(And All My) Work Be Praise

Silas was surprisingly agreeable when I asked if he wanted to do an activity this morning, so I pulled out my box of toilet paper tubes, the can of pom-poms, and the mini tongs to re-create an activity from when Levi was two . (Levi was just barely two, and Silas is nearly three, but that's a difference in attitude more than aptitude between those two!) It didn't stay educational for very long -- I was hoping to count pom-poms as we put them in the tubes -- but it was  fun and occupied his attention for over twenty minutes! He struggled a bit to manage the tongs. Such concentration! Even with a brother laughing in the background!

I have been trying for three weeks to get Silas to do this rectangle activity. Usually the glue stick is one of those coveted items that gets him excited about a craft, but he is dead set against it. So, in the name of authenticity, I'm going to stop hoping the craft will happen and just show you real life instead! The goal: glue some black rectangles onto a larger rectangle. (Silas is standing next to me right now shouting, "I DIDN'T glue, Mommy! I didn't!") I even flipped the paper over and tried to get him to glue anything anywhere. No dice. Today, he chose to eat leftover oatmeal instead. I don't even know how his bowl got from the counter to the little table. He did, however, spend time each day I tried putting the cap on the glue and taking it off again, which is a great fine motor skill. And right this second, he's in the kitchen picking up all of the black rectangles he threw all over the floor in his rage, so we're p...

I realize I've been a bit sparse here on my own blog lately, but I did find time to write a guest blog for a friend. You can read me today over at Ohio Homeschool Assessments talking about my favorite resources for free printables, and how I find and store them!

I have long counted the daily study for  Bible Study Fellowship as my personal devotion time, even though I have long felt a little guilty about it. Though there are plenty of personal application questions, it's always felt a little more "academic" than my ambiguous notion of "quiet time" allows for. (This is all very random and not really based on anything concrete, but there you have it.) This year, I felt rather challenged to do something more, say, introspective than BSF during Lent, so I downloaded the She Reads Truth app onto my new iPhone. I'd heard of the studies/devotions from Money Saving Mom and a few other sources, and since a number of the studies were free, it was convenient more than anything else. Long story short, I haven't been disappointed, and I highly recommend it if you're (a woman, and) in need of a source for daily devotions. All of the plans are free online (but some are paid-only through the app); the Bible readin...

Two big break-throughs with Silas this morning: 1. He willingly told me the shape we were working on (square). 2. He jumped into the activity without a single protest. (Usually he complains for about thirty seconds that he doesn't want to, and then gets into it.) I'm beginning to believe that he just might outgrow his two-year-oldness after all. (That's easy for me to say right now, while he's sleeping. I might be singing a different tune, come dinner time . . . .) I sort of made this activity up on my own, loosely based on some playdough mats I printed from some site or another several years ago. I traced around a square out of our color tiles (from the manipulatives kit for Saxon math K-3 ), then used that as a rough template to make more counting sheets. Cheap paper, a marker, squares I already owned, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, fine motor skills (in matching the tiles to the paper) . . . my kind of activity! And as a bonus, Owen d...

What I'm Cooking KFC Copycat Coleslaw , for a birthday party last weekend. I think I must be the only person left in the world who still loves coleslaw; most of it came home with me, and I'm the only person in the house who will eat it. But that's just fine with me, because I love  it! (I omitted the onions and was quite pleased with the results.) Crockpot spaghetti squash and meatballs . I'm on a mission to reduce starches and increase vegetables in our dinners, but spaghetti squash is not going to be the answer for us. Interestingly, Silas (who won't eat anything at all) and Toby ate it, and Isaac dutifully eats whatever I put in front of him, but the big boys and I just couldn't do it. I used this meatball recipe , and will use the rest of the meatballs for something other  than spaghetti squash! Seasoned rice as a side dish for baked chicken. I don't use bouillon, as most (if not all? haven't checked in a long time) contain MSG, but I cooked th...

After several weeks of doing a shape/color activity with Silas each week, I can say two things with confidence: 1. He knows all of his colors. (I knew this already.) 2. I have NO idea if he knows his shapes. Silas's two-ness is in full swing right now, and one of the things he's adamantly put his foot down about is identifying shapes. I got pretty good at tricking Levi into answering questions he didn't want to, three years ago, but Silas will not be manipulated. Now, he will tell me happily that a triangle is "a mountain," and a square "might be a diamond," but that's about it. Kid's driving me crazy. But, we persevere, and this week we persevered with the help of some sticky craft sticks my mom sent for him. About an inch or two on one side of the craft stick is sticky. She suspected peeling off the backing would be good fine motor practice for him, and she was right: the first one was a little hard, but once he figured out where to ...