Changed By Love

Changed By Love

Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4

The Basics of Teaching Children Part 1

One of the things that people need to realize is that there are developmental levels that are not determined by age. Some ages tend to coincide with certain stages, but it’s not always true that a 6-year-old is ready to learn to read. I taught first grade in public school for 5 years, and I encountered plenty of 6-year-olds there who were not ready to read. Several of my own children have not been ready to read at 6. Some of them were. It has not been a matter of intelligence. It is just readiness and differing paces of development. My latest readers are extremely intelligent. They can remember details of what they’ve read, and they understand how to relate new information with what they already know so that the learning is thorough and in-depth.

To minimize stress and frustration, I wait until my children exhibit signs of readiness before I try to teach them to read. I expose them to letters and sounds from the time they are toddlers, but I don’t expect them to read words until they show me that they want to and that they understand that letters go together to make words. I do this with other subjects and topics, too. Trying to force them to learn something is never optimal. They may learn it for your “test”, but if the knowledge never becomes their own, they are not likely to retain it.

Calling All Caterpillar Lovers

If you like caterpillars, you should keep checking my post about my Blessed Birthday. I have been taking pictures of my Monarch caterpillar every day and charting his growth and changes. It is thrilling to me. He has grown to about 3 times the size he was when we first found him. We keep having to go collect new leaves and flowers for him. We have almost used up the sources nearby and have taken to the ditches to try to find more Milkweed plants. It’s a family project. I’m getting excited. He should be making a chrysalis in a few days. Keep checking for new pictures of his progress. I’m adding them every day to this post.

Update:

Now I’m adding new caterpillar updates to this post.

Finding Your Personal Penguin

I have made the cutest discovery! I don’t know how many people discovered this before I did, but it’s new to me.

I bought a board book at a library sale.

It was called Your Personal Penguin. It was written by Sandra Boynton.

I kept noticing the title as I saw the book laying on the floor, and I felt mild curiosity about what that book could possibly be about. One day, I picked it up and read it to one of my little ones. It was a cute little story.  I looked more closely at the cover and saw that there was a link online to a song by Davy Jones that went with the story.  I decided to check it out.  I watched the video of Davy making the song.  I loved it!  I’ve always liked his voice, and he still sounds the same as ever.

So I go to that website from time to time to listen to it again.  I even had the kids play it for my birthday party.    I really like this song.  The older kids do, too, though they don’t like to admit it. Here’s the video of Davy recording the song:

Scroll down near the bottom to see it.
http://www.workman.com/boynton/

Tell me if you like it, too.

Wow, I just went to the website again and started playing the songs that go with the other books she has written. I am blown away. She has been able to get famous musicians to perform these songs from the different genres, such as B. B. King singing a Blues song, One Shoe Blues and Steve Lawrence singing Blue Moo, based on the famous old song, Blue Moon.  Blue Moo book and CD is subtitled 17 Juke Box Hits From Way Back Never.  Also performing original songs based on her books are Neil Sedaka, Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys, Sha Na Na, and of course, Davy Jones.

I now have a new favorite author/illustrator/songwriter!

It’s so nice to meet you, Sandra Boynton.

Blessed Birthday and – Surprise! We Found a Hitchhiker in Our Milkweed

Mommy’s Birthday Nature Walk
Buckeye Butterfly – Shawn took the picture for me

 

Those flowers that looked like milkweed, which is what Monarchs lay their eggs on because the caterpillars eat their leaves, must have actually been in the milkweed family.
Look what we found when we got home with some of those flowers!

We found this little guy by accident. We picked flowers and when we got home Katie found a tiny Monarch caterpillar on them. A wonderful birthday present for me.
The ice cream cakes Gary got for me. Yes, that is Elmo on there. I guess he’s trying to keep me young!
The bouquet the kids picked for my birthday
Monarch caterpillar on the second day – he’s growing!
Now we have our very own very hungry caterpillar – and he’s still growing!

Update on Monarch Caterpillar – Day 3:

Look how big he is now!

This is our caterpillar on Day 5.

Here is our caterpillar on Day 6. You can see that his antenna or “whiplashes” are getting longer. They will droop down as they get longer. He has two sets of them. The ones near his head are getting very long. The ones in the back are the “fake” ones. He doesn’t do as much with them. They just throw off birds and other possible predators. But the birds don’t bother him, because they know he tastes bad. His bright colors warn them that he’s one of those nasty-tasting caterpillars just like those Monarch butterflies that taste so bad.

Anna and I went Milkweed hunting today. We saw lots of them in the ditches, but I didn’t want to stop by the busy road. So we went to some real country roads with little to no traffic. We got on a dead end road and found a whole bevy of Milkweeds and butterflies, including several Monarchs.

Anna bravely went out amongst the weeds and snake holes and snatched up a milkweed plant by the roots. I still haven’t figured out if this Milkweed we’re finding is a cousin to the Milkweed I’ve always known and loved or if it’s an earlier stage of it or what. I need to do some more research. There’s no milky stuff coming from the leaves. The leaves aren’t as thick as the ones I knew of. The plants aren’t as tall or straight up. And there are no milkweed pods! I will let you know what I find out.

I rewarded Anna with a McFlurry and myself with a chocolate shake. Then we went home and fed my caterpillar some fresh leaves.

Day 7 – our caterpillar grew a lot today! We took him upstairs to get him away from the noise. I think it helped him to grow more!

Day 8 – Our caterpillar is about 1 and a half inches long now. When he’s 2 inches long, I think he will be ready to make a chrysalis. I think we’ll stretch some nylon hose across the top soon so he can hang his chrysalis from that.

This is another picture from Day 8. He got so excited about the new leaves and flowers that I decided to take some pictures of his animated movements.
He made a U-turn to get over to those flowers.

Did you know that Milkweed is pretty??? I didn’t. Just look at the beautiful photos here at Butterfly Encounters. Guess what kind of milkweed we have? SWAMP MILKWEED!!! I’m not surprised.


I thought this video retelling of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” was good.

And this one is good. Eric Carle actually reads “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” himself.

This Very Hungry Caterpillar unit is taking on a life of its own! I just explained to Abby that our caterpillar is going to turn into a butterfly like the one in this video. I wonder if she understands.

WARNING: This is a “home movie” to the max. I could watch it all day, but it’s really just Abby responding to the pictures and videos from my birthday. Probably not the most interesting to anybody but her mother. You might want to skip this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zv138DRB1U&list=UUmj5V9frXUDeGkuFRzZtgRg&index=100&t=0s

https://vimeo.com/14412575

Happy Birthday Dear Mommy from Penney Douglas on Vimeo.

You can click on “Happy Birthday Dear Mommy” and see me blowing out my fake candles and see Garrett’s adorable face as he’s begging his Daddy to let him take a picture of Mommy. This is for you, Kristi!

A Prayer Request from the Most Unlikely Founding Father

I’ve been reading Original Intent by David Barton.

It is loaded with quotes by the Founders that credit God and Christianity as the motivation for the founding of this country and the only foundation that our new form of government could stand on.

One particular quote is really amazing me right now.  It is actually a fairly long speech by Benjamin Franklin, one of the least religious of all of the Founders.

He addressed this to George Washington, the President of the Convention that met to revise the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention:

Mr. President:
The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasoning with each other – our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom since we have been running about in search of it…

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

Have our leaders forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do they imagine we no longer need His assistance?

That’s not the only thing. Do you and I as Christians sometimes forget that powerful Friend or imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I take this as a reminder that prayerlessness can be the biggest problem we have in our family. Even now after we have been through so much refining and purifying, sometimes, like the children of Israel, we forget the great things He has done for us. And we get distracted and busy with the daily things of life, and we don’t give God the honor, glory, praise and worship that He deserves. We act like we can take it from here. Thanks, God, I’ve got it now. See ya later. But that’s not how it works. That’s not how God has it set up. We are to abide in Him. If we want to live the great life He has planned for us, that is. If we want to live a mediocre, average, normal life, then we can get by with some prayerlessness. But if we want to be great in God, we need to be faithful and fervent in prayer. Oh, I’m getting so convicted! I’m just going to have to go pray right now. I hear Anna playing her guitar. I’m going to go in there and worship with her. Catch ya later!