Jesus And Sciencey Stuff.

You're about to see what a glorious nerd I am.

Our kids are involved in a homeschool Co-Op with several other like-minded and awesome families in our town, and we, as the parents, get the awesome chance to teach sometimes.  And apparently, when I get to teach, I opt to go as stereotypical and nerdy as I possibly can take it.

But it's a little bit fun.  And a teeny tiny bit educational.

I just finished up a class where I taught characteristics of God through science.  Stop rolling your eyes.  It was awesome.

We went through six different attributes of God's character: Omnipresence, holiness, omnipotence, omniscience, merciful protector, and never-changing.  Every week, I did an experiment to try to drive the point home.  I had an age range of 3 to 3rd grade, so it was a great way to get on each child's level as much as possible.

Now first, I want to say how amazingly impressed I was with these kids.  I had small kids walking around knowing how God is omnipresent...so He's everywhere. I didn't dumb it down for them, and for the most part, they totally got it.

I just wanted to give a brief overview of what we did every week, and I will attach my crudely written notes that have the verses I used. (just click the week)

Week 1: Omnipresent- God is everywhere, even if we can't see him.  I used yeast and sugar and warm water to inflate a balloon.  Just like we couldn't see the carbon dioxide, it was there!

Week 2: Holy- God is holy and perfect, but we are not.  I used acetone to dissolve styrofoam balls to show that no matter how many good works we attempt, we will never reach heaven through them because of our sin. (the kids really loved watching this one!)

Week 3: Omnipotent- God is all powerful.  Without Him, we have no power at all.  We used D batteries (God, the power) and strips of foil (connected to God through Jesus) to light a light bulb (we are the light of the world, after all).

Week 4: Omniscient- God sees everything, even what we try to hide.  We used a coffee filter, a black marker, and a spray bottle of water to see that the black ink was really made up of all different colors of ink.  We may see black, but God sees the reds, blues, and yellows.

Week 5: Merciful protector- In His mercy and grace, God protects us.  I blew up several balloons and used them to show our connection to God.  I then used a candle to represent sin.  I popped the balloons with the candle to show what happens to our relationship with God because of sin.  I then held a balloon with water in it up to the candle to show how the Living Water (Jesus) changes the situation.  He protects us and keeps our relationship with God in tact.  (Seriously, the balloon didn't burst.  It was awesome.)

Week 6: Never changing- God doesn't change- He changes us.  This was, by far, the favorite experiment of the entire semester.  I gave the kids a bowl and had them pour a bottle of elmer's glue and water into it.  (This is us.)  Next, I gave them another bowl had borax that I'd dissolved into water in it.  (This is God.)  They poured the borax water into the glue and stirred it up.  (The point was that God changes us.)  The kids went ga-ga over making slime...and maybe I liked it a little bit, too...

In all, this class was so much fun.  I'm sure the kids didn't really grasp all the theological points I made, but I hope I was able to plant some ideas that will eventually make lots of sense.

Go ahead.  Go nerd it up with your kids.  I won't tell anyone.

The Truth About Homeschool

Lately, I have noticed something that makes my heart pretty happy.  I have noticed a big influx in the number of families I know who are homeschooling.  Now, I don't know if this is like when you buy a new car then see a thousand of that car on the road with you when you never noticed one before or if there really are more people moving toward this lifestyle.  Either way, I know several families who are about to embark (or are thinking about embarking) on this journey.  Because of that, I thought I'd use this opportunity to inject a little truth I've found over our first year.  I'm by no means an expert, but for us, homeschooling hasn't been so much a challenge.  It's been more of an....adjustment. (And really, this was true for me for lots of times in my life- including when a new baby was born, which we also had this year!)

*Just a fair warning, the pictures you're about to see may shock and horrify you. 

It has taken me months and months to realize I can't do everything.  I have to pick my battles, so to speak, so here is a list of a few of our...adjustments.

Not that I've always loved doing dishes, but even with a dishwasher, my kitchen usually looks like this until at least after lunch.

Babies often go without being fully dressed...and they learn to love their rocking chairs.

Breakfast is often store bought.  (I know you won't believe me, but these cinnamon rolls are as good as my home made ones!)

Projects tend to go without being finished for a while.  I've been working on this calendar for weeks now.

And no matter how hard I try, I can't get messes to clean themselves up- not even for company! The nerve...

Many days, hair goes without being properly fixed.


And don't get me started on our potty training woes.

Even the school kids themselves can feel disengaged at times.

And the simple act of coloring one more page can become cumbersome and frustrating...not our best work comes out every day.

But let me tell you this: of all the adjustments I've seen in our family over the last year, the best have far outweighed the bad.  I taught my son to read, to write, to understand arithmetic, started journal writing, and the best...by far the best...has been watching these two become life long friends.  I still break up fights, and there are still tears, (from all 5 of us at times) but there is so much good in this house because we are prayerfully learning and adjusting so often in it...and that education has gone far beyond our kindergarten curriculum.

Solids and Liquids.

One of my very favorite thing about homeschooling is that we aren't limited by much.  We get to learn what we want to learn and teach what we want to teach whenever the mood strikes.  This very thing happened this week, and it was such a fun little reminder of why we are doing this.  I mean, what better time to teach something than when our kiddo actually wants to learn it??

Isaiah started asking why ice melts.  Then he wanted to know why popsicles need to be frozen before we can eat them.  Well, hello opportunity to teach.  Nice to meet you.  Of course, the hubs needed to make it more fun...and I needed to make it yummy.  So as a compromise, I led in making chocolates and Daddy lead in making molded crayons.

After searching high and low...and not on the internet...for a mold of the alphabet, I finally found one on Brookside.

First, we needed to make a list of all the names we wanted to make.  We just had to make some for our friends.

I got these wonderful little spots of deliciousness from the same store I got our mold from.  It's the smoothest, yummiest imported chocolate around.  It can also be purchased at the chocolate shop in downtown Broken Arrow...so worth it.  We talked about how the little wafers looked.  We tried to fit the into our mold.  We even tasted them.  Then we melted them in the microwave.  (Be super careful if you try this because chocolate burns really really easily, and once it's burned, there's nothing that can be done besides trashing it...unfortunately)

Once it was all melted, we poured it into the mold.  We noted how it looked and fit into the letters now and felt very different...but it tasted the same.  Okay, so maybe I tasted a bit more than necessary. We let it sit and re-harden.

While we waited on the chocolate to become a solid again, we ripped the paper off of the crayons.  Izzy was shockingly the best at this job...Ultimately, we did the same experiment with the crayons as we did with the chocolate.  Melted, poured, let it sit and solidify.  Awesomeness.

Once our chocolates were set, we popped them out of the molds.  Voila!  Names....yummy, yummy names.

School Days, School Days (dear old golden rule days...)

This week, we as a family embarked on possibly the craziest journey of our lives.  After years of talking about it, months of planning, weeks of decorating, and days of freaking out a bit, we started homeschool!  The night before, I'm going to admit that I was a bit more than rattled.  For the first time (since he turned 5, at least) I realized my baby boy was no longer my baby boy.  I looked at pictures and videos of him as a baby.  I laughed and I cried.  I prayed for him.  And then for me.  And then for him again.

And then Monday morning was here.

We woke up extra early (not a feat you'll see repeated again anytime soon) to have breakfast with Daddy before we got started and he rode off into the sunrise for work.  Our menu consisted of a very simple pancake and strawberry breakfast.  It's the kiddo's favorite, and we wanted to make him feel extra special.

We left Sister to get a bit more sleep.  This was a morning for just us and our big guy.

Please note the hair.

I have been working on our setup for weeks now.  I swore it would never show up in my living room.  I was convinced guests would not set the eyes on our little corner of education.  Unfortunately, with baby number 3 on the way and an already shrinking house, we were left with no choice.  What this meant, of course, was weeks worth of "what's that?" and "when are we going to use that?" and "what's that for?"  Over and over, he heard "You'll see...when it's time."  The excitement and anticipation in his face was priceless that morning over the idea that today was finally THE day.  It was almost too much for this 5 year old to bare.

Once Daddy was gone, we began our day.  Calendar time.  Talk of seasons and weather.  What's today?  What's tomorrow?  What was yesterday?  Verse for the week (Psalm 24:1) and word of the week (Creation/creacion)...and so on.  We did our Bible lesson, learned what God made on the first day, and colored and cut and glued.

Please note the size 3t pajamas.

We have opted out of doing a ton of worksheets.  We order a curriculum, and we will do what has come with it, but anything we can use our handy dandy dry erase board for, we will...like reviewing basic math facts.

Look who decided to join the homeschool party!

Reviewing ABC's is something that, honestly, this kid doesn't love.  He says every day "Mom, I don't need to do this" but I give him a pointer, and it's the best thing ever.  This, by the way, was my first attempt to hide our school setup.  Our doors all have letter charts or number charts or color posters on the backs of them.

In all, our first day was super fun and made us look forward to the next however many years we can do this. We are excited about field trips and weekly trips to our public library, but mostly, I'm just excited that the hubs and I get to do what we feel we are supposed to be doing- to teach our children in the way he should grow, to know and love and glorify God, and the have a servant's heart.

At least, that's what we are shooting for.