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

Letters and Sounds

Just a quickie today as we have had some friends over who have turned the house into a disaster zone! I only have an hour to clean up before the children wake up and I can't find the carpet shampoo (and yes, I do need it!)

I do love it when Cosmo has people over to play though, he is exhausted after a hard morning running around and I got to catch up with a new friend, which was a lot of fun.

Anyhow, back on topic!

A teacher friend emailed me this website letters and sounds for Cosmo to have a play with. There are loads of interactive games and teaching ideas on there for phonics. At first I thought it was too simplistic, then I realised there was more than one level (duh!) and although it's not particularly challenging for him, he does enjoy playing with it and I think it's good to practise even the easier stuff.

Anyhow, I may use it with Lychee before she gets to the reading fluently stage.

So I've posted it here in case anyone wants to try it out. I think it would be a great tool for slightly older (e.g. computer literate) children who were struggling with reading. Cosmo is the other way round though (doesn't have the dexterity to use a mouse) so it's not so helpful. I end up selecting all the choices whilst he just reads out the words.

In summary: Good for some, fun for us :-)

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.