Jesus to be his friend :0( but that despite having been spat on and told that he was hated, Cosmo did not retaliate and continued to forgive. In fact, by the end of the session his nemesis seemed to have forgotten all about their feud and was willing to sit next to him during the story time.

 

Wow. I am completely floored. I really have nothing else to say, but Wow.

 

Happy Shavuot!

Yes I know this post is late, I was hoping to run it in the week running up to shavout so that you could enjoy the celebration too, even if you've never heard of it, but I forgot. Sorry about that, but you could always enjoy it next year?

Shavout is a time when the Jewish people celebrate the giving of the Torah. It is also the date of the birth of the church and the time when the first christians recieved the Holy Spirit. What gifts! The Word of God, followed by the Spirit of God. It really is a time to be celebrated.

Obviously you are welcome to celebrate in anyway you choose, but I thought I'd share how our family celebrates to give you some ideas.

Firstly I plan a special meal. It's traditional to eat plenty of dairy as milk is all the nutrition a new born needs. Likewise, we are God's children, and his word contains all we need.

Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

1 Peter 2:1-3

We always eat tagliatelle with cream cheese and chive melted over it, tossed with chopped mixed peppers. I know it sounds boring to eat the same thing every year, but it's only once a year, not every week, and it means I don't have to think about shopping/cooking too much. No-one complains about having roast turkey again at christmas, right?

We also try to serve lots of sweet things, a strawberry and lime smoothie with plenty of honey always goes down well (blend a punnet of strawberries with the juice of a lime, two cups of water and add honey to taste).

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psalm 119:103

It's traditional for Jewish families to read the book of Ruth on Shavout. I love this, because I bet they have no idea why. I'm told it's because it's a story about lovingkindness. I'm not really sure what that has to do with the festival, but I do know something else; Ruth's story is a story of a gentile bride being redeemed and counted as God's people. It's a beautiful love story, but more importantly a picture of Christ and the church. There's a great study on this here. What story is more fitting to celebrate the day that God gave His Spirit to His gentile bride, the church?

The final tradition is to read each other stories from the bible for as long as we can stay awake. Staying up all night reading God's Word is a rare and beautiful time to spend with family. This is where homeschooling comes into it's own, because we all get to have a lie in the next day!

It was so precious to hear Will helping Matt tell the story of the 'ten rules' that Moses was given (another great passage to read on this night). It's also worth having plenty of snacks ready for your late night to sustain everybody. Cheesecake is a good option (more dairy) as is ice cream and anything else sweet. I found candy letters this year. Great for spelling out 'sweet words'.

So if you don't already celebrate Shavout, think about it. It really is one of my favourite biblical feasts.

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!

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.

The Mystery of History

The Mystery of History Part One - Creation to Resurrection has arrived!

I'm so excited. I've been flicking through and it looks like we are going to have a LOT of fun with this. I will warn you though, that it comes ready for a 3 ring binder. I have yet to find anywhere that sells these in the UK :-(

Still, it's not so hard to punch new holes in the pages.

We read through the introduction to this quarter this morning, and although I'm sure Cosmo didn't absorb all of it, he enjoyed being read to and the conversational style of the text. It asks question like 'Are you curious about how the world started?' which he loves answering 'yes!' to. I also think it's great that he is becoming familiar with new words. Every time a word popped up that he hadn't heard before (such as 'Cuneiform' or 'Kushite') he asked me to stop and point to the word in the text for him.

This afternoon we are going to make flash cards of all these new words and add them to a new file I am starting. When we re-read through this next (I'll start the curriculum again when I feel that he is old enough to be following the content better) he will already know these words and should make the absorption of information easier for him.

To be honest, I'm flying through it myself whilst he is napping. It's so exciting to me, having never studied history, to be able to see where different events and people around the world fit into the time line of biblical history. To be honest, I've never heard of most of them. I obviously didn't listen much in school, but it's fascinating me now.

So far this curriculum gets five stars. I'll let you know if we encounter any problems as we go along.

Living in a Sukkah

When Cosmo was still fairly small I heard someone say that a Jews catechism is his calendar. My ears pricked up, because I was starting to think about ways to introduce the gospel to him. Sure I sang songs to him and we had a children's bible we read from, but I knew that I wanted to teach him the bigger picture in a way that he would understand.

The Jewish calendar of festivals is great for this. If you haven't tried it, I thoroughly recommend you do. It can seem a little heavy at first (particularly if you already celebrate Easter, Christmas, thanksgiving etc...),  so maybe try introducing one new festival a year and build up the traditions slowly. If you are going to do that, I recommend starting with the feast of tabernacles, or Sukkoth as it is sometimes known.

So many people jump in with passover because it sounds familiar to us as christians, and it should be. It's mirrored so perfectly in the Easter story, but this can be pretty heavy for small children. Sukkoth, on the other hand, is enjoyable for children of all ages.

We start buy building a tent or shelter (the Sukkah) which we are supposed to live in for 8 days. Now, I'm going to cheat a little (because I'm no longer bound by the law and I can!) so we built our 'sukkah' out of sheets in the spare bedroom. We tented pretty much the entire room and covered the floor with a mattress and pillows to make it cosy.

This temporary shelter is to remind us that we are only temporarily here. Jesus has returned to His Father's house to prepare a place for us. Our permanent residence is not here.

Next, we decorate the Sukkah. It's fun to put up bunting or any other autumnal decorations you have, kids can draw pictures etc... We incorporated pictures of some specific tree branches in ours. Traditionally the Jews would have processed with these four branches to collect water for the tabernacle.  Here is the symbolism:

Water - Jesus is our living water. It was on the seventh day of sukkoth that he announced this in John 7:37-38

Myrtle,  Willow, Palm and Citrus - one has no fragrance no fruit, one fragrance but no fruit, one fruit but no fragrance and one both fruit and fragrance. The Jews would say that the fruit represents knowledge of the Torah and the fragrance represents acting out the Torah.  If your kids are slightly older you can parallel these with the four types of soil found in one of the kingdom parables (Matt 13).

We made our tree branches scented by putting orange oil on the citrus branch and jasmine oil on the myrtle (I have no idea what myrtle smells like, and luckily neither does Cosmo!). Cosmo loves sniffing them all to double check that they have 'fragrance'.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="720" caption="Preparing our Sukkah for our first evening meal."][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="720" caption="Cosmo explaining the four branches over breakfast"][/caption]

The Pros and Cons of learning to read...

Some of you may know that I started teaching Cosmo to read very young. I did this because I whole-heartedly believe that if you enjoy reading, no subject is closed to you. I'm also dyslexic, as are several members of my family, and I thought 'if he is going to struggle with reading, I want to give him a head start'.

I needn't have worried, because as it turned out he recognised his first words at around 10 months old.

By two years old he was beginning to sound out words and at 2.5 he is now reading sentences and paragraphs competently and even enjoying his very own toddler bible.

You would think this was only a good thing, and it should be. Sadly though, we live in a town where people don't seem to have very much respect for public property. I love to take Cosmo to the park where he can run and jump and climb and generally go wild and have a great time. Unfortunately the park is heavily graffiti-ed even inside the toddler area. So when Cosmo comes out asking me what f*** means or innocently announcing 'Mummy, that word is c***' I am forced to explain to him that those are naughty words and we shouldn't say them. The reality is that they are naughty words and he shouldn't have to read them in a children's play area either.

On the bright side though, this week we discovered where our town library is. Cosmo is taking great pleasure in selecting books to bring home and is, for the first time, enjoying reading by himself. His new bedtime routine now includes the light being left on for 30 minutes so that he can read some of his new books before he goes to sleep. It's a great way for him to unwind and he never complains about going to bed anymore, because he is excited to read a new story. Equally, by the time we go back up to turn the lights out, he has wound down and is ready for a kiss and to go to sleep.

I'm so glad we have been able to bless him with the ability to read so early on. It really does have such a calming effect, and seeing him so excited about going to the library is just too precious. I really can't praise the YBCR system enough.

Your Baby Can Read

As-Seen-On-TV! Babies Reading Using
Our Proven Learning System
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It's been a while...

As you may be aware it's been a while, but I have been super busy - with the arrival of our new baby girl!!

Lychee was born on the 25th of July and we are so pleased to welcome her into our little family. Between night feeds and pure exhaustion I barely have time to entertain Cosmo during the day, let alone get online, so posts are going to be a little fewer for a while, but I will try to keep up ;-)

Cosmo's latest achievement is that he has finally accepted we read from left to right (hooray!!!) which means we can progress to reading sentences and even paragraphs. In celebration of this, his daddy bought him the 'Beginners Bible' from our local christian book store. He absolutely loves it, and is doing really well at reading us a chapter from it each evening before bed. Okay, so it's not a full bible, but at the rate he is going he will have finished it by the end of the year and should therefore at least be familiar with the stories and how they fit together, with a basic understanding of the overarching themes.

He is also loving Sesame Street podcasts at the moment. I love it when he tries to use his new vocabulary in every day life. He told me that the breakfast I'd made him was 'exquisite' the other day. He also says that Lychee smells 'luxurious'. Soooooo cute!

Children's Catechism

I used to think 'what's the point?' and considered children's catechism a form of brainwashing. More and more though, I'm realising that someone else is brainwashing our children. Even the small children's section in our library consistently puts forward the idea that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and that we evolved from monkeys.

The fact is, that if I don't give my son a biblical account of creation, Cbeebies will ensure he gets a non-biblical one. How do I ensure that my son grows up with a basic idea of God the creator? Catechism.

Children learn through repetition, and I apply this to everything else (reading/flashcards/numbers), so why am I afraid to apply it to our faith? Because I know that judgemental atheists will slate me for it. So the question becomes 'do I care more about what they think of me than my sons relationship with his creator'? Even voicing the question makes me feel ridiculous for worrying about it. I know what I need to do.

That said I came across this website http://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/cc.htm which has a basic catechism for little ones. I think we will break down the lessons to be a little shorter (Cosmo is only 2 after all!) but I look forward to working through them with him. As he gets older, hopefully he will ask more questions and we will be able to explain more fully the theology and apologetics behind them. But we have to start somewhere, and a 2 year old really doesn't need advanced scientific explanations.

When he is a bit older I will probably introduce Kids 4 truth (http://clubs.kids4truth.com/) which I believe caters for 4 year olds through until 6th grade.

It's so hard as an adult to initially get your head around the fact that your teachers were not infallible, and that some of what they taught you might not be completely true. I hope that I can instil in my children the ability to question what is being taught to them by adults and the media, and come to their own conclusions regarding their beliefs. I hope this will include questioning me, but I want them to have heard both sides of the argument in a fair and balanced way, rather just having atheism and evolution drip fed with no alternatives offered.