Thankful

Today, we are starting a lapbook about "Giving Thanks" or we can call it a "gratitude" lapbook. I wanted to show my children that although there are many things they do not have, materialistically or things they experienced, they should still be thankful for what they DO have and cherish those things and those experiences. I hope by doing this lapbook with them they will learn that the true "value" of life is not WHAT they have but instead, what is more important is what experiences they can share and what they can "Give" back to the society. I am a big believer in giving back to the society because if we don't help others succeed, then in essence, we don't succeed either. In our modern day society with emphasis on high tech gadgets, luxury sports cars, huge mansions, etc...there is always the emphasis on "I", "ME" and "US" and it is easy for us close our doors and forget about those who are not so fortunate. We may think we are "rich and successful" because we have those big houses, fancy sports cars, and high tech gadgets, but I feel, unless we are about to give back to our community, we are not truly "wealthy".  To be truly successful in life, I agree with what Mark Victor Hansen has to say...

"You're riding on roads that someone else built, and drinking water from wells that someone's dug. No one can do everything. Yet, each of us can do something that makes a significant difference. As each of us does a little, a whole lot gets done. And pretty soon, everything we dreamed would be . . . will be."

One must not forget that each of us play an important role in maintaining the health of our community. Therefore, the more we give back to the community, the richer our lives become. 

It is easy to ignore what is going on outside our front doors because it doesn't really "affect" our family.  But you're wrong...it does.  If we don't show our care for our community and the people in it, then the community will start deteriorating bringing with it poverty, increased crime, and more unhappy families.

I know present day life can be quite overwhelming and stressful for many and putting an extra effort or money to help those less fortunate may not be top on our list...but do it! These days  we don't have much time to sit back and reflect on our days anymore (unless we make it a conscious effort to do it!)nevermind trying to help others, I know, I too, am guilty of not doing that and on some days, am just glad the day's mad rushes is over and done with.

However, what made me realize to stop and enjoy everyday and take time out of our usual chaotic days to "give" back to the community, are my children. They have made me realized that life goes on too fast and if you don't stop and cherish the moments and memories, you may never get another chance to enjoy them. I am sure many mothers out there can agree with me when I say that "it seemed like yesterday that our children were just born" - time goes by so fast that we don't even know where it went or what we did. They also made me realize I have been living in our little "bubble world" too long.  For my kids, they don't see the world as "us" and "them", they see the world and the society we live in as "one" and we are all "one" living here.  They see other people's needs and comforts just as important as the needs of "mom and dad".  At the age of 4 years, my oldest son made a comment while we were delivering hot chocolate to the homeless on Christmas day (one of our yearly Christmas traditions is to choose a charity to give to on Christmas Day) my son asked why that "man looked so sad and whether us giving him a cup of hot chocolate will make him happy".  This happened almost 3 years ago and I still remember that day very clearly.  From that day on, I became more aware of my own shortcomings when it came to giving back to our society.  Yes,  I give money to charities but the heart is not there.  In the past I never really connected as to the reason why I am "giving" - maybe for a tax receipt???  That shouldn't be the main reason, one should always give from the heart.

There are many ways to give back to the society/community it doesn't necessarily have to be in money form.  Between my children and myself here is a list we made of several ways to give back to our society/community:

*  through ideas
*  volunteering our time
*  giving usable items we don't use anymore to other who may have a use for
* offer our skills - helping our neighbour shovel snow in the snowy months
*  visit a nursing home to read or be a companion
*  pick up litter each time  you take a stroll in your community - help clean up your community
*  send "thank you" notes
*  send Christmas cards to elderly in nursing homes
*  fold 1000 paper cranes and give to a child in long term care in the hospital
*  make gifts and give to homeless
*  make sandwiches and hot drinks and pass out to homeless during winter months
*  knit scarves and mittens
*  sew blankets for homeless
*  volunteer to help an adult learn how to read
*  my children put aside 10% of their earned money towards a charity of their choosing each year
*  drawing happy pictures and giving them to homeless
*  telling jokes and making them feel better
*  giving their toys they don't play with anymore to another child
etc....

This list is ongoing and we constantly add to it.  Do you and your family do any of these or have come up with more creative ways of giving back to your community?  We would love to hear about them!

This Thanksgiving, why not start your thankful list or poem and see if you can contribute to a less fortunate person's thankful list.

Here's a simple way to start writing your own Thankful Poem (this is the one I give to my kids):

Thankful Poem

I'm thankful for ________________and ________________and _________________.

I'm really thankful for __________________________________________________.

I am thankful for ______________________________________________________.

I am thankful for ______________________________________________________.

But most of all, I am thankful for __________________________________________.

We Have Found the Wonders of Lapbooking

In my recent quest for more creative ideas to teach my children, I came across lapbooks and now am hooked with using them and creating with my children all sorts of different themed lapbooks.  Over the summer, we realized that our children were not going to sit down and learn from a workbook!  They were too bored with them and it didn't do too much to stimulate their brain.  So, I decided to look into what other homeschooling parents used to teach their kids and this was one idea that caught my attention.

Our first lapbook was pretty general, it focused on alphabets, numbers, adding, subtracting, months of the year, vowels, etc..nothing too exciting.  However, my children found it fun to go through each activity in the lapbook and decided they wanted to try to do some more based on things they wanted to learn about!

 

So far, we did another lapbook on bugs.  The children all took turns taking pictures of their favourite bugs and we did some bug related activities such as bug counting, pretending they are their favourite bugs and acting like them.  We also did an experiment to show why flies are able to stick to our ceilings and walk on our ceilings!

 

The lastest lapbook we really enjoyed doing was on Tornadoes.  This week's learning theme Andrew picked was on Weather.  I asked him what he wanted to learn and he said he wanted to learn about Tornadoes.  So, we looked into it and here is our lapbook for Tornadoes:

 

 

We got books on tornadoes and looked at how a tornado is formed.  Our hope is to be able to drink 2 - 2 litre bottles of pop so we can use the empty bottles to do our tornado experiment!

Here are some other interesting sites I found for lapbook resources:

http://www.squidoo.com/lapbooking

http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/

http://www.ourlapbooks.blogspot.com/

If you haven't tried it, maybe you will give it a try!  As I am very much a visual learner and so is my son, we have found lapbooking very useful and more importantly, a fun way to learn together!

Happy lapbooking.

3 Icky, Creepy, Plain Gross Science Projects to Try

If you're kids are like mine, the grossest, ickiest, and creepiest projects are the BEST! My kids just love getting their hands into goo and ick ... we are going to try these projects and have fun while doing it...and of course...learn something along the way as well :o)

1. Snot Now
What it teaches: One way the body fights off bacteria and filters the air we breathe; measuring
What to do: Have each student dissolve 1/8 cup of borax in two cups of warm water. In another container, have students stir together two teaspoons of glue gel and three teaspoons of water. (White glue will work too, but the gel makes the snot more slimy.) Add a few drops of green and yellow food dye and stir. Pour mixtures into a baggie, seal, and then squish the mixtures together. Remove snot from baggie. After the kids are done playing with the snot, have them blow dust across the surface of it. This will show how nasal mucus filters air debris and makes boogers. Remind the students they should wash their hands after handling any kind of snot—real or fake!

2. Rubber Egg
What it teaches: Chemical reactions; parts of an egg; observation skills
What to do: Place a raw egg into a glass jar and cover with white vinegar. Place a lid on the jar and let the egg and vinegar sit for a day. The next day, pour out the vinegar and add fresh vinegar to the jar. Seal again and don’t disturb for one week. Then, pour out the vinegar and carefully rinse the egg under cold water. The egg’s shell should be gone, worn away from the vinegar’s acid. (Note: Do not eat the egg—not that you’d have any interest!) Variation: Follow the directions above, only use a hard-boiled egg. The egg will bounce.

3. Have Germs, Will Travel
What it teaches: How germs are spread through physical contact
What to do: Have students sit in a circle while you rub a piece of sidewalk chalk all over your hands. (Inexpensive, colored chalk works best for this experiment because it creates more dust.) The dust represents germs. Once your hands are covered in chalk, begin walking around the circle, shaking hands randomly. See how many students catch the “germs.” Variation: Invite each student to cover his or her hands in chalk dust. Next, have students sit at their desks and do a simple task. After they have seen firsthand (pun intended!) just how easily germs can be transferred, have them clean their space and wash up.

Click here for even more gross science projects.

1. Coming home from work and being greeted by my 4 children with big grins and huge bear hugs! I also got to share their homemade cookies that they baked with daddy.

2. My husband making one of my favourite dishes...curry chicken! Yummy

3. Watching my little baby sleep so contently in my arms.