Let's see...first of all, I have decided to start doing more planned learning activities with Ellie. She is now officially 2 1/2 years old and it's high time we start some intentional instruction. Ellie is a smart girl and has picked up A LOT of information just from random playtime and conversations with us (which, in my opinion, is the best way to learn!). I'm certainly not stressing about her knowing a bunch of things, but I've noticed that she loves guided activities in addition to free playtime, so why not take that opportunity to guide her in learning some important things? I'm calling it "homeschooling," but really we're just playing together and I'm being a bit more thoughtful about our conversation while playing. Last week was our first official week of preschool at home. I started a little binder where I just keep my simple lesson plans, any random thoughts and ideas I might come up with, examples of her work, and assessments. I actually used some printable forms from 1+1+1=1, a blog dedicated to home education. These printable forms are just a way for me to stay semi-organized and keep track of what Ellie already knows, as well as some of our goals, and of course any lessons we might do.
Just to give you an idea of how we do our schooling, I'll explain a little about how last week went. I decided we would do an apple theme for the week and focus on the letter A. In addition to that, we concentrated on circles and the color red. Ellie already recognizes the letter A and knows what a circle is, but I thought it would be best to just go into this introducing new information as well as reviewing what she already knows, which also gives me the opportunity to specifically assess her (and have a tangible date to write down..."this day she explicitly demonstrated knowledge of the short a sound"). So we basically just did some fun activities that incorporated those goals. Our very first "lesson" included reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar (one of her favorite books) and playing with an apple play set that Piper received for Christmas. We used the apple play set (pictured below) to act out the story and also identified the various foods, their colors, etc.
We also played with red Play-Doh and cookie cutters. She really loved this and stayed engaged in the Play-Doh for at least an hour. Other activities we did last week included tracing and rewriting the letter A (with a lot of help from me, obviously), practicing the short /a/ sound, several color matching and sorting activities, singing nursery rhymes (not really going with the theme, but still fun), and dancing. Before we started last week, I made a long list of areas that I want to focus on in our homeschooling efforts. These, I guess, would kind of be our standards of learning (but not nearly as evil as--and definitely way cooler than--the Virginia SOLs, haha). We have all of the typical areas of study (literacy activities, science, mathematical concepts) but I also threw in some of the things I think are important (spiritual learning, physical development, the arts). I don't want to be overbearing or obsessive about these things with Ellie...I don't want it to frustrate or overwhelm her. I want to keep this fun and make it an opportunity for us to grow in our relationship as mommy and daughter, while also intentionally discussing and playing with things that will show her how to be a lifelong learner. I have already noticed that she's asking a lot more questions lately, and I'm also learning to be more attentive to her when she plays rather than just using that as my mental break time.
On a completely different note, the girls are now sharing a bedroom. When we moved to Harrisonburg, I knew that the girls would end up sharing a bedroom at some point because we live in a two bedroom house (plus, I also think that it's just better for them to grow up sharing a room anyway). So before Piper was born, we set up a second crib in Ellie's room with the intention of putting Piper in there as soon as she started sleeping through the night. In my mind, that meant probably by the time she was 3 months old....which did NOT happen haha. Piper's sleeping habits have been so different from Ellie's. Every time she would start sleeping like a normal person, something would happen to upset that (sickness, reflux, teething, growth spurt, etc.). She's finally been sleeping through the night consistently for a couple months now, so we decided it was time. It's been almost a week since they started sharing a room and it's actually gone pretty well. It's taking longer for them to fall asleep now, since they have each other to talk to, and they've been getting up earlier in the morning, but if that's all I can complain about it's not that bad =). Ellie has become quite attached to having Piper in her room...she literally cried for Piper yesterday when I put them down in separate rooms for the afternoon nap. I'm still letting Piper sleep in the closet in our bedroom for afternoon naps because I want some guaranteed quiet time. At least when it's bedtime I know that they will eventually go to sleep...but at naps it can get kinda iffy with how long they each sleep. So anyway, I feel like my girls are bonding a lot now that they share a room, and it's so sweet to watch.
Other than the busy life of being parents to two ever-changing little girls, Billy and I don't have any new stuff happening. Billy is up to his eyeballs in work and school. Thankfully, his work doesn't come home with him and he's able to get most of his homework done on the weekends. I am almost to the point of counting down the days until graduation (just 11 weeks left!) and I think I might be more excited about it than he is =). His job is going well and definitely keeps him on his toes at work. He's a supervisor for the components shop, so he stays busy with designating their work, keeping up with/creating procedures, managing the staff, etc. I wish I knew more about his work, but they have a very secure facility at Dynamic so I've never even been inside a building there (the furthest I've been is the parking lot!). When Billy worked at LifeWay, I visited him very regularly and kind of kept up with the day-to-day happenings that way, but that would be pretty hard now with the girls in tow.
As for me, I'm remaining pretty predictable in my daily routine. I'm spending most of my free time reading, which means lots of interesting thoughts going through my head throughout the day until I can get back to my current book. I'm not sure why, but I've been compelled to read some amazing non-fiction books lately. Just in the past couple of weeks, I've read Through Gates of Splendor
by Elisabeth Elliot, The Hiding Place
by Corrie ten Boom, and I'm currently reading A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael (an Irish missionary to India in the first half of the 20th century). Next, I'll be reading End of the Spear
by Steve Saint (written by a son of one of the missionaries in Through Gates of Splendor). I've never really had an interest in becoming a full-time foreign missionary, but I feel like these books are all about that subject, with maybe the exception of The Hiding Place, but even that was all about Corrie and her sister ministering the Gospel to the folks who suffered with them in the concentration camps. I'm not sure what purpose God has for bringing these books to my attention, whether it's just for my own education and understanding about missions, or if He's trying to soften my heart for supporting missionaries and foreign ministries. I know that there's some other-worldly purpose for me reading these books that goes beyond a good read. I am learning a lot, praying differently, and straining to hear what God is telling me through these books. Right now, I'm really focusing on what Jesus' love is doing in me and through me. I think the underlying current in all of these books is love. The love of God, the love of Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection, how His love should change us and spur us to live differently from what the world accepts as normal. For me, this would mean loving people outside of my bubble...how am I loving the lost, the broken, the downtrodden? How am I loving those I initially perceive as enemies, or what about those people I don't want to love? It's hard stuff. And very convicting. Because my flesh doesn't want to love certain people. I think it's easier to think about loving the hurt and the broken, because they need love. But what about those people who have everything, or who are mean and hurtful? They need it, too, even if they don't want it or throw it back at you. Jesus still asks me to love them. If you don't mind, please pray for me as I try to figure out what God is telling me specifically through all of this. And please pray for our family as we try to live unselfishly, because that is so, so hard.
And as a random side note, please forgive the lack of pictures. I have used up all of my free photo storage space through Google and it takes too much time for me to resize all of my pictures so that they qualify for the free upload on this blog haha. With that, I leave you until next time =).
by Elisabeth Elliot, The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, and I'm currently reading A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael (an Irish missionary to India in the first half of the 20th century). Next, I'll be reading End of the Spear by Steve Saint (written by a son of one of the missionaries in Through Gates of Splendor). I've never really had an interest in becoming a full-time foreign missionary, but I feel like these books are all about that subject, with maybe the exception of The Hiding Place, but even that was all about Corrie and her sister ministering the Gospel to the folks who suffered with them in the concentration camps. I'm not sure what purpose God has for bringing these books to my attention, whether it's just for my own education and understanding about missions, or if He's trying to soften my heart for supporting missionaries and foreign ministries. I know that there's some other-worldly purpose for me reading these books that goes beyond a good read. I am learning a lot, praying differently, and straining to hear what God is telling me through these books. Right now, I'm really focusing on what Jesus' love is doing in me and through me. I think the underlying current in all of these books is love. The love of God, the love of Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection, how His love should change us and spur us to live differently from what the world accepts as normal. For me, this would mean loving people outside of my bubble...how am I loving the lost, the broken, the downtrodden? How am I loving those I initially perceive as enemies, or what about those people I don't want to love? It's hard stuff. And very convicting. Because my flesh doesn't want to love certain people. I think it's easier to think about loving the hurt and the broken, because they need love. But what about those people who have everything, or who are mean and hurtful? They need it, too, even if they don't want it or throw it back at you. Jesus still asks me to love them. If you don't mind, please pray for me as I try to figure out what God is telling me specifically through all of this. And please pray for our family as we try to live unselfishly, because that is so, so hard.And as a random side note, please forgive the lack of pictures. I have used up all of my free photo storage space through Google and it takes too much time for me to resize all of my pictures so that they qualify for the free upload on this blog haha. With that, I leave you until next time =).
