Color Study: Yellow

Being in a drab environment is depressing to me.  The days without sun here have been too many this winter.  Once again, I find myself looking for beauty to override the gloom outside.  Today I've posted random photos that I've taken over the years... the only thing they have in common is that they focus on the color yellow found in nature.  

For some reason, yellow makes me think of heaven.  I guess because God is described as being bright like the sun.  It's no surprise to me that when the sun shines warmly on my face on a cool day, I feel like God is sending me His love.  As I write this, the gray outside is lifting and a bit of glorious blue sky is being unveiled.  Time to wrap this up and go outside in search of some sunlight to warm my face.  

I pray about all kinds of things.  Once I prayed that God would help me to take beautiful pictures while on our coastal vacation.  This is the result of my prayers.  Awesome!!

 Fall leaves are an obvious place to look for yellow.  I never tire of the visual variety that fall has to offer.

One day, my husband sliced the tops off of some bell peppers.  The patterns we found inside were intriguing.  I had to photograph them.  I love how God hides beauty in unexpected places for us to find.

Color Study: Red

Winter is such a bleak time of year.  The sky has been gray for days here.  The landscape seems drab and gray too.  I found myself craving color yesterday, and all the gray outside was driving me crazy!  So I started looking through our photos from 2012.  I was intrigued to discover the variety of shots I took that focused on one or two colors.  For fun, I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you.  I'll start with the color red.

Ah, spring, please come soon!  We do have a few primroses unfolding in the backyard now.

While reading the book 1000 Gifts, I was inspired to look for beauty everywhere.  I found it in unexpected places, like inside these humble strawberries.

Last Valentine's Day I received a dozen roses from my son.  So sweet!

Tomatoes freshly picked from our garden in September.

We have a beautiful maple tree that creates a gorgeous display of fall colors.  I love the red leaves most of all.

M&M Valentine Card Idea

Last year I got my craft mojo on and decided to make little Valentine cards for my kids to send to their  friends.  I wanted to post the photos last year, but I didn't want to reveal the surprise before they received the cards in the mail.  So, here are the pictures now...perhaps they will inspire someone to make homemade cards this February.  I used little treat cups from Stampin' Up!  The pink tag at the top pulls out so the M&Ms can be released through a little circle inside the card.   Some clever person came up with the idea, not me.  You can finds TONS of card making inspiration and clever ideas like this one on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/  That's my go to source for card ideas, but Pinterest is great too.  Happy crafting!

Kindergarten Homeschool: Handwriting

I've been wanting to share about our homeschooling curriculum, but it's hard to find time to post these days!  Today I'll focus on our handwriting workbook.  A big part of kindergarten is learning to print.  We are really enjoying A Reason for Handwriting.  The pages are in color.  Each one features an animal to color on one side, and lots of room to practice the letters on the opposite side.  The lines are spaced well so a beginning writer doesn't have to write tiny letters.  Also, they introduce letters according to how they're written rather than alphabetically.  That way the same motions are being practiced for a while before learning something completely different.  One other thing I like is that the pages can be torn out so he doesn't have to battle keeping the book open while he's trying to write.  My son always has a positive response when we pull out the handwriting book.

Next year, the 1st grade book will introduce writing out scripture verses.  Once the child has written out a verse, he or she can send it to someone as a way to share God's Word and also show off their best handwriting.  I would highly recommend this series of workbooks (K-6th) for non-homeschooling families as well.  It could be something to do at home for more practice, or over the summer to keep their skills sharp.  Today I chatted with a mom whose kids are in public school.  Her daughters' school is no longer teaching cursive, so she's planning to get this series and teach her girls cursive at home.  Love it!  I think cursive is still important and should be taught.  What are your thoughts about that?

This is my son's kindergarten handwriting workbook.

Thanksgiving Tree

Long time since I've posted here...sorry!  Things are going well, but it's busy home schooling the kids and keeping up with the daily stuff as well.  I thought I'd share our latest project in case someone else might be inspired by it.  I wanted to do some sort of art project for Thanksgiving with the kids that would focus on the reason for the holiday: gratitude.  So, I pondered for a while and came up with the idea of a Thanksgiving Tree.  It was easy and fun to do.  We had a great time and actually didn't get extremely messy, which was good since we were not in paint clothes!  While the kids were "napping" in their rooms,  I painted trees onto the back side of wrapping paper.  I used FolkArt paint from Wal-mart.  It dries fast and washes off easily, plus it's only .97 cents per bottle.  Once the trees were dry, I painted the kids' hands to make the leaves.  We put twenty two "leaves" on each tree since Thanksgiving is on the 22nd this year.  Each day, starting November 1st, we'll write one thing that they are thankful for on a leaf.  Then, on Thanksgiving day, the kids will have a tree full of blessings that we can talk about while we enjoy our turkey dinner.  Here are some pictures in case you want to make your own.

I painted the trees onto the back side of wrapping paper.  Older kids could paint their own tree.  If you want to make it into an art lesson, have them observe trees outside to see how the limbs look without the leaves.

Next I added a bit of grass at the base of the tree so it didn't look like it was floating on the page.  I also added a title so we'd know whose tree belong to whom.  Before we started painting our leaves, I asked the kids to look outside at the variety of leaves on the trees in our backyard.  We named the different colors we saw so the kids would know why we were using the variety of colors I chose for this project.

Time to get messy!  I folded the paper so the kids could reach the limbs of the trees without ripping up the paper by crawling on it.  I opted to do one kid at a time, and just one hand painted at a time.  Marisa wanted to try painting her own hand.  I let her for a couple of leaves.  She did amazingly well for not even three years old!  (We did eleven leaves with the left hand then washed and took a break so those could dry.)

While Marisa's eleven leaves were drying, Kieran had a turn to do some leaves on his tree.  I did most of the painting on his hand, but let him try a couple on his own.  He was a bit more enthusiastic with the paint, but only got a bit on his jeans.  It washed out no problem.  Once his eleven leaves were done, then sister had a turn again to do the rest with her right hand.  The key for these guys was to do one kid at a time, and only one hand at a time...making sure to escort them to the sink so we didn't paint the whole kitchen.  :)

Here's Marisa with her finished project.  (She loves her "Penny the Penguin" from Koala Brothers.)

Here's Kieran with his Thanksgiving Tree.  (Love that smile!)

Both trees are on the wall in the dining room where we do our home school lessons.  We'll write one thing that we are thankful for on a leaf each day in November till Thanksgiving.  Then while we eat our meal, we can review all the amazing things God has blessed us with this year.

Next it was time to let the kids photograph mom.  Kieran decided to go artistic and slant the camera while he snapped the picture.  I think it turned out well.  :)

With a bit of trepidation, I let Marisa (the two year old!) hold my giant camera.  She actually got a decent photo of Kieran and me.  Everybody was all smiles after having a good time painting.  There were tense moments, but overall it was just fun.  I'm eager for November to arrive so we can start writing on our leaves.

Parenting is hard work, and not every day is all smiles and silliness like we had this afternoon.  However, it's the moments like these that I blog about so I can remember and know that there are a lot of good times mixed in with the tough ones.  Perhaps my blogs are a kind of Thanksgiving tree for me. How do you help your kids (and yourself) develop grateful hearts?  I'd love to hear from you.

Koala Brothers DVDs

With the "too hot to play outside" afternoons, we have been finding ourselves looking for indoor fun.  So, we've been checking out DVDs at the library this summer.   There are A LOT of lame movies for kids.  It's a rare treat when we find something that everyone enjoys watching repeatedly.  The Koala Brothers DVDs are awesome!  The message of each episode is: "Always try to help others".  What could be better?  The characters are cute, they work together to help solve problems, and they have adorable Australian accents.   My son has a Fisher Price airplane that he's crammed two of his stuffed animals into.  Then he zooms his airplane around the house looking for anyone who needs help, just like Frank & Buster (the Koala Brothers).  I love that my kids are copying the show and looking for ways to be helpful.   My husband and I actually like watching the shows too.  Your preschool kids will love it, and moms you probably will too.

There are four DVDs that I know of:
Meet the Koala Brothers
We're Here to Help
A Day in the Outback
 Outback Christmas
All are available on Amazon for about $8 each

Potty Training Again

Our big girl is now sporting big girl underwear...no more diapers during the day!

It's potty training time again.  I'm finding that already having been through this with our son is making this time around a bit easier. (Just a bit, a tiny bit.)  The reason being that I know eventually my daughter will be potty trained.  However, my kids are just about as opposite as can be so M is not behaving at all like K did.  I feel like I know nothing, and am not sure how to best help her!  After all the drama we went through with our son and potty training- we were on again and off again until he was three and a half!- I wasn't eager to start training our daughter.  But, she has a problem with holding her pee in all day.  I've been concerned about bladder infections, etc... The doctor suggested that maybe our daughter is ready to potty train.  Ha!  Both of my kids love(d) diapers and were not willing participants to graduating to big kid pants.  I will say, M is doing well overall. We've only been training for three days now.  She's peed in the toilet twice, in her pants three times.  Pooped in her pants three times, none in the toilet yet.  Mostly, she pees in her night time diaper when she's asleep.  We don't put the diaper on her until she's sleeping though.  The girl just doesn't go often...which makes it easy on clean up, but she's not getting much practice.  Today was a complete failure, no potty victories but I really don't care. Wish I'd been this easy going with our son!   My new philosophy on potty training is: it's not so much about the kid as it is about the parents being willing to persevere.

Oh, I have to add a P.S....We are having great success with her sleeping through the night now!  She's moved from the floor to her mattress.  Somehow, she's learned how to sleep more calmly and doesn't thrash around and end up falling off her bed or crashing into the wall.  Hallelujah!  We are now getting some much needed rest.