Saturday, October 25, 2008

Seek The Lord In Schooling Saturday


This girl has been tired. I'm lucky to be here doing this blog. I wanted so bad to get my husband rocks one in yesterday but there was not time. I'll save it for next week. If you have been over to Good, Better, Best at all, you know I'm working on some big goals. Adjusting to the exercising is wearing me out this week. Plus, there is always stuff to do and be done! Good is good, I just need to rest more this weekend.
There was quite bit to talk about school this week though so I did not want to miss that.
-Superkid was able to read some words this week and write his numbers to 30. His teacher was excited to share that with me. He tries to sound out a lot of things he sees everywhere now. I was at the school to help in Lilo's class all afternoon and just snuck onto the playground to watch him play for a bit. When he first started school he was the most shy socially. Now he runs all about pretending and playing superheros and cops and robbers. At one point he had ten little girls orchestrated in some game where he was saving them all. They seemed very happy to play his games. I know, he's cute isn't he? Hands off for 20 years ladies! :)

-Lilo has been learning a lot about the metamorphosis of the Monarch Butterfly. Mrs.M has a living plant in the back that has three changing caterpillars. I have never seen a Monarch chrysalis before. It is astounding.

Lilo wrote a whole little book on it with pictures herself. It was so cute, I want to find it and scan it to post this week. She also made a green chrysalis and they took gold glitter glue to make these gorgeous natural gems shown here,on the outside of it. It was made like a pocket and they made little black and yellow caterpillars that could go inside. So fun.





I helped in her class yesterday and was very happy to this time especially since her teacher's husband was in the ICU. I could not believe her strength to go on and teach with all that going on. She said it was better to stay busy though. I caught a great picture of Lilo and her best buddies out at recess. She got to have her friend S. come home for playtime and dinner all evening. They had great time. We made a deep 13x9 pan of apple "pie" served with ice cream. Their neighbor friend Johnny joined us too. Thy all watched "Alvin and the Chipmunks".

Lilo and "S"Spidie for the evening:)Princess




Johnny




I truly believe in making our home open to many children. It was through the kids befriending of Johnny and his hours and hours over playing, sharing dinner, and his mom coming to talk with me, that I was able to share the Lord with her. As a result of God's goodness, their family has come back to the Lord after many years of wondering. You can never underestimate the mission field of the home.




For the same reason I allow the kids to invite kids over. To be in our home, to hear about Christ, to have fun time. Some end up going to awana with them. There is always a channel opened up between us and at least one parent. There is the beginning of opportunities and I look for them all the time. It has brought me great joyful purpose to be reaching out along with my children, to the public school scene and coming into our home is an even greater chance to make bonds of friendship that can be used by God later. It's like we just say we're willing Lord, we will love them, and wait for the time to tell. Maybe it's a snippet here, a conviction there, it's all important and God uses it. You just have to be laying foundations made sometimes of apple pie.




-Princess is making straight A's of which we are proud. Her attitudes have remained much more God-glorifying lately for which we have praised her. She is writing her own book right now. She let her friends at school read the first page and she was very encouraged with they all found it very fascinating. She wrote late into the night last night. I hope to put some of it on here too soon. She shows some great talent for writing. Starting next week, I will be in her class as well. A room of 35 (the class maximum btw) fifth graders should be interesting.




I asked for prayer for diligence at home this week and I was given strength to do that. I stayed home a lot more. The house has not been perfect but I have been able to stay up on the basics that allow meals to be made, and just tidy settings. My walking for over two hours a day has taken a big chunk out of my day for now but my husband is supporting my short time needed to get ahead in some of these goals. I actually feel better emotionally through the day because of the time taken to exercise while they are at school. It's just the adjustment to the new output of energy that is making me tired in the afternoon more. I know my body will catch up soon.




We hit a small public school speed bump so to speak that I wanted to mention since I agreed to be honest and tell it like it is on this journey. The kindergarten class has a curriculum to help kids understand proper touching and improper touching. I understand why they have to do it. There are kids out there being abused and they need to know what is abuse. Rick and I discussed it and although we trust that the concepts are at age level appropriateness we had two problems with this. (1) we feel that these subjects should be addressed by us, his parents. We understand that many parents either do not take care of this, or are actually abusing so they need to do it. We know we can cover what is needed and we know he is not in those situations. (2) Though the curriculum could be layed out for us to see, and we could even approve it, there is always the unknown variable of what the children will say in discussion. No one can predict that for us. So, we decided he would not participate. I talked to his teacher who is a great christian woman, and she was very understanding. She is completely okay with me coming to take him out of class for that half hour the three days of the teaching. It looks like we will go to the library to read or something. So, there are solutions, but you do have to pay attention to what's going on. Rick and I are firm believers that school should be ABC's and 123's. It is unfortunate that society has come to the need of the schools to educate children on these things, but I agree it is necessary, just not for my five year old.




My prayers for this coming week would be:




Continue dilegence on my part at home.




I have a burden to lead the children through the elements of the armor of God. Prayers for wisdom as to how to put that together to present to them in our family time.




Prayer for Lilo's dear teacher and her husband in ICU.




Would you like to share you "Seek The Lord In Schooling Saturday" post? Link here.








(to learn more what this theme is go here)

OH....and the evening ended with Lilo loosing a tooth!


3 comments:

Tricia said...

It sounds like you have had a great week. It is very exciting that Superkid is learning to read. I will pray for you.

Great job on the excercising. I went to the baby shower yesterday for the home school group I just joined and it went well. I got to know some of the mom's better.

Stephanie said...

Hello Alicia,

Last year I also wanted to teach the armour of God to my kids. To come up with ideas, I just wrote each piece of armour on a piece of paper, and brainstormed creative teaching ideas and main points that I wanted to get across. I have a number of "Christian Craft" books, and I got a lot of ideas off the internet, as well as from my own thoughts. I developed it over a couple of weeks, and then we took about a month to go through it. It was wonderful! Then, I developed it further into a Kid's Church curriculum for our church to use, and we used it last winter. I'll see if I saved any of it. I'm notorious for throwing everything away... If it stays in my house, it becomes a mess, but sometimes I go overboard and trash things I should have kept! One thing, though, what I prepared would be quite juvenile, since I prepared it for preschoolers. I taught my kids in greater detail, but for Kid's Church there were a lot of much younger kids so I had to make sure it was very simple.

Alicia said...

Stephanie,
That would be fun if you could find it. Simple is never bad, deatils can always be added. I'm up for any links to resources! :)