Families that PLAY together stay together!!!

I decided to share this because my sister thought it might be worth sharing. So here's how it came about. I am suffering from the winter blues. I started to think or should I say dreaming of the things we could do as a family in the nice weather. Here is what I came up with. By the way all these 30 activities are TV Free apart from one.

1. Movie/ Snack Night
2. Baking
3. Pudding Paint
4. Board Games/ Card Games/ Puzzles
5. Reading with Popcorn and M&M's
6. Make Jam or Frozen Peach Dessert
7. Parks (Walks, Playground, Fly Kites)
8. Fishing
9. Bike Riding
10. Pick Up Trash
11. Gardening/Weeding
12. Sidewalk Chalk/ Hopscotch
13. Swimming
14. Paint Rocks Outside
15. Play Catch
16. Play Tag
17. Play Hide and Seek
18. Feed Geese
19. Go to a Play
20. Local museum
21. Planetarium
22. Crafts/ Homemade Cards for Family
23. Camplex Events/ Childrens Festivals
24.  Learning Center
25. Playdoh/ Peanut Butter Playdoh
26. Paint Flower Pots
27. Play at the Tennis Courts
28. Treasure Hunt with Clues
29. Write on the windows with dry erase markers (supervised of course) This is more for the kids
30. Collect natural things from outside and make an imaginary miniature village for fairies or army men: use shoe boxes for the shelter and decorate according to what the kids are playing with army men or fairies.

HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS POST IF YOU HAVE YOUNG CHILDREN :)

Faith's creativity and sister fun :)

I wanted to share some of Faith's progress but more than anything I wanted to share her creativity with you!

Her 1st week of letters she is now all the way up to Gg

1,2,3

3 & 4

This week she accomplished writing 5 & 6 properly.

Her memory verses she has these memorized exactly like they are written.

This is one thing I am most impressed about her learning she is able to memorize so well and it stays with her. Oh to be young again :) She is also able to memorize her verse for Wednesday night class at church so she learns two verses every week. 

Left to herself and instead of drawing pictures she draws letters. That makes me happy that she is thriving and wanting to do more and better. This is on a napkin by the way. ha ha!

This is Faith's masterpiece. Left to herself and she wanted me to see her school work she did all by herself. I will be honest I praised her for how well she did on her letters and her name but did reminder her no more drawing on furniture and to let me know when she wants a paper and something to write with. We will be getting her an art easel for her birthday this year :)

This is a picture of Faith and Justice drawing on the windows with dry erase markers. Faith was working on her numbers and Justice was working on her art :) They were too cute with the snow being so bright they had to wear mommy's sunglasses this made the activity all the more fun!

Our little Faith is growing up!!!

Faith Pearl

4 1/2 years old

Wow!!! How the time flies. I could go on and on about the memories of Faith being little and all the things that she has done through-out the last 4+ years! Well I am writing this post to let family and friends know that we are on a new exciting chapter in our lives with little Faith. Faith since age 4 has just been growing up so much! When she hit age 4 she started asking questions like crazy and I knew this little girl of mine was growing up and she was ready to learn, thrive, and experience new things! So this is when our little journey began...

Almost a month after Faith's 4th birthday I saw this change in my little girl! Full of curiosity! I knew I had to give her the tools to thrive so I started changing things; in fact our whole routine (or lack there of) to help Faith on her way. We started going to plays, story time at the library, and our biggest change was attending MOPS. MOPS stands for mothers of preschoolers for anyone who may not know. It was at MOPS that I found out that the average 4 year old asks 497 questions a day. Faith was definitely meeting her quota :)Faith loves going to do these activities and we still do them but we have added one more important one.

I have always planned to home school but had a lot of doubt in my abilities to teach my own daughter. In fact in one of my many weak moments as a mother I decided I was not cut out for this and I was not going to attempt to home school her until she was at least somewhat educated already. Thankfully the Lord is so good. He sets us back on course even in our weakness we are made strong in Him! The Lord put a very special woman in my life to encourage me on my way and she even invited me into her home to observe her 4 children being home schooled! Talk about an eye opener!!! The kids ages range from 13 to 5. What can I say I was very impressed by the children's abilities, their respect for their mother, the excitement about learning, and most of all that they were motivated to obey because they knew above all else that pleases the Lord! While we were there Faith was given her own work to tend to and I quickly saw that things could be difficult but not, Not at all impossible! By the end of our visit at the Greene home I was determined to do what I had always felt led to do; home school my children. Faith being my first!!!

So we are on our second week of school with Faith. I started her on her Kindergarten curriculum right away. It has been such a blessing to see what my child already knows and the new things that she picks up on so quickly. Since we have started I have a very set schedule of time spent on certain skills. This way she is not surprised about what is expected of her. She is smart as a whip and has caught on so quickly! She knows before anything we do our devotions then we pray. Then we start our school work. She knows colors are first. She already knows all her colors but to start the day off fun she colors the certain color of the day. Next she memorizes her memory verse. Wow is all I can say she is blowing me away with this! She knows Psalm 119:11, John 3:16, and before next Wednesday she will know Hebrews 10:25 also. She will also have another verse next week; as the Hebrew one is actually for her Wednesday night children's class at church. We follow memorization with writing letters, establishing sounds, shapes, basic math terms, writing numbers, simple addition, and counting exercises!

Faith is doing very well and I am very surprised by her ability to learn so quickly. I am hoping within a month she will establish all her sounds for the letters and we can start her on basic reading of small words. I just wanted to share this blessing with you. I have been so blessed with the ability to be a stay at home mother and teaching my children is a blessing I never would have imagined would be this rewarding!

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!