Yet another entry that has nothing at all to do with preschool or homeschool! God, in His infinite wisdom had ordained that tonight at church we would have a guest pastor conducting the last in a session of leadership seminars that he has been leading over the past year. It was definitely very challenging! Especially the part where he was talking about how leaders see in advance where God is moving and working and plan for it. It reminds me of one of my favourite verses Galatians 5:25 "If we walk in the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."... So this is what I'm working towards, but the challenge is having enough confidence that God will not allow your foot to be moved as you move along the straight and narrow way in following Him. I am finding my current phase of life (supply teaching, tutoring, and babysitting when I'm not busy) to be not extremely conducive to living a life that is planned with a purpose. Things are too up in the air for me to say, "This is my goal for the week and this is how I am going to live and what I am going to do to achieve my goal." I guess the perpetual challenge is to set aside a purposeful time each day to re-examine your priorities in the light of how God is moving and working in those around you. My prayer for this week is that I would spend some time each day renewing my mind in God's Word and investing in the relationships which God has allowed me to build with others.
On a completely unrelated note, Christmas time is coming and it's time to start thinking about our church's Bethlehem Walk outreach ministry. (Every year we act out the Christmas story for our friends and neighbours in the community and collect food to be given to our local food bank or to families who we know of through the church who could use some encouragement.) I have the amazing privilege of writing the script for this ministry and this week, when I couldn't sleep at 4:00 in the morning, I planned out all of the sites for this year. Our focus for this year will be Jesus is the Son of God and we will be looking at the life of Christ through the eyes of the "beloved" disciple, John. I'm so excited to present this to the church at our business meeting tomorrow night!
May you be encouraged in the knowledge that God is completing the work He began in you and He has graciously ordained the days of your life. You can trust God's plans today because He loves you and He knows what tomorrow holds.
Blessings!
Jennifer
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
God Answers Prayer
Well, as usual, I've started this blog and forgotten about it for a week or so. Things are still going well towards starting up the preschool, however I don't have a definitive moving date yet! I have been very thankful lately, though regarding specific answers to prayer in my life. First of all, my little sister finally has a reliable car! (This has been a big prayer issue, because she is making an eight-hour trip North this weekend to see the family and attend a wedding and her old car's muffler was riding in her back seat!) She got it from a Christian dealer who gave her a great lease rate becasue she teaches at a Christian school. I love the family of God! Secondly, since moving back home, I have been praying for God to send along a "kindred spirit". Don't get me wrong, I have loads of wonderful friends and my church is awesome, but I have been missing that iron sharpens iron relationship for a while. BUT! God has so surprisingingly blessed me by bringing this wonderful girl to our church. She just started teaching at a local school and we hit it off right away. I don't mean to say that I was surprised by God's blessing, but I had put that request to the back burner for a bit and voila! an answer out of the blue! It's kind of made me think that that is the way He is going to provide a husband as well?!? There's a prayer request that's been on the front burner for a long time now! Anyways, completely unrelatedly, I am one of those crazy interesting people who pray for their children long before they are born, and I was looking at baby girl names online last night when I couldn't sleep and I found the perfect name for my first-born daughter (who for a long time I've been praying for as Elisabeth, which I also think is lovely): Eliana, which means My Lord has responded. I love it! Eliana Ruth... now all I need is a last name for her!!! God really will have to respond to provide that one, though! So really this entry had nothing at all to do with homeschooling or preschool, but I just wanted to send out a little praise to the God who answers prayer! Hope you all are having a wonderful day!
Blessings!
Jennifer
Blessings!
Jennifer
Friday, September 3, 2010
George Washington Copywork
So, in re-reading my last (and first!) entry, I realized that when I said I was a homeschool consultant, that could sound somewhat arrogant coming from someone who has no kids!!! Actually, one of the benefits of having no children at this stage of my life is that I have time to read and research obsessively about different methods and resources available to homeschoolers and I have a number of friends who come to me to see if I know anything about such and such a program, because with all their munchkins running around they haven't had time to research it... So basically, I'm a dork with a passion for homeschooling, but no outlet for that passion other than to become as knowledgeable as I can about the subject! When I read "homeschool consultant" trying to be an objective third party, I didn't like myself very much, so I hope that explanation helps!!
Anyways, I found this great resource for copywork this morning from Albright News. She has great copywork selections from Scripture and historical sources. I tweaked her George Washington copywork document so that the copywork selections were written on lined paper so that children could focus on making their letters the correct size for the lines that I used. There are a limited number of selections for copywork, so I'll add some more as I stumble across them! I was trying to link to the PDF file on my computer, but I have no idea how to do that! I'll have to do some more research and try to figure it out!
Oh well! Technology and I have a love-hate relationship! While I am infinitely patient with people (easy to say when you don't have children!), I find it very easy to kick any piece of equipment that is not operating in the way I think it should! (I have a particular hatred for fritzy photocopiers!)
So there may be a copywork file uploaded shortly, or there may not be... depending on my frustration level! Have a wonderful Friday!
On a completely different note, and just so I remember, I met a lovely girl last night who was homeschooled and it really cemented my resolve to raise my own children well! (By the way, this girl (along with the many other homeschool children in my circle of friends) was completely socialized and only had 1 head!!)
Jennifer
Anyways, I found this great resource for copywork this morning from Albright News. She has great copywork selections from Scripture and historical sources. I tweaked her George Washington copywork document so that the copywork selections were written on lined paper so that children could focus on making their letters the correct size for the lines that I used. There are a limited number of selections for copywork, so I'll add some more as I stumble across them! I was trying to link to the PDF file on my computer, but I have no idea how to do that! I'll have to do some more research and try to figure it out!
Oh well! Technology and I have a love-hate relationship! While I am infinitely patient with people (easy to say when you don't have children!), I find it very easy to kick any piece of equipment that is not operating in the way I think it should! (I have a particular hatred for fritzy photocopiers!)
So there may be a copywork file uploaded shortly, or there may not be... depending on my frustration level! Have a wonderful Friday!
On a completely different note, and just so I remember, I met a lovely girl last night who was homeschooled and it really cemented my resolve to raise my own children well! (By the way, this girl (along with the many other homeschool children in my circle of friends) was completely socialized and only had 1 head!!)
Jennifer
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
New Blog
Boo is 18 months
Hello! After checking out all of the beautiful blogs that are linked to the 1+1+1=1 Tot School blog, I wanted to jump right in to let you all know what I've been up to lately in this regard! Now before I start, you should know that I'm not actually a mommy - I'm not even married... but if I ever get married and have my own babies I will definitely be homeschooling (and trying not to jump the gun on my poor dear wee ones to be!) At present, I am doing quite a bit of homeschool consulting for families in my area and I am in the process of starting up a Private Christian Preschool called "Precepts Academy Learn and Play"... I am writing curriculums for several different age levels and they are all written under the Precepts Academy name. Anyways, prior to officially starting the preschool, I have been working with my 18-month old nephew, "Boo", on some of the activites in a preschool curriculum which I am writing based on the Brightly Beaming Preschool resources. My curriculum has added 10 units, to create a 36-week "school" year and I have tried to tie the letter of the week and the Nursery Rhyme to the theme. I have also added a song and book recommendations for each theme. I am in the process of developing Tot Trays to go with each theme as well, if I can remember to write down everything Boo and I do together. We have already completed the "Boats" theme. Here are some of the activites we did:
Hello! After checking out all of the beautiful blogs that are linked to the 1+1+1=1 Tot School blog, I wanted to jump right in to let you all know what I've been up to lately in this regard! Now before I start, you should know that I'm not actually a mommy - I'm not even married... but if I ever get married and have my own babies I will definitely be homeschooling (and trying not to jump the gun on my poor dear wee ones to be!) At present, I am doing quite a bit of homeschool consulting for families in my area and I am in the process of starting up a Private Christian Preschool called "Precepts Academy Learn and Play"... I am writing curriculums for several different age levels and they are all written under the Precepts Academy name. Anyways, prior to officially starting the preschool, I have been working with my 18-month old nephew, "Boo", on some of the activites in a preschool curriculum which I am writing based on the Brightly Beaming Preschool resources. My curriculum has added 10 units, to create a 36-week "school" year and I have tried to tie the letter of the week and the Nursery Rhyme to the theme. I have also added a song and book recommendations for each theme. I am in the process of developing Tot Trays to go with each theme as well, if I can remember to write down everything Boo and I do together. We have already completed the "Boats" theme. Here are some of the activites we did:
- played a floating / sinking game in a shallow Rubbermaid bin
- Made shape boats and reviewed circles, rectangles, triangles
- Coloured blue "water" with different blue and white crayons on blue construction paper
- Made a blue letter "B" using a large outline letter and tissue paper squares
- Read Noah's Ark, Jesus Walks on Water, Jesus Calms the Storm, Boats, and a cute story about a boy and a penguin called Lost and Found - Boo loves to have a story read to him!
- Sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and converted the couch into a canoe, complete with paddle!
- Tried a Shell Match game - I showed Boo a shell and he had to pick the matching one from a row of shells. He was too little for this, but we started on the concept of "Which one is the same?"
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