We Build It: An Impromptu Family Time Game

When our family is actually all home together after dinner at the same time, we sometimes play games as part of our quest to SMILE.  Not too long ago, we came up with ain impromptu post-dinner family time game that was a big hit.

We Build It

A Family Time Game that Promotes Early Reading, Early Math, Creative Thinking and Cooperation

Materials

·       a basket or bin of SmartMax Extreme (one of our favorite Timberdoodle splurges ever; other building materials could work too, such as pipe cleaners, Tinker Toys or Wikki Stix)

·         a spinner with numerals on it (We have one from an old Game of Life with missing pieces that we tossed. We like its 3-D aspect and the fact that it has numerals 1-10 on it.) 

·        scrap paper with target words written on them (We used basic CVC words, with some challenge words and words from favorite DK Star Wars early readers thrown in, such as "blaster", which Nina surprised us by reading!)

·         imagination



a blaster gun

Goal

Cooperatively design and build a creative structure.

Building a Star Wars Blaster

Set Up

1. Place bin of building toys and deck of word cards in the center of all players.
2. Spin to see who will go first.
3. Have Player One draw and read a card.

Simple Steps to Play

1. Player One draws a word card and reads it.  Whatever it says is the inspiration for what the group will build.
2. Player One spins the spinner and chooses the same number of pieces from the building toy pile as is shown on the spinner.
3. Player One begins building the structure with those pieces.
4. Player Two spins the spinner, chooses pieces according to the number shown and adds to the structure.  (No one may take another player’s pieces off the structure.)
5. Play continues as such until a player finishes adding his or her pieces to the structure and suggests that the structure is complete.  when this happens, the other players must come to a consensus of if the structure is, indeed, complete, or it other turn should be taken to complete it.
6. Once a structure is complete, Player Two begins a new round by drawing a word card.
 

Skills

• Reading (decoding phonics, recognizing sight words or both)
• Fine Motor Skills (picking up cards, spinning spinner and manipulating building pieces)
• Numeracy (recognizing numbers, adding pieces, etc.)
• Creative Thinking (creating and adapting structure)
• Cooperation/Teamwork (working together to create a design)
• Problem Solving and Flexibility (figuring out how to adapt the design someone else has begun match the one you envision in your own mind)
• Focus (concentrating on the goal of building the structure to match the word card)

Quick Tips/Extensions

• If the youngest children in the family don't get how to play, simply give them a chance to add a few pieces on theri own.
• This game can work for individual play, too.  After playing as a group, my children liked simply reading cards, spinning the spinner and building creations singly at times while I was occupied with chores.
• To encourage crossing the midline,  set bin of buildable pieces on one side of the playing space and designate the other side as the building area.
• For children who need extra proprioception, set spinner and pieces at one end of a hallway or room and a tray for building on at the other.

We’d love to hear your ideas for variations an extensions of this game, as well as TV-free ways you enjoy post-dinner for family time!

Fold or Hold: Giving Voice and Choice to Little Ones at Mealtime Prayers

Hold, please.

“Fold or hold?”

 When Jack was but an infant laying next to us as we pegged prayer to our Breakfast/Morning Circle time, he began hearing this simple question and, then, witnessing his older siblings exercise their power to choose whether they wanted to offer a mealtime blessing while introspectively folding their own hands in front of themselves or holding one another’s hands in a circle of love.

One night last month, Jack made his response to the question very clear before it was even asked. 

As Daddy filled water glasses and I transferred food from stovetop pots to serving dishes, Nina and Luke fingered appetizers.  Not Jack. He piped up with an eager noise and held his hands out intently.  His smile was as wide as his arms were as they reached to hold his sibling’s hands during a mealtime blessing. 

At that moment, it struck me: The simple ritual of our pre-grace question had given our youngest child a way to communicate his desire to pray.  Even though Jack has mastered only a few spoken words as of yet, that night he began asking the rest of us to join him in prayer.

It seems that the Lord took the tool of “Fold or Hold”, that I began using a few years ago at mealtime to offer Luke and Nina some choice an ownership regarding grace, and morphed it into a way for our virtually speech-less Jack to have a “voice” at mealtimes.

Wow.

The amazing ways He magnifies our simple efforts never cease to amaze me.

If you have a regular opportunity to pray alongside young children, whether it be at mealtimes or another time, I encourage you to try the Fold or Hold strategy.  As you do so, who knows how He will transform the experience.

I would like to thank readers who have patiently waited for over a month this series to begin again after my recent computer break down and would also like to Elaine, at Commotion from the Ocean of Life and Elisa, at Tercets, for linking up with the last Training Happy Hearts: A Call to Faith Formation for Young Children.

June 2012 Monthly Menu Plan and Shopping List (for Special Diet)

Okay, if anyone has them, bring them on:  I want some spring/summer gluten-free, casein-free, preservative-free, artificial-dye free recipes and meal combos that won't make me a slave to my kitchen all summer AND that my kids will eat. (If it were just me and Mike, I'd be all set with salads, fruit, smoothies and sides of protein, but with my kiddoes... well, I am befuddled.)

The other day as my eyes went back and forth between our almost bare refrigerator and the wall calendar page, which was almost ready to be turned,I posted this message on my personal Facebook page. I was feeling discouraged as a grocery trip to purchase ingredients for part of another month's worth of the same repertoire of "special diet" foods that we have been eating for six months loomed ahead.

Friends and family jumped in with suggestions, empathy and the reply that made me laugh: " Lol. Martianne. That's called filtered water!" 

The Facebook conversation was just what I needed to get motivated and, over the next day or two, I created our June 2012 Menu Plan and Shopping Lists, which may be a little ambitious and not-quite economical and are sprinkled with typos, but which happily accounts for the change in menu repertoire that I desired.

Despite the menu and accompanying shopping list being less than perfect, I am sharing them here in case anyone else needs some special diet menu ideas or just wants to try out some new recipes.  To access my June 2012 Menu Plan an Shopping Lists, click here.  (Really!  The links should work now.  Thank you, Elisa, for pointing out that it was broken.)

And, of course, if you have favorite recipes, tips or menu ideas for eating mostly unprocessed, GFCF, additive/preservative/artificial flavor and dye-free stuff, please share in a comment!  I am always seeking new inspiration.

P.S.  Please forgive the lack of images in recent posts.  I am still sorting things out after my last computer "death" and have not gotten back access to old images nor downloaded any new ones to choose from.  Visual interest will return to this blog in good time.

This post is linked to I'm an Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Monday, where anyone with time can find inspiration and recipe ideas.

Seeing It's Time...

Here I sit in the corner of my living room.

Around me I see evidence of life -- messy but blessed. 

The couch is pulled out because earlier my children wanted to access their toy shelves, which are temporarily housed behind it.  They worked their muscles to it happen, getting in some natural heavy work first thing this morning.

There are small puddles of water trailing from our bathroom to the low cupboard in front of our living room window, which my children use as a play table.  Why?  Because my two youngest "carefully" carried play pots of water over to set up a pretend meal.  Self-directed dramatic play and cooperative conversation at its best -- with some practical life skills thrown in.

In every direction I see piles -- of clothing, boxes, play things, learning things, work items.  Stuff I need to sort, organize, tend to, gift forward.  Each pile is a cairn directing a a path I could take today.  Or one I will delay at least until nightfall.

On my lap is the computer that beckoned me to take up blogging again this morning after a month long haitus when my last computer's motherboard went.  I am so exicted to be able to blog again that my laptop tempts me to spent far too much time doing so.  But, the month's break -- and all that did and did not get don durin it -- helped me see a need for more intentional balance.   I cannot give into temptation to spend too much time in front of a screen and not enough engaged in real life. 

Outside the windows, I see sunshine, blue skies, green leaves dancing in the breeze...  I see an invitation to enjoy the day to the fullest.  Living life in its full glory with my children.

I am about  to accept that invitation -- to act on freedom afforded to my family through our choice to homeschool.

The mess of our "home" can be brought into better order when the Lord is not inviting us outside with such welcoming allure.

The "school" we attend does not demand that we remain clositered in an indoor learning space, occassionally day dreaming as we gaze out to a day we wish we could get outside into.

Nope, today homeschool does not mean attending to home, plus school.  Rather it means that home's cool.  Or, more literally, delightfully warm.

Here we go...

This post is being shared as part of Five Minute Friday, an intiative that I felt would be a great way to get back into blogging without allowing it to further tip the balance of I am trying to attain and maintain here at home.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Now that I stepped forward by creating a FB page for this blog, life has set me back a couple steps.  I woke up Thursday to a dead computer and learned yesterday that it cannot be resurrected.  So, until I can get a new computer, I will be taking a hiatus here.  Hopefully, it won't be long.

Our Homeschool Journey as Encapsulated in A Photo (a Button and a Facebook Page)

Just a quick note this morning to let folks know I have finally created a Facebook page for Training Happy Hearts.  Feel free to click on over and "like" it, as well as to let your friends and fellow homeschoolers (afterschoolers, parents, grandparents, etc.) know about it.

I have also finally created a button and button code grab box.  (Posted above, but, also, over there on the right sidebar for easy grabbing anytime.)  Let me tell you, it wasn't easy for this not-so-tech-savvy mama to do this, but I figured it out.

<a href="http://traininghappyhearts.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg519/traininghappyhearts/traininghappyhearts.jpg" alt="Training Happy Hears" width="125" height="125" /></a>

The photo Mike and I chose for the button might seem like an odd one to some, but as we scanned through many photos from the past year, we found this one symbolic of our journey.

• Marking the Way:  The rocks in the photo were stacked by my children like a cairn.  For those who aren't aware, cairns often mark hiking trails, much like this blog helps us (and we hope others) navigate the journey of training up children.

• Sunshine and The Beach:  The photo was taken at a local beach as sun streamed down on us.  The beach is a place that truly feeds our family's soul.  Every time we relax at and explore local beaches, we recognize anew how richly blessed we are by all the marvels of God's great design.  and sunshine?  We love it.  Plus, the way the ray of sun in the photo is shining down and expanding in the reflection in the water reminds us of how God's divine love can shine through each of us.

• Five on a Foundation:  The taller cairn in the photo has five rocks, just like we have five people in our family.  And, it rests on a large, solid foundation -- just as we balance and build our lives best when we rest in God.

• Three, Free and Forever Learning and Growing:  The smaller cairn has three rocks, just as we have three children.  It was the result of spontaneous concrete math problems that the children decided to explore on the day the photo was taken.  It was a gorgeous November day.  we had decided to go for an impromptu beach hike to enjoy the temperate weather, get some exercise and do some nature study.  Once on the beach, the children began stacking rocks, then other 3-d nature art.  They observed wildlife,  chatted with some photographers who happened to drop by the beach and then began practicing math problems with stones. Exploration and learning flowed naturally and the afternoon unfolded with a glorious balance of play and learning.  Thus, the stack of three reminds me of freedom our choice to homeschool affords us to take advantage of gorgeous days and to learn often in natural environments.

• Simplicity, Balance and Beauty:  although you'd never know it if you walked into our home, which remains a space-in-progress, a key vision our family shares for our physical, mental and spiritual spaces is one of simplicity, balance and beauty, all as a result of God's grace and pointing back towards God with gratitude.  This photo captures that vision for us.

So there you have it.  The symbolic story behind the button.  I will spare you the details of the frustrated-mama-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-create-the-thing story and leave it at that.  

Please feel free to share our button wherever you wish and, if you know of any free tutorials on how to make a similar blog header banner, let me know.  After all the finagling I had to do between Microsoft Office Picture Manager, Publisher, Photobucket and Blogger -- not to mention trying to read the foreign language that HTML code is to me -- while trying to create our new button and grab code, I am game for trying an easier method for updating my blog header!  I also welcome design advice, because, as you might have noticed, it is not my gift.

Thanks!

Paint Me A Poem -- Literacy, Music, Art, Faith and Sensory Diet in One

Nursery rhymes, painting techniques and images of Bible stories.  What do these three things have in common?  Each are being explored by preschoolers and me throughout the Paint Me A Poem course I am teaching at our spring homeschooling co-op.

Co-op began this past Monday, and, as always, experiencing it together is is a delight.  Faith, friends and fun wrapped up in a great morning of learning and sharing followed by lunch time with homeschool friends at a nearby playground.

This term, I am teaching a Dinosaur Delight class as well as the Paint Me a Poem course which started well and aims to help preschoolers:

• sharpen their language skills through examining the rhythm and rhyme of five classic nursery rhymes
• experiment with instruments through mimicking the cadence of simple poems.
• investigate art concepts related to color and movement through utilizing a variety of painting techniques and tools.
• sharpen their observation skills through participating in group picture studies. 
• become more familiar with characters and stories from the Bible through sharing prior knowledge and listening to new stories.

Plus, of course, get a full dose of sensory activities!

Today, I thought I would share the plan I created for the first day of the course as an example of how others might weave typical pre-k fare with faith formation.  It features:

• Jack and Jill
• Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well
• Golf Ball Painting 

To download the complete first Paint Me A Poem lesson plan to use with your children, just click here.

Please feel free to use and adapt the plan to suit your own needs and to direct others to this post to get a copy for themselves.  

Of course, if you do use the plan, I would be delighted if you would be sure to stop back here to leave a comment telling me how it went.