Lessons in Being Kind

   A couple months ago, I had the privilege of attending our local curriculum fair and listen to some wonderful speakers. I had decided to go to a Simply Charlotte Mason meeting because the theme was how to teach preschoolers. I did not expect to come away with so much wisdom on the importance of teaching good character. The simple yet new lesson (for me) was  to teach good character/habits first, and then home-school days will be smooth and enjoyable for all. Considering the behavioral troubles I was dealing with, especially between brothers, I was and will always be striving for good character in my boys (and me) and smooth days. We already have been reading about honesty and believing in yourself.

           This week we began learning what it really means to be kind. My boys memorized the above verse, and we read the story of Catherine Frye and The Value of Kindness. My boys have such beautiful, thoughtful hearts as they led this week in ways I did not expect. My 5 year old decided he wanted to write a letter to his Uncle Tom, who he had so much fun playing with the day before. We also wrote another dear family friend who was grieving over the loss of her husband. The boys also experienced their first funeral this week, and I was impressed by how they understood that it was a serious and important time and behaved very well. That in itself was a kindness and a lesson in respect.

Being the teacher, I of course used the letter writing as a school lesson as well. We learned how to write our address, about getting letters ready to mail, and of course wrote lots of words practicing our "ABC"s. They love to make cards for their Grandma and Aunt. Thank you sis for having a variety of letters in your name so that we had lots of practice:). 

The most important lesson that I wanted to teach was to be kind to your brother. I loved watching Tobin help his little brother write his name on his card. Jonah was so proud and glad to be included.

We ended our week with a science experiment, and a Bible lesson. As we watched the egg in vinegar bubble and change into something like a rubber ball, we talked about how we should be kind to everyone, and we should pick good friends that do not try to change us into bad people (that was the best I could do in trying to put the big idea into little people words). The idea and lesson came from this article:

http://comfyinthekitchen.com/2013/08/egg-experiment-and-a-biblical-lesson/

 24 hours later:

This science experiment was really cool and easy. The boys loved it! 

I just hope I can continue the theme of kindness through the school year by my own example and with Biblical truths at the ready. I find the only way to have this attitude is to begin my day in the Word. "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young has been a lifesaver and eyeopener for me in my morning devotions. My goal is to be authentic with my children, so I share my thoughts and daily readings with them, even though it can be very hard to explain what is on my heart. I just want them to hear and understand how we can live our lives for Jesus. One day at a time...

Kindergarten Science Experiment Failure

Let's start with the experiment that worked:

Congratulations, the wet bread in the test tube turned moldy.

 I didn't need to buy a science kit for this one as I am capable of letting bread mold on a weekly basis.

Yeast experiment failure #1: 

The first and second had sugar and yeast and water and were suppose to immediately bubble and overflow in time. The one labeled "c" did not have sugar and was suppose to do nothing. Guess I shouldn't have used that same stir stick for all three. Geez, Mom!

Yeast experiment failure #2: The balloon took three hours to blow up, when it was suppose to take 30 minutes. It at least popped in the end, so the boys thought that was cool. 

Yeast experiment failure #3: So this is when I finally realized that the kit came with bad yeast. Oh, by the way, this all came from "The Magic School Bus Germ Kit" off of Amazon. Don't buy it. That is suppose to be bread. 

Another reason not to buy the germ kit: It didn't even have the agar I needed to do the bacteria experiments. Thanks a lot Ms. Frizzle! (from Magic School Bus)

So I thought fast as my boy thinks we need to do an experiment daily. I vaguely remembered something about mixing oil and water to make a do it yourself lava lamp. All I did was oil and dyed water. I am pretty sure I was missing an ingredient or two. It looked cool for awhile.

Eventually it just looked like a lot of colored, wasted cooking oil. At least Tobin thought it was fun.

Here is another example of me trying to do an experiment based on memory. I was in the grocery store, and I saw some lettuce that was long and attached at the bottom, and I remembered seeing the pinterest idea of showing water moving through a plant. Only problem is, after actually reading the article, they used a certain kind of cabbage that attached at the top, showing the color moving in a really vivid and beautiful way. My experiment was a flop.

Go to the following link if you want to learn how to do it right:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mslaura/4023084459/

Lessons learned? Well, my 5 year old already knows I don't know everything. I learned to actually read directions and ingredients lists FIRST.

Most importantly: Remember to just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...they can't all end in failure! 

Learning about God's Beautiful Creation

The boys love singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands", and their favorite verse is "He's got you and me brother." We made our creation lapbook modified to show the brothers together.

here is the link to printables//lapbook idea: http://www.lapbooklessons.com/CreationLapbook.html

My favorite part on the lapbook, was  the boys' answers for what their favorite number was.

 Tobin said "#1 -  because he likes to win" (he is so my child).

 Jonah said "654-3211 - batman's phone number" (he is so his father's son). 

We enjoyed the beauty of the flowers God created:

we bagged up some of the blossoms to make out own watercolors

We crushed the petals, and then boiled them in water.

 They sorta turned out, but they weren't bright on paper. Still a cool science experiment.

We painted anyways with watercolors and q-tips. They loved making cool hairdos on the tops.

Neither child wanted to do the dot q-tip idea. Oh well.

My creative 3-year-old added some of the flower petals to his tree.

This week, our first full week back, served as a review. We reviewed creation, as that was the first week in My Father's World that we did back in January. I was surprised how much my 5 year old remembered. He knew day four was birds and fish before I even said it! We also reviewed alphabet and numbers, and we started our 100 day count and calendar again.

 I do plan on continuing My Father's World this fall...when it is L for Leaf and A for Apple time. For now, I am enjoying making my own unit studies. I am getting a taste of different styles of homeschool right now and sorta testing the waters. Planning unit studies is very time consuming, and hard to organize. That being said, it is enjoyable to customize what my boys are going to learn on a daily basis.
As always, this journey is... to be continued...

Tadpoles

After our butterflies flew away last spring, the boy's grandpa brought them a surprise from his pond: tadpoles! They are not the easiest animal to maintain. In the end we only had one turn into an itty-bitty frog.  Still it was really cool to watch and witness such an amazing transformation.

day 1: straight from the pond

 day 2

day 8

day 20

day 21

day 25

day 27- last day

L is for Leaf and B is for butterfly

Rewind back to March of this year. We had a great run with My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum from January through February. We learned about Creation week, went through our entire alphabet in lowercase, learned s is for sun, m is for moon, and then L is for leaf. Only problem was, there were no leaves on the trees the first week of March. So, after I spent thirty seconds explaining the leaves would be back soon, and that grass was a leaf....my 5 year old took matters into his own hands. He remembered the butterfly garden that came with the curriculum, and he decided it was time we talked about his favorite subject: bugs. We ordered our caterpillars, and we enjoyed the beautiful spring weather while we searched for God's smallest creatures. 

I don't think my kids will ever forget the butterfly experience we had. It was just amazing.

chasing butterflies

learning lifecycle with pasta

butterfly snack

                                        

painting their wings

 painting their toes to make catterpillars

our finished art

 little brother wearing his wings (big brother was too cool)