Organizing Books

I know this is a Works for Me WEDNESDAY post and it is now Thursday but hey... that's what my life is like right now :) Always playing catch up. With 3 and 3/4 kids I feel like I play catch up with the dishes, the laundry, school prep... just about everything. SO when I find something that works for me I get really excited. We have books... lots of books... from board books to chapter books cause that's the stages we are at right now. The kids have a book shelf which they share but it wasn't working out so well...mainly because we couldn't keep it organized. KaiKai always did a great job tidying it up but it seemed like 5 minutes later it would be a mess again. Buttercup has also recently taken to filling a shopping bag with books and taking them all over the house... putting them back neatly is always a little challenging for her... hence the chaos on the bookshelf. One evening this week as I went to tidy it... yet again I started to realise how many books we had that we hadn't read, or hadn't read for a long time... only because they were usually buried under other books. I decide that I had had enough of the chaos. I remembered reading on a few blogs (don't remember which ones) how they only put out a few books for their kids each week and rotated them. I sorted the books according to age appropriateness/ reading level etc. and took out 10 books for each child. I got 3 baskets and labeled them and put in the books for the week. Each Sunday I will switch out some or all of the books so that they always have something fresh to read. The rest are stored in a convenient place and will now have a chance to be read!! Not an earth shattering idea, but it WORKS FOR ME (and that makes me happy:)!



If you want to see what is working for others check out We are THAT Family where Kristin host the Works for Me Wednesday blog carnival each week.

Raising Rock Stars: Our Memory Verse Book

The kids have been learning Bible verses from the time they have been old enough to talk. When Kai Kai was about 2, I was singing some nursery rhymes with him and he knew lots of the words... I remember thinking that if he could learn nursery rhymes, he could learn the Word of God. So then and there I taught him his first verse and we haven't looked back! We often put actions with the verses so both LiLi and Buttercup knew the actions to verses before they could talk. I am so glad we are helping them "hide His word in their hearts!"

About a month ago I got this idea from Mama Jenn to make Bible verse memory books out of small photo albums. Up to now we have had flash card type memory verse cards that I had created in MS Word but we just kept them in a stack which meant one or two would go missing from time to time and they were beginning to look tattered. I thought it was a perfect way to keep them all together. I went to our local dollar store (or should I say $2.50 store... but that's another story...) but all they had were these...

...in my opinion quite gaudy, not at all cute and completely not the theme that I was looking for. I bought them anyway with hopes that I could do something with them... for the price ($3.00 each... I tell you it shouldn't be called the dollar store) I wasn't going to find anything else on the island and I didn't want to wait until someone was traveling.

So with the help of some ModPodge, tacky glue, scrapbook paper and other necessary tools,

I was able to transform one into this...

I was quite please how it turned out and we are all happy to have all our memory verses in one place.

Thanks Mama Jenn for a great idea!

If you have little ones, remember it's never to early to start teaching them God's word. Setting verses to music is another way to help them learn... we are currently using Songs for Saplings in conjunction with our letter of the week during group time and have also used Steve Green's "Hide 'em In Your Heart CD's." Fill up your little sponges with "living water!"

If you want to find out how others are "Raising their Rock Stars" click here.

School On The Road

Do you have a favourite day of the week? I don't know which day I like best... probably Friday or maybe Sunday, or even Saturday... maybe it changes from week to week, but I know for sure it definitely isn't Mondays...without a shadow of a doubt it is NOT Mondays!

I woke up this morning knowing that I didn't have the day planned out (busy weekend)... not feeling like being a homeschooling mom... wishing I could send the kids to school somewhere else... YES, I do have those days and you know what, it's okay.

JDF knew I was struggling so he suggested I take the kids on a field trip.. maybe a drive to Dockyard... it was a great idea (thanks Sweetie:) ... at least I'd get them out of the house but on the other hand I was feeling bad about not having lesson plans done, thinking the kids really should do some "school work" and not have a "free day". I prayed that God would guide our steps today. Admittedly even though I prayed, I wasn't all that hopeful that my mood would change or that the day would get easier. But God still worked through my lack of faith.

After breakfast I told the kids we were going on an adventure.. I still didn't know exactly what we were going to do... we got dressed, I packed fruit and lunch, some notepads, crayons and pencils, loaded the kids in the car and headed west.

It turned out to be a great morning! We had school on the road! Here's how it went...

MATH

While we were driving, the kids counted taxis, truck and bikes. I got KaiKai to take out his notepad and make tally marks for each vehicle that we saw. Once we got to Dockyard we used that information to:

• review the concepts of less and more (LiLi)
• create word problems and practice subtraction. (KaiKai)

KaiKai read and recorded the time on the clock at the clocktower in his note pad.

SPELLING

The boys enjoyed trying to spell the parishes we drove through.

LANGUAGE

KaiKai wrote sentences about how many of each vehicle they counted.

Once in Dockyard we looked around at signs. I got Kai Kai to look for compound words, LiLi to copy letters that he saw.. he was even able to read a few words.

Buttercup looked for different colours around us and then used her crayons and notepad to record the colours she spotted.

ART

I gave each child an opportunity to draw something they could see around them... they drew boats and vans.

We had a fruit break and then headed to Ma & Pa's house to eat our lunch.. they even got to watch Sesame Street with Pa.

As we headed home, I thought back over the morning and thanked God for making it a great one. It was definitely Him leading me... and Monday wasn't so bad this week!