Blueberries for Sal

Before Five in a Row by Jane Claire Lambert is a "treasury of creative learning ideas" based upon outstanding classic picture books  geared towards ages 2-4. It contains 23 mini-book units, as well as a forty page section entitled "Parent's Treasury of Creative Ideas for Learning Readiness." This section is filled with suggestions to inspire you to fill your preschooler's days with gently challenging activities to inspire his curiosity and imagination. Some of the suggestions include: developing a dress up box (check!), collecting puppets and putting on puppet shows (check!), making sorting games and threading and lacing activities (check!), using blocks to jump start creative building processes (check!), giving your child a large box to play in and see what they do with it (check!...and they even mentioned my ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK Christina Katerina and the Big Box. If you haven't read it yet, find it. You will love it, too. I promise.), making homemade instruments (check!), and having a grocery store scavenger hunt (we did not get to that one...more fun ahead!).

Before Five in a Row is an excellent resource for:

• parents of preschool-aged children who need a little inspiration
• new homeschoolers with younger mixed-aged children who need a starting point and a bit of encouragement
• teachers of preschool students
• Grandparents who want to spend quality time with their grandkids, but need ideas
• after-school caregivers who want to do more than plunk their charges down in front of the television
• anyone with a child ages 2-4 (there is a bit of leeway here if you adjust the simplicity or complexity of the activities) who wants guidance and suggestions towards quality literature and enrichment activities

What I liked about the book:

• I especially liked that every book was accompanied by a Bible verse which fit the theme of the book. For example, the Bible verse for Blueberries for Sal, the book we used, was Ruth 1:16: "But Ruth answered, "Don't force me to leave you. Don't make me turn back from following you. Wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God." If you know the story, you will understand how well this fits. Sal and her mother are picking blueberries, but Sal becomes distracted and winds up getting lost, as does a baby bear, who is also distracted by the berry picking he is doing with his mother. It's a great chance to talk about the importance of staying together, paying attention, and following mommy (or daddy) carefully.
• Which brings me to the next thing I really liked, the emphasis on strong values, character, manners, hospitality, health, and safety that is evident throughout the book. Not only are the chosen books ones that I consider to be excellent in literary quality, but Jane Claire Lambert uses these classics to spotlight lessons that will develop a child's character...where the books' subjects lack character, she sparks a discussion on why this is bad, where they evidence a high standard, she focuses on why it is good.
• Other topics addressed in the suggested activities mainly revolve around the subjects of art, nature, science, math, language and vocabulary, geography, culture, music, relationships, social studies, and community. 
• Each lesson gives a brief summary of the book, lists the book's author, illustrator, & publisher, and suggests activities in multiple disciplines. Some stories give more detailed background information than others.
• The book is encouraging and is very easy to use.
• The company has extensive supplemental resources, such as Fold and Learn books, specialized planners, discussion boards, and nature studies. If you find you really enjoy the BFIAR or FIAR books, you can add to them to make them as complex and detailed of a study as you like...or you can leave them simple.

What I did not like:

• The background information and enrichment ideas were not as extensive as I'd have liked. Since I have multiple ages (my younger set ranges from 2-8 years), the extra information and suggestions would have helped me utilize the book without further research better. However, since this set is specifically targeted towards ages 2-4, the lack of more highly developed ideas is understandable. For us, it was a drawback. I found myself listing more things I could do with each book in the blank space after each chapter (especially things geared toward the older kids). For someone else (especially someone new to homeschooling, or with very young kids only), the simplicity and gentle attitude might be just what they are looking for. 
• Since the books are older classics, some of them were harder to find. Out of the 23 titles, my library only had about five of them...only three of which were available for checkout when I was looking. I had eight more of them at home, which got me up to eleven books. I would have to actively search Amazon or used book sales if I wanted to do all the titles in the book.
• This is a book of simple ideas, not activities. Yes, some ideas for activities are given, such as planting a carrot top and watching for it to "green up" or making a cave out of boxes, but most of the ideas revolve around gentle discussions and observations of the text and illustrations in the books you read. If you are looking for creative and active things that someone else tells you to DO with your child, or a collection of printable activities to go with each book, that is NOT what Before Five in a Row is all about. This book emphasizes the process of sitting together with your child, reading a book actively, observing it, pondering it,  processing it, and learning from it. This is a good thing, but only if it is what you are looking for.

Before Five in a Row costs $35 and can be purchased from Rainbow Resource. You can read more about the book on the Before Five in a Row website.

a blueberry bush

Here's what we studied using 

Before Five in a Row (BFIAR):

Blueberries for Sal

by Robert McClosky

(think Make Way for Ducklings)

We started the day with bowls of Blueberry Morning cereal, to get the ball rolling.

Then, we sat together and reminisced about past trips to pick blueberries (and strawberries).

We relaxed on the couch and read the book, looking at the charming illustrations carefully, then we talked about how Sal does not pay attention and winds up getting separated from her mother. We discussed the importance of listening to parents, and of staying together, and looking out for one another, using the story of Ruth from the Bible, as suggested in BFIAR. Cowboy has been working on learning "boys take care of girls" (he was being a bit rough last week), and this fit in nicely with that lesson.

Cowboy helped Mommy pick blueberries, 

while the ladies rested after strawberry picking.

Firefly is three, almost four, and she enjoyed talking about her memories of helping mommy pick a huge basket full of strawberries last spring. We discussed helping and working as a team (another topic we have been working on...in the book Sal's mom tells Sal that she can't eat them all because she needs to use them to make jam...). We laughed and remembered how they ate so many strawberries,they were almost too full for freshly made strawberry ice cream at the end of the day!! (They were allowed to eat any that were too mushy to collect in the basket and would go to waste if left).

Using a bag of frozen blueberries from our trip, I had Firefly practice counting them into a glass jar so she could experience a "Kerplunk!" sound like the one mentioned in the book. The older ones (Cowboy and Ladybug) used some of them to do their math (using the berries as counting manipulatives). 

I also printed some of the activities I found on Homeschool Creations and let Firefly and the older ones work on them (we printed up copies of the cards to play memory, the printing exercise for Firefly, the summary page for the older ones, and the directional words exercise for Firefly), while I got things out to make jam.

By lunchtime, the berries had thawed enough to make a fruit salad and to put up three jars of freezer jam. We saved enough berries to make blueberry pancakes one last time, and a batch of blueberry muffins.

The next day, we colored pictures with blue crayons, like the ones in the book. The kids thought this was fun, and went on to make other pictures using just one color palette or another.

By the third time we read the book, Boo and Firefly were very familiar with it, and pointed out their favorite parts excitedly. It was cute and rewarding to see. 

The older two were particularly interested in the historical differences in the pictures (we'd talked about things like there not being milkmen anymore and what old cars looked like just the other day when we were reading some Eloise Wilkin books), so we read from a series of books I picked up at a book sale a while back, called, "In Grandmother's Day..." I think I will have them write their grandmother tomorrow and have each one ask her a question about her life...like what did you cook, what was your first car, etc. We might print and make these nifty books on grandmothers and grandfathers from Enchanted Learning.

For fun, I found the book read aloud on You Tube, and let them watch it. Ladybug practiced reading it to the others while I made dinner.


Overall, the kids had a very nice time. This is one of the books I remember fondly from my childhood. They loved it, too, and now it will be one of their favorites.


What I thought about using BFIAR:


Would I have read this book to my kids anyway? Yes, I did last spring. Would I have done a unit using the book without BFIAR? No. Probably not. Could I have come up with the ideas, or ones like them without the book. Probably. I came up with more, actually, though I didn't do them all. But would I have done so? No, probably not. I also would not have connected the excellent Bible story to the book, or the study of the differences between the book's time period and now. I did wind up looking up and finding other resources on my own for the older kids, but had it just been Boo and/or Firefly I was using BFIAR with (they are ages 2 and almost 4), I could have done without the extras. Was this book a worthwhile resource? Yes, I think so. Especially for someone with very young children who is new to homeschooling.

• Learn more about BFIAR and FIAR on their website.
• See what other members of the TOS Review Crew thought about BFIAR
• Blueberries for Sal read-aloud on YouTube
• Blueberries for Sal printables from Homeschool Creations
• Grandparents printables from Enchanted Learning

Disclosure: I am a member of the TOS Review Crew and I was given this product free for review purposes. The opinions I have expressed about this product are my own. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.

Welcome to the Quilt Show!

One of the original buildings. I thought it was pretty.

Every year our small community hosts a small Quilt Show. They open various historic buildings and fill them with quilts ladies in the local quilting guilds have made, and erect tents in the central " courthouse green" area for vendors of quilting supplies and other sewing materials.

Welcome to the show!

They even set up chairs in one tent and host lectures on various quilting topics every hour or so. Last year, our favorite lecture was about how to judge the age of a quilt by examining the fabrics and the style of quilt (my favorite tip: a quilt is only as old as it's most recent fabric...duh, right? Well, I'd not really thought of that before and it was a revelation to me!). The entry fee for the show is a whopping two dollars, which covers admission for both days of the show...not quite free, but close. I LOVE it!

I'd love to sit here with a friend and while the afternoon away...

This year, my mom and I attended on Friday, since the forecast was rain for all day Saturday (and rain all day it did!), and antique (or new) quilts and rain do not mix well...neither does rain encourage two ladies to have a good time in the out of doors, if the general preference is to stay dry.

Looking for that special something...Do I need another project? 

Hmmmm....

On our way to the show, we checked out the quilting store and a new antique store, but had no luck finding treasures in either place. That's okay, because I didn't really want to spend money, and if I'd found something charming, I might have had to get it!

Mom found this interesting piece using small yo-yos, but alas, it was not for sale. I did, however, get a photo, so now I can copy it!

Once we got to the show, we checked out the indoor display of how quilts had been used historically to aid in slaves find their way using The Underground Railroad. There was an appraiser there, too, who for a fee would look at old quilts and give you an approximate value for them.

The Flying Geese pattern told them to go in the direction the geese were migrating.

In an adjacent area, we met a lovely lady who told me some fascinating facts about our local area, and offered us some interesting handouts to send with Flat Stanley when we send him off next week. I got a coloring book of local sites for my kids to use, and a few postcards, too.

Next, we wandered around the booths, looking at the beautiful fabrics in a myriad of colors. There were dozens of interesting and colorful books you could buy on the topics of quilting and sewing, a wide assortment of tools, and many well-crafted items you could snap up.

Mom bought a book, and she was kind enough to also buy an issue of Mary Jane's Farm for us to share because it talked about quilting, not to mention all the lovely photos and the articles about canning and other country topics in it.

One of these days I need to subscribe to this magazine...now there's a good Christmas gift idea!

Our last stop at the quilt show was to check out the display of quilts people had made during the year at various quilting guild meetings. Some of them were a bit intimidating to an amateur like myself, but they were all impressive works of art.

This was my favorite. It is a quilt depicting the artist's home and neighborhood. Doesn't it look like somewhere you'd like to visit?

There were also some that were family heirlooms folks had been kind enough to share, and it was fascinating to read the stories behind how different ladies had chosen their patterns, fabrics, or the histories behind the older quilts.

These were two of our favorites: the one on the top depicts the state flowers for all fifty states. The one on the bottom shows gorgeous and colorful butterflies and irises. I LOVE that combination!

On our way out we stopped at the County Museum to pick up a sticker for our county tour sheet. The kind lady from our earlier stop had clued me in to the fact that various local stops keep stickers which you collect and put on a sheet of paper, then once you have collected a certain number, you send it in and get a prize. Cool, huh?! I collected three just in the one trip, and plan to get more with the kids when we use our flea market find of a local tour guidebook to explore our town over the next year.

We walked back toward the car, and I convinced Nanny to let me treat her to lunch at my favorite restaurant. It has a very classy decor, they play mellow Sinatra-style tunes (sometimes sung by a favorite of mine, Michael Buble, and other times, by the original Rat Pack members), and the service is always excellent. The food is absolutely divine...I ordered my favorite, the quiche-of-the-day (from Quiche Lorraine to Vegetarian Quiche...all are delicious), served with a garden salad, and Nanny had another local favorite, the fish and chips. Topped off with a cold raspberry sweet tea, it was a marvelous end to a refreshing day.

On our way to the restaurant, we passed one of the stops on our travel guide's tour...our fire department's fire hydrant.

Of course, all that quilting inspired me to work on my own quilts this week. I am not so ambitious at this point (or so brave) to think that I can take on the piecing and stitching of an entire quilt from scratch at this point, but I do like to "rescue" old quilts that I find at flea markets and yard sales for bargain prices. I usually don't spend more than twenty bucks or so on an old quilt (though I think the royal blue one below might have cost a bit more...it's my best one), and I do enjoy sitting down and mending the worn spots to give them a new lease on life. 

I worked on this one first, since it required the fewest repairs. Most of the problems were simply areas of stitching that had loosened and needed fixing. It looks like new now!

I am not so much a "put it on display" person, as a "use it for what it was made for" sort of person, so these are the blankets you will find being gently used on our beds or for picnics. I figure if they are still around after years of use by others, with care, they will last years more being used by us. One of these days, I'd like to learn more about the patterns and fabrics on these pieces, but for now, I am just having fun finding them, repairing them by hand, and giving them a home where they will be appreciated.

Since I finished the other quilt, I began working on these. They have more places that need patches and larger rips that need stitching...but they are nice, just the same. Not perfect, but then, neither am I!

Quilting is an art form that has been around for a long time and I am loving learning about it with my mom and my daughters. After we got back from the quilt show, Ladybug asked if she could make something while I stitched on my old quilts, so I found her two pieces of fabric and she is making a pillow for her dolls. 

From me to my girls, from my mom to me, generation to generation, the face of quilting may have changed (it's more commercialized now, and more of a hobby than a necessity), but the appreciation of it and the joy to be found in it remains the same.

Do you quilt? If you do, please share a link to your own quilting stories in the comments section. I'd love to hear what you have to say!

Blessings,

Heather

Are You a Plugged-In Parent?

Are you plugged-in to what your kids are watching, listening to, viewing online, playing, and/or reading these days? Or are they plugged-in all the time while you are tuned out? Hopefully, it is the former rather than the latter. These days, if you are not aware what your kids are getting their minds into, you are going to find yourself in a pickle sooner or later, fielding at the very least bad attitudes such as self-centeredness, consumerism, and disrespectful behavior, or at the worst anti-social behaviors and downright destructive bad habits. Most parents, I think, would say that they want their kids to have the best chance at living a life better than the one they have lived, making fewer mistakes and having more opportunities. However, unless we, as parents, monitor what goes into our kids, we have no hope of impacting what comes out.

It used to be that parents and extended family, church members and community leaders were the strongest influences on the lives of our children...the people kids interacted with every day on a personal level. Nowadays, our world is growing technologically by leaps and bounds, and month by month the distance between two people on different continents gets smaller thanks to Twitter, Facebook, chat rooms, and other social networking applications. At the same time, the anonymity of computer interfacing has removed some of the charm and the benefits that living in actual small communities used to bring...accountability, face-to-face connectedness, and a group identity. All over the globe, children are looking for somewhere to belong, something to identify with, someone to look up to, and unless we, the parents, provide the appropriate outlet for that need, kids today can find plenty of groups with which they can choose from to align themselves...from vampires to witches, party boys to rebels, slick schemers to anti-social manipulators...all in full color, some in three-D, on the silver screen or 52" flat screen television (not to mention on the iPod, radio, computer screen, and even in good old books).

Turn on your television any time, day or night, and you will find shows that glorify (and color as acceptable) all sorts of behaviors that used to be considered deviant and undesirable...excessive drinking, smoking, cheating, lying, stealing, cursing, disrespect, occult practices, and immorality, to name a few. Turn on your computer or your radio, and you will find more of the same. And I'm not only referring to the myriad of programs available on cable television and film these days...we are talking network TV, and even the commercials (and halftime shows of your favorite sporting events) in between the main events...events that are often considered to be "family friendly." It is sad that the safe society we once took for granted has deviated so far from wholesome as to be dangerous to our children's minds and well-being on a daily basis. It used to be that if you told your kids to avoid a particular part of town, walk straight home, and they complied, you'd know they were in a "safe zone." Other people would watch out for your child, and they had a reasonable chance to arrive at home unscarred and unharmed. Now our own homes aren't even a safe zone, what with all the dangers lurking in that black cable box, just beyond the modem, or drifting on the radio waves.

But there is hope. You CAN make your home a safe zone once again, and it doesn't take building an enormous garrison to guard the family from the invading mind-raiders. All it takes is a bit of discernment, discretion, and a solid decision to tame the TV, movie, music,computer, and other media monsters that lurk just beyond the walls. My first suggestion is to pray. Pray hard for the Lord to change your heart and for Him to challenge you in areas of your own media diet. What do you take in in an average week that you might not want your kids to digest? I remember when my oldest was becoming a fluent reader and he started reading the titles of books I had on the bookshelf in our library. At one point, I enjoyed reading books from Dean Koontz and other thriller authors. Now, I've never watched a horror movie, but for some reason, I went through a season when I liked reading those scary books (I was teaching 8th graders at the time and it was what they were into, so I think I was trying to meet them on their level and got caught up in it....a mistake). Once Bubba started sounding out those creepy titles, I realized that I didn't want him reading that stuff, so I got rid of it, and I haven't honestly missed it since.

Now, I am not saying that YOU in particular need to get rid of scary stories like I did (or whatever...that's between you and God, not up to me), but whatever God puts on your heart, that is what you need to do. Once you have taken care of yourself, then you can start dealing with your kids. Then you can talk to them from a heart that has already faced the tough task of cleansing out the less desirable areas and adding to the more desirable ones. Here's another bit af advice: Don't just remove something and leave a void behind. When you work on taking something out (or making it less prevalent), put something else in its place of equal interest. Add to it by making the new thing something you do together, which makes the new option of greater appeal than the old one, since now they get to have your involvement and are not just "a man alone on an island." If you take something away without giving something good to replace it, the bad thing you removed is more likely to come back and/or be missed.

There are many resources out there to help you on your journey to remove the bad and replace it with the good...or even to remove the less redeeming and replace it with the more redeeming. One I discovered years ago that has stood our family in good stead is pluggedin.com, a ministry of Focus on the Family. This website offers reviews of current and popular movies in a VERY detailed fashion. The reviewers will tell you how the movie comes across from a moral standpoint, how many incidents of violence (and what type), how many curse words (and which ones), how many compromising situations (and how much is shown), what type of music is played on the soundtrack (and what words are in the lyrics), and much more. Then the reviewer will give you a plot summary, evaluate it for redeeming lessons it might teach (or un-redeeming ones it shares), and suggest if it is appropriate for certain age groups. Time and again we have turned away from viewing movies that looked pretty good based on the trailers, only to find out that what was shown on the trailers was the only good content in the movie! Once Tex asked if he could go see a film that was highly advertised for his age group (he is 13), and after looking it up and finding out that it had the f- word over two dozen times, among many other curse words and suggestive scenes, the answer was a clear, "NO!"

Thankfully, for our family, these sort of decisions do not currently cause problems as Tex wants to guard his own heart as much as we do, but if we were in a situation where we had conflicts over this sort of thing, I would recommend Bob Walsewski's book (he's the founder of plugged in online), Plugged-In Parenting, as a good place to start figuring out how to approach the topic. Unlike many books you will find out there today which tell you exactly where you need to draw the line (fantasy books or no fantasy books, books written before 1940 only, absolutely no television or movies, G rated movies only, classical music or religious music only, etc.), this book gives you guidelines for how to find your family's standards (based on God's, of course) and then offers tools to help you enforce them.

Mr. Waliszewski also offers valuable statistics regarding the media and its impact on our lives that will help you grasp the gravity of this problem ("By the age of six, the average American child has spent more hours watching the tube than he will spend speaking to his father in his lifetime.") and understand the harm it can do to your family. He will encourage you to take steps to control the problem before it becomes a problem (Chapter Four "It Starts With the Heart" and Chapter Five "Preparing Them With Principles"), or explain how to take control of the problem if it is already one in your own household (Chapter Six "Ten Things You Can Do To End Fights Over Family Entertainment" and Chapter Seven "Your Family Entertainment Constitution").

When I read this book, I found myself feeling challenged, even though I feel we are already on a pretty good path to controlling media consumption in our home (no cable TV, one TV in the house, limits on movies and shows viewed, approved music on iPods only, pre-approved authors and pre-screened books only, computers in public areas). There are still many areas we can improve upon, and Mr. Waliszewski's ideas for tackling the problem of controlling media consumption as a family were clear to understand and easy to apply. He doesn't tell you exactly which movies or music to cut out (though he is clear on what movies and music are unwholesome...he just lets you figure out if what you are listening to fits that bill), or how much TV watching is the "right" amount, but he gives you general ideas to help you decide your family's path based on what you feel the Lord is leading you to do based upon what you know of your children and their hearts (as well as your own). 


However, while staying fairly unspecific (leaving the decision-making up to you), he doesn't leave you up in the air with no clue as to how to proceed...His useful suggestions are realistic, and his wise advice is invaluable. Reading the book is like talking with a very wise father or grandfather...warm, yet convicting. Firm, yet understanding. He says, "We're in a battle for our kids' hearts and minds. We seem to be outgunned, outmanned, and outspent. But the God who can rout an army with Gideon's 300 and flatten a giant with a boy's slingshot can use our efforts to protect our families and their relationship with God."


I highly recommend Plugged-in Parenting by Bob Walisewski. It should be a must read for any family, and the subject would best be tackled BEFORE you have kids, not after (but it is never too late to start monitoring what you watch, read, and play!) Actually, I think the book would make a great Bible study, if you could find a group of interested parents who would help hold each other accountable (challenging without judging). What an incredible force for good that could be if an entire church, or large study group, were to tackle taming the media monster all at once...together.

Honestly, if you look at your internet choices, your social media choices, your reading choices, your TV and movie viewing choices, can you honestly say that there is absolutely nothing you would cringe at if Jesus (or your grandmother) walked in while you were watching it? If you can say that you would honestly not hesitate to recommend anything you or your kids have watched in the last six-months to your pastor (assuming he makes Godly choices), then maybe you do not need this book, but it would be a useful tool for anyone else: mother, father, sister, brother, grandson, granddaughter, grandparent, aunt or uncle, teacher, cousin, friend, wife, or husband. It would also make an excellent addition to any personal or church library. I hope you will consider checking it out and thinking about what it has to say.


Blessings,


Heather


I recieved a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review of it here on my blog. All the opinions you read here are based on my own reading of and experiences with this book, and reflect my true impressions of it.

Menu Plan Monday

We are feeling a bit like having a fiesta this week (don't ask me why), but we all decided that the theme of the week is going to be food with a Mexican flair. 

Monday: Chicken Enchilladas with Spanish rice
Tuesday: Taco Tuesday
Wednesday: Black Bean, lettuce, and tomato wrap ups
Thursday: Triple Decker Tortillas
Friday: Nacho night
Saturday: Cheese Quesadillas served with refried beans
Sunday: Mexican Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken

Mexican Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken

1 package chicken breast tenders, salted lightly
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can seasoned black beans, drained
1 can Rotel (or other mexican seasoned) diced tomatoes, drained
1 cup frozen corn
1 tbs taco seasoning

Put all ingredients in crock pot. Cover. Cook on high for three hours or so. Serve on top of white rice, covered with shredded Mexican mix cheese, and sour cream, lettuce, and tomato on side.

Our big plans for the week include:


Monday: make pear butter
Tuesday: Chess club and library day
Wednesday: church
Thursday: movie screening (look for the review soon)
Friday: Field Trip to the Living Museum
Saturday: Quilt Show with my mom.
Sunday: church and rest

A Fun Read-Aloud (or two):

To go along with our study of the Egyptians, we are reading Mummies in the Morning from the Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne. There is an accompanying study guide, which we will read, too, probably during school reading time (usually over lunch, though this topic may not be ideal lunch fare!). So far we have been enjoying our Egypt studies, and plan to stick to this topic for another few weeks. or as long as the little ones maintain their interest in the subject. I have to admit that while we are having fun reading many living books and watching numerous films to become familiar with the topic, we haven't added much to our formal timeline as of yet. The days are young and we still have a lapbook to complete and several projects ahead. Yay!...I am thinking that before our friend Flat Stanley leaves us at the end of this week, that maybe he needs to get wrapped up like a mummy...now wouldn't that be fun? Stay tuned!



Blessings,


Heather

Resting From Our Labors

Happy Labor Day! 

How did you rest from your labors?

We went swimming...

It has been a crazy few weeks around here. Okay, who am I kidding? It has been a crazy few YEARS around here. One thing leads to another, which leads to ten more things that need to be done, and each step forward is often followed by three steps back. From Nor'easters to Hurricanes, unexpected arrivals (like baby ponies!) to expected arrivals (like new babies...specifically, Boo), uncertain health (my predictably bad migraines) to certainties such as the fact that Boo can and will get into everything and that kids (of all ages) are just plain old good at making messes...at times it can seem like all we do around here is work, work, work. In fact, once you get into a groove of working, I find, sometimes it is hard to stop! Do you ever find that to be true?

Well, anyhow, Labor Day rolled around and Hubby was granted a day off to do as he pleased. We had discussed several options (one of them WAS, in fact, working more...thankfully, we chose to NOT do that one!), and a few hiccups derailed our best plans, so we wound up running with our backup plan, which was to take the kids to a military facility in the next town that has an indoor pool with a kids area and a slide that we knew they'd enjoy. The idea was for us to all relax as a family and appreciate some well-earned rest from our many labors.

I'm not saying anything about whether the choice to take five kids (four under the age of 8, with four non-swimmers) to a pool was the most restful idea, but it was fun for all of us. Oddly enough, the usually crowded pool was practically deserted (several times we were the only family there, with no more than two other families joining us at any given time), and the choice of an indoor pool turned out to be perfect since it started raining heavily about two hours into our visit (but no lightning, so we were allowed to stay in).

It is a very nice facility. Thanks to all the kind folks who worked on the Labor Day holiday so we could rest and have fun, and to the military for providing this lovely place for families to enjoy.

This particular pool has a lazy river around a whirlpool, a slide that is several stories tall, a raining mushroom, and a large kids' area. There is an adjacent lap pool, but nobody was using it, so we just stayed in the fun zone. There were chairs aplenty to choose from, so we picked a set near the long wall of windows so Boo would have something to look at if he had to have a time out of the water (he did...sigh).

Even during "time out" for Boo, it was relaxing. It's something about the water, the warmth, or the sunlight (without the bugs)...or the combination of the three with a dose of heart-warming laughter in the background.

Hubby, Tex, and I took turns taking the Amigos around the lazy river and working on pre-swimming skills with them (we don't have an affordable family pool conveniently close by, or we'd have taught them to swim by now, as Hubby LOVES to swim), then we each took turns with Tex going down the huge slide (yes, I went, too, even though the water got up my nose and made my head hurt a time or two! It was awesome!! Except for the water up my nose, that is).

I tried several times to get a picture of someone shooting off of the slide, but all I kept coming up with were feet. These feet belong to Tex.

The kids enjoyed the raining mushroom immensely, even though Cowboy, who dislikes showers (the water in his face bothers him) was a bit shy about it at first. However, a game of sharks and minnows, in which being inside the mushroom gave you safety, cured him of that particular fear fairly speedily.

The neatest thing (to me) was that since this trip was sort of a last minute back up plan, I was not entirely prepared for it and lacked the usual bag of pool toys and various entertainments that I would have preferred to drag along. You know, kids like to be entertained and always be prepared and all that...right? Anyhow, lacking toys of the modern sort, I reverted to my mom and dad's old "give 'em a penny and have them dive for it" (to get them used to getting their faces wet and holding their breath for short amounts of time) game, and they LOVED it!! Sometimes they would toss their own penny or two and see for how long they could "dive down" to get it (we were in the 2 foot area), and other times I would scatter all ten pennies while they closed their eyes and they'd see who could find the most. It warmed my heart when Ladybug saw that Firefly wasn't getting as many pennies, so she started giving up her pennies to her, and worked with her instead. What an awesome big sister!

Ten tiny pennies entertained my four Amigos, plus several other random kids for almost two hours! That and the directions for playing Marco Polo (which I gave to the little ones, but apparently, the bigger crowd was listening, and Tex got three older boys who showed up to play it with him in the deeper areas of the pool) and Sharks and Minnows stood us in good stead for hours (four to be exact). No toys required. What water games do you play in your neck of the woods?

Our short snack break turned into a classic "I wonder if anything will come out of the machines if I jiggle the knobs" session...initiated by guess who? Yup. Boo. Of course. He gets into everything.

During one of the mandatory ten minute breaks, we took time out for a snack of granola bars, Capri Sun drinks, and some story-telling with Daddy around the table...Another non-toy-requiring family fun activity. I love it! Then I realized, that we were all getting into the story telling except for Tex, who had declined to sit with us and instead sat alone at the far end of the snack area. Hmmmm. At first I was wondering if I should feel hurt, or worried, but then I realized that the one TV in the place was tuned to one of the Star Wars movies...(I do not know which one, as I am the one non-afficianado). Around our house, anything Star Wars equates to an irresistible force, so I let him stay there. After all, we were there to relax, and laughing at one of his favorite movies for a while helped him to relax. He works hard all week, too, and deserves a break that is right up his alley.  Everyone is different, and that's okay.

I am thinking that this pool may need to become a monthly visit for us. I think the kids would like it a lot, and in spite of the fact that I really did not get to do much relaxing (if you think watching kids on land is tough...try doing it in the water!), I still felt as if I was more relaxed when I left than when I arrived. And it certainly wore my happy campers out. Three of them fell asleep on the way home (which was fine, since we stuck them in pajamas when we changed their clothes for the trip home), and went to bed as soon as they ate dinner. I know I slept soundly that night. It was a well-earned rest for all of us.

Happy Labor Day to all of you. I hope you had a pleasant rest from your labors.


Blessings,


Heather

This is the one Amigo who was not tired out from all of the water fun. She was feeling goofy instead, and had to demonstrate her considerable aptitude for contortion on the way home. 

She's a silly, but very sweet (and talented) girl!

Fun Friday

Friday Fun School at Ben & Me

We had a fun Friday, how about you? 

One of my goals for this school year is to get our required work done in four days each week so we can take Fridays off to go places (like the library or a field trip) or just do more creative sorts of things at home (like games, arts and crafts, movies). You might want to check out my post of twenty ideas the kids came up with for fun things to do during Friday Fun School.

Today I got stuck with a migraine, as the weather is very overcast and it is threatening to rain all weekend, so I didn't have the energy or focus to go all out or to go out at all. Thus, I came up with simple, not too rowdy things they could do fairly independently. 

Here they are:

The Three Amigos got to try out the new Creative Writing Briefcase I made for them. I found an old, hard briefcase at a thrift store very cheap, so I snagged it with the idea of using it as a storage container. I stocked the Writing Suitcase with new boxes of markers, Twistable Crayola Crayons (I love those things), a 24 pack of colored pencils, scissors, construction paper, glue, stickers, white out, a ruler, stencils, pads of primary story paper (the kind with a space to draw) and primary lined paper, and surplus stationery I have collected over the years. I'd like to add stamping supplies eventually, but I figured that this was a good start.

I offered a prize to anyone who used the suitcase, and Ladybug was the first to give it a try. She drew a picture of a lion on yellow construction paper and cut it out, then she wrote a story about Sandylion, a happy lion who loved kids, and missed them when the zoo was closed. She plans to add more pages tomorrow or Tuesday (we are taking Monday off, since Daddy will be home!) I love your story, Ladybug. You are so creative!

Firefly also participated in that challenge, and chose to use the construction paper to make a card to send one of her grandmas. I try to encourage REAL letter writing, and not just using email and texting as a way of communicating in written form...especially when older relatives are concerned. Good job, sweet Firefly!

I also issued a challenge that whoever read the most books that day would win a prize (I found some candy, and it is a rare treat at our house). Cowboy was the one who jumped on that challenge and read five books out loud to Firefly and Boo. Way to go, Cowboy!

The Three Amigos also had time to play their favorite online games, such as Bibletown, Starfall, and Reading Eggs. Boo watched some of the time, and then he watch Signing Time (My First Signs) with Firefly and took a nap the rest of the time. It was sort of a lazy day.

We plan to play a board game tonight after supper. They like Cat in the Hat: I Can Do That! a lot, so I think that will be the one we try. Either that one or Charades for Kids. The cards are simple enough in that charades game that the little ones can read them, so they do not have to be on a team (except for Firefly and Boo), and they like that.

Tex did work on his Khan Academy math review today, and read some of his Left Behind book (he decided to study Revelation this year...with the earthquakes and hurricanes and forest fires, oh my! it seems rather timely). I am impressed that he is so interested in learning more about that special book of the Bible. Did you know he has read it through three times already? He's awesome.

He also logged onto Brain Pop and played Executive Command, a great game about how our government works. Then he tried out a game on AE Mystery Spot for another fun, but science related, game. 

He played around with our new Scruble Cube some in the afternoon. I am no better with it than I ever was with a Rubik's Cube, but he seems to be catching on fairly easily. I think we will play Scrabble with him after the little ones are in bed. I whomped the boys during the hurricane (okay, I really only won by about twenty points, and only because I managed to go out first and they had lots of points to add to mine...but I started out with five "i"s, an e, and a u, so what can you expect!)...or, if my migraine persists, his dad can play chess with him. He'd like that since the aftermath of the hurricane (no power) caused him to miss chess club this week. Bummer.

We plan to find a National Geographic sort of movie about the pyramids at Giza on Netflix, or one about the pharaohs, as we are studying Egypt right now. I will be reading from Boy of the Pyramids tonight during dinner.

Well, dinner is in the crockpot (it's Fiesta Chicken Pronto from Gooseberry Patch served with rice..and I did add corn and substitute Rotel diced tomatoes for salsa since I was out of salsa...it's great!) and the boys are all on their way to the dump with Daddy. That gives the girls a few minutes to clean up and set the table, and to pick out the games and movie for the evening. I hope you are all having a Fun Friday, like we are!!

Blessings,

Heather