Luke's First Week of Preschool

My baby is in Preschool.  Sniff.  This is one of those times when I am so glad we decided to homeschool, because I'm not sure I could handle sending him off to school already.  I'm pretty sure it would physically pain me.  In fact, I'd probably keep him home another year.  Or two.

But that's irrelevant.  I get to keep all my little ducklings here with me, and that makes my heart happy. 

Most of the time anyway.

We started school about a month ago but I'm just now getting the pics online.  I found that although

My Son as a Lost Boy in Peter Pan

I know I'm doing a lot of random posts lately, but it's summer!  We're not doing school right now so I don't have much to say about homeschooling.  Also, I'm taking a couple of classes this summer but I don't think you want to hear about anything I'm learning (yawn) so I'm just blogging when I can.

A few months ago my 10-year-old son, Ben, played "First Twin" in a local children's theater production of Peter Pan.  He had previously been in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever with the same theater, so he knew the "ropes" so to speak.  I love theater, and I think children's theater is such a great opportunity for kids to gain confidence, develop dedication (3-4 rehearsals a week, memorizing lines, etc.), and just have tons of fun doing something unique.

Rainy Day Fun: Angry Birds!!!

Are your kids (or your husband) addicted to Angry Birds?  If not they really should be!

Just kidding, of course, but we love Angry Birds in our house and the boys found these great paper crafts this morning.  Perfect, considering it's storming off and on all day today.

Yes, it's noon and we're still in our pajamas.  You wanna make something of it?!?

They print out like this and you cut them out and fold them (in case you're new to paper crafts).  This

Deuteronomy 6 in 2011

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. 

Also known as the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 has formed the backbone of Jewish prayer services since the Israelites crossed the Red Sea in 1445 B.C. (roughly).

I'm not Jewish, but I do believe that teaching our children about God is the most important job we

Young people leaving the church: What's a parent to do?

If I were to ask Christian parents if they want their children to continue to follow the Lord as adults, of course the answer would be "yes."  But are we doing what we can to make sure that happens?
 
In the fall of '09, I started taking classes towards a Master's in Children's and Family Ministry.  I stumbled upon the book by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer called Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it.  I chose to do a research paper on this topic, and therefore was completely immersed for months with information about why young people are leaving the church today in record numbers.  The research is bleak.

What is going on with our kids?
Already Gone quotes a study done by the prestigious Barna Institute in which 22,000 adults and over 2,000 teenagers were interviewed.  The results show that a shocking 60% of young adults who were

Make your own Mancala game board (and learn what mancala is) :-)

What?!?  You've never played mancala?  Where have you been?

Yeah, I had never played either until today.  But I really liked it and it was free!  Plus we learned a little culture from our future child's home country.

Mancala, according to Wikipedia, is actually a family of games that originated in ancient Ethiopia.  The game we learned how to play is one of many variations, and it's a great game to play in areas such as Africa because you don't need any equipment.  Folks can simply dig 12 holes in the dirt, gather a bunch of seeds or small rocks, and the game is on!

In our case, we used an egg carton and some dry beans.

By removing the lid and cutting it in half, we had our game board with the score cups on each side.

Rainy Day Fun: Papertoy Monsters

A while back my youngest boy found this book at the library and brought it home.

It was all sparkly-new, which is why I didn't realize until I got home that you are supposed to punch out the pages and glue the pieces together.  Whoops!  I didn't think the library would appreciate us