How to Hear God's Voice

Big Dad and Jor Man on a recent camping trip

Big Dad has often complained in the past that he does not hear from God.  I can think of a couple of times that he did - like when he knew I was pregnant with Jor Man before I did.  But on the whole, he didn't hear much.

Over time, he's come to realize that he didn't want to hear.  He was afraid of what God might say or ask him to do.  For the past year, Big Dad has been working deliberately on his relationship with God - especially trusting Him.  As a part of that effort, Big Dad ordered "How to Hear God's Voice" by Mark Virkler.  He's been loving it.

Recently, there was a webinar, and Big Dad and I did it on four consecutive Monday nights.  I must admit - I went in skeptical.  After all, I have been able to hear God's voice on and off since I was a child.  It's not something I learned to do - it just was.  So I wondered about a class that claimed to teach it.

But, surprise, surprise!  It was really good.  Funny, warm, informative, accessible and helpful.  Better yet, it works!  It works because God really wants us to hear his voice.  After all, Jesus himself said "My sheep know my voice."

Jor Man concentration on reeling in the big fish

The kids became interested in our webinar.  Jor Man sat in on it for three of the sessions and had a good experience.  It was past the girls' bedtimes, so they asked us to share with them what we had learned.

Now every night as they are going to bed, Big Dad leads them in being still before God and listening.  Campster and Sher Bear both hear God's voice really well.  The other night, Campster was quiet before God and saw herself walking down a road.  Jesus and his disciples were walking ahead of her.  She ran to catch up, and when she got close enough, jumped up on Jesus' back in a hug/tackle.  He turned his head to face her and laughed.  "Hi Cam!  I'm Peter.  Jesus is over there."  And they all laughed.  Jesus has a sense of humor.

Sher Bear asked Jesus "Why did you have to die on the cross?"  And Jesus answered her, "Because my Father wanted me to, and because I didn't want you to be punished for your sins."  I love that.  If she had given just her Sunday School answer, I would question if she were making it up.  But doing what the Father told Him to do, is above what I believe Sheridan would have answered if we had asked her just five minutes before she prayed.

I love what Becky Fischer says in her book "Redefining Children's Ministry in the 21st Century."  -Would you rather your kids know how many stones David used to slay Goliath, or recognize the voice of God?

For me, the very most precious gift I could ever give my kids is a personal relationship with Jesus.  I can't make them receive it.  But I can share my relationship with God with them, and I can give them the tools to make it much easier.

Wish you were here!

Na No Wri Mo

I have taken the plunge and am writing my first novel.  I have always wanted to write a novel, but never even began one before.  Now I have 1,091 words down and 48,909 to go.

National Novel Writing Month, or Na No Wri Mo is a great website where you can sign up to write a novel in a month.  Not just any month - specifically November.

So between now and November 30th, I will be typing until my fingers fall off!  For people over the age of 13, they set a 50,000 word goal.  That's 1,667 words a day.  Younger writers can set there own goals.

You can check my widget from Na No Wri Mo to track my words, and see how I am doing.  Any other homeschoolers out there want to write this month?  My kids showed a little interest and then waned.  Actually, I am glad.  I want them to learn to type first, so that I am not doing the typing for them.

As I was thinking what to write about, several ideas came to mind, but none had endings.  Perhaps, in the future, I will write one of those and see if an ending presents itself.

I have decided to write about my father, specifically my memories of him and our relationship.  I think it will be a good process for me.  He died 7 years ago from prostate cancer, and I miss him every day. His life had an ending.

I want to keep blogging, so I will.  These are two separate projects.  Na No Wri Mo suggests that for the month of November - just write.  Turn off your internal editor and just get the words on paper.  So that is what I am going to do.  Come December, I can decide if I want to edit it then, or set it aside for a while.  In any case, you won't see it until it's done and edited.  If then.

I just love that as an unschooler, I have time to tackle projects as they sound exciting.  At the end of this month, I will have written a novel.  And my kids will have seen that this is possible.  I wonder what they will do?

Wish you were here!

Coins

Children have a natural curiosity about money.  I wonder if they sense how much we value it?   I wonder whether our connection to money fuels their interest in it?

One of the things that Campster expressed an interest in learning about this year is money.  She has gone in two months from not really knowing her dimes from her nickels, to feeling pretty confident about adding sums in her head.

Here she is doing a project from a great series called "Math By All Means".   A wonderful friend handed down a bunch of these books to me, and we pick them up from time to time to do a lesson from them.  This fall we've been doing the Money book, and the girls have been loving it.

I have a change jar that I use for these lessons.  Campster first sorted the coins into Quarters, Dimes, Nickels and Pennies.  Then, taking just the pennies, she used a magnifying glass to identify the date on each one.  We wrote the dates on Post-its and lined them up in order on the dining room table.  Then we added our families birth years as well.  We talked about which pennies are older than Big Dad (that's really old!) and which ones were younger than Sher Bear.  She learned about dates and became very comfortable with identifying pennies.

I am finding that I will sometimes think that a particular lesson from the book is silly, or won't hold the kids interest.  But when I try it, Surprise!  The kids actually love it.

On the other hand, sometimes I will be really excited about a certain project, only to find that the kids couldn't care less about it.  The tendency used to be for me to try to talk them into it.  But I am learning that it is better to just say "Okay, I can see you are not interested in doing that."   Then I can move on to something else that might be more exciting for them.  Or just take a break from that subject for a while.

By the way, please do notice the torn and worn wallpaper in the picture.  We have just repainted the dining room - and I will be posting "after" pictures soon.  :)

Wish you were here!

Cave Paintings

Campster working diligently on her cave painting.

Sher Bear is completely focused on this activity.

 A good friend is also studying the Ancients this  year.  She is using The Story of the World and the accompanying Activity Book.  We used these with Jor Man when he was K4 - but they are really very appropriate for K - 3 or even older.  Since Campster is in 2nd grade this year, and Sher Bear, the kindergardener wanted to study Egypt, we are doing some of the activities together with our friends.

This particular day was warm, so we headed to our local lake and enjoyed the beach with three other families for an end of summer play time. My friend brought kraft paper (the kind you get if you order stuff from Amazon.com), and some black paint and brushes.

The beach was the perfect no mess place to do this activity.  If anyone decided to paint themselves, we sent them into the water to wash off.

A friend and Campster share the meat tray paint palette.

Wind, waves, sun and friends.  Beats normal school any day!

Campster has painted a cave person and their "Kill"

 To prepare my kids for this activity, I looked up "Cave Paintings, France" on Swag Bucks, and found this great website on the Lascaux cave paintings.  I love that they have an online tour of the caves.  I had seen still shots before in text books.  But I had no idea the complexity of the paintings, let alone the shear number of them.

The kids were inspired to create their own "cave paintings".  We also read aloud a couple of books which I had purchased from the Institute for Creation Research about creation and early man:  Dry Bones and Other Fossils by Gary E. & Mary M. Parker, and Life in the Great Ice Age by Michael & Beverly Oard.

Sher Bear and friend hard at work

Another great resource for materials that fit this time frame is Answers in Genesis.  They have a children's magazine that is excellent.

Sher Bear says it's a dear with antlers

Wish you were here!

Marching through History

My IRL friend, Dorothy, sent me these great pictures of her three sons enjoying Marching Through History.  Taking place in Chino, CA, this festival celebrates the various military campaigns throughout history with full costume and reenactments.

Dorothy tells me "Here are some pictures of the marching thru History event we went to in Chino.  It is really great.


We spent about 30+ minutes talking to this guy about Roman battle techniques.  Including how they could wear these very heavy chain mail.   And he showed the kids how they marched and fought.  

We also talked to a middle ages mercenary from Germany, who told us how much they got paid and why they did it.

We saw a Civil War re-anactment.   Cannons and all.

5 hours and we only talked to 5 people in depth.

Learned all about the first flint guns.  Lots of people really into history...

Lots of fun."

It's enough to make me want to move back to California!!

Next years event will be October 1 & 2, 2011.  Anybody wanna meet there?

Now, to stack the deck:  Notice what time periods were of particular interest to each child.  And strategically place books on that period around the house for them to "discover".  

I know this works, because my Jor Man, who is fascinated with Greek myths ate up a book that had been on our shelves, but he had missed.  Sometimes kids just need to see the cover, or even the inside of the book to get interested.  I left D'Aulaire's Greek Myths lying open on the sofa - and the next day, he had devoured it.  

How great are these costumes?  Getting to play the part adds such richness to the learning experience.  Some kids are kinesthetic learners, and really need this type of experience.  But everyone can benefit from coming at a subject from many different angles.

I'll bet these boys will always remember this day!

The Redcoats are coming!!  

Pirate training!

Current day warriors

Wish you were here!

Hoarding

We have been cleaning out the basement.  So much junk.  So many memories.  I am learning to treasure the memories and let go of the junk.  Watching a few episodes of Hoarders made it clear to me that I really wanted to let a lot of old stuff go.  I am not a hoarder.  Yet.  But my grandmother was.  And my father had his own form of hoarding - mostly paper in his case.  He kept every note, every email.  What a process it was to clear out the stuff when they passed away.  I don't want the people who love me to have to do the same (not that I have any plans to die any time soon!).

The kids and I made piles.  One pile was stuff to go to the transfer station (dump), one pile was to give away to friends, and one pile was to put away.  We were able to clean out half of the basement.  Now the kids ride their scooters and bikes down there.  This will be especially helpful this winter when it is too cold and wet to play outside.

Some things I found in the basement peaked the kids' interest.  This old typewriter was one of those things.  It doesn't really work anymore.  Some of the keys get stuck, so you can type, just not fast enough to make it worth it.

I was surprised at how it all came back to me.  How you roll the paper through, and then open the carriage, and line it up so that the paper will be straight.  And how you hit return at the end of the line.  I wrote my high school and college papers on this typewriter.  It was mine.

The kids all took turns typing on it.  It didn't work very well because they ink on the ribbon was dry after 20 plus years of not being used.  The kids got a real kick out of hearing about how we used to type things, because there weren't computers.

What old items do you have lying around?  What would your kids find fascinating?  Take them out, play with them for a while, and then send them to the trash.

Wish you were here!

The Big E

It's happened.  Jor Man is officially too big for a ride at the fair.

The Big E, as it's affectionately called, is officially known as the Eastern States Exposition.  It's like the county fair, only it's for all of the New England States combined.

We got free tickets for the kids through MASS HOPE, the Massachusetts Christian Homeschoolers Organization.  Big Dad took the day off to spend it with us.

There were rides galore.  The kids saved up their allowances and bought wristbands which allowed them to ride all the rides all day long.  Good value.  It also eliminated the problem of having to choose which rides to go on if you only have so many tickets.  The fun houses were a big hit.  So were the slides.

The big kids really enjoyed the bumper cars.  But Sher Bear did not.  Unfortunately, once the ride starts, you have to see it through.  Later, she was really adventurous and had a blast. 

Campster makes the Maple Syrup Cotton Candy disappear!

And then there was the food!!  Of course, things were complicated by the diet that we have been on ever since July.  No gluten for us.  But there was maple syrup cotton candy.  And milk shakes.  And baked potatoes.

Jor Man, Sher Bear, and Campster

I was interested in looking at the cows and the sheep.  We missed the sheep dog competition.  And Jor Man really liked the BMX bikes demonstration.

We will definitely go again next year, and we will be better prepared for the day.  I want to schedule things out and plan the day better.  This time we just winged it - and ended up walking a lot more than probably was necessary.



The coolest part of the Big E, and what sets it apart from the county fairs, is the States Avenue.  There is a whole street with miniature state capitol buildings for each of the New England states.  Inside each of the buildings are booths and vendors specific to each state.

Did you know that the US headquarters for LEGO are in Connecticut?  Yeah, neither did I!  Now my kids are signed up as testers.  :)



Wish you were here!

This is a Maine baked potato.  Yum!!