The week started with our service project of the month. A reminder, it is our greatest priority in homeschooling our child to first teach her Jesus and show her Jesus. Show her the love of God. God is love and He commands us to serve and love one another.
Scripture for why that's important to us:
Matthew 25:35 - "For I was hungry and You gave me food, I was thirsty and You gave me drink, I was a stranger and You welcomed me..."
James 2:14-18, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."
Proverbs 28:27 - "Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse."
1 John 3:17-18, "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."
Luke 3:11 - "And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
Proverbs 14:31 - "Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him."
Proverbs 19:17 -"Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed."
Matthew 25:37-40, "Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."
Proverbs 31:20 - "She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy."
Deuteronomy 15:7 - "“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother,"
And these are not all but it is evident that God meant business and love when He commanded us to love one another and feed the poor. And this year especially, I'm sure there are more people than normal in need of a little help putting some food on the table. God blesses our family so richly on a daily basis and He provides for us so well. We are not rich but we are rich in the Holy Spirit and KNOW He will bless our blessings in His name for others and He works for our good and will also provide for us. It is a pleasure to take from our grocery budget to give to others. This is the conversation I had with Ellie in doing this. I explained how it is such a precious blessing to not think about what we will eat or what will we wear but to know we have been provided for by God. And because He has given us much, we can give to others too. We must give to others.
We are a vessel in the body of Christ and we want to carry the goodness and love that He has for us to others. We want to love all people and give to ministries who further help others and glorify God and not themselves in doing so. Main priority in life...if nothing else in this life, the only thing that truly matters is being full of the Holy Spirit and displaying the fruits of the Holy Spirit and therefore, glorifying God. That is our purpose, all of us. We fail at it constantly but it remains our desire to make God our first priority in all of life.
So, here we donated some canned goods to a local church that has a food bank ministry. We will be helping with food again this month later to help a friend who helps to provide Thanksgiving meals.
Glory be to God!
On Monday we also did some apple activities. We used our art pan/tray, paper, paint, and apples and did apple roll painting. It's a type of marbling art but done with apples instead of marbles. The pieces turned out beautiful...even the apple which was the tool. So Ellie threw glitter on those ha!
We discussed the lifecycle of an apple and sang some finger play songs to help us rotate that cycle. We actually have a small apple orchard we started not a full year ago and it should produce in a year or two from now so it's great to be teaching her about this.
Tuesday was a Homeschool "catch up day." The flexibility of homeschooling allows you to shift and move and do the things that work best for your fam and make you happiest. After a busy week last week, we left Tuesday open to catch up, read lots of books, snuggle, and play games together at home. Home is always good, too.
So we did a sensory bin with "Buh" sounds. Again, we are not learning the alphabet traditionally, but phonetically so we can start to prepare for the curriculum "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" in August 2021. We had Beans, Beads, Balls, and Bells in the Bin.
We read books outside, on the couch, and eventually by a cozy fire in the fireplace with blankets and a pic-nic lunch.
We continued our studies of Dale Chihuly and Pytor Tchaikovsky. We listened to the "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky and Ellie so loved picking out the different insturments she heard such as a tambourine, bells, triangle, drums, violin, cello, and of course the church bells and real cannons he used. Oh she just loved those cannons. Still fresh in her mind were the apple cannons of the apple orchard and her reaction when she heard them was ADORABLE!! "*Gasp!* Apple Cannons!!" I died! So precious!
Also, Ellie was amazed by a science project some friends of ours did last week with an egg. "Rubber egg," was what it is called. You place an egg in white distilled vinegar and in a couple days or so, the egg shell will dissolve, eroded away by the vinegar, and remaining is the egg white and yolk. It is solidified yet squishy and a bit malleable while keeping it's shape. Ellie actually requested, "I want to make a squishy egg!" So this is Day 1 of our egg experiment.
After 2 days soaking in vinegar, the egg shell was almost completely eroded away - had almost no integrity, was transparent, and the inside remained intact, yet the egg was "squishy." Ellie liked her new egg and she almost immediately squished it too hard and "pop!" Ooze everywhere which she just loved even more. We discussed the science behind it and quickly washed up. Easy experiment!
Later in the day after her nap, we traced shapes and traced each other (daddy too!) on big roll out butcher paper. Ellie loved this and wanted to trace our dog too but we knew she wouldn't lay down for that craziness! ha! Ellie then was encouraged to dress her picture of herself, give herself facial characteristics, hair, a hairbow, clothes, jewelry, etc. She drew a spiderweb on her shirt (Halloween season over here) "painted" each finger nail, and gave herself pants. Brown eyes and blonde hair and a "smile!" she said. Her practice of tracing was rough but improved with each person and shape.
Speaking of shape play, Ellie also LOVES to play with her shapes. She did some puzzles with them in her "Preschool Math" book and then took to her own paper where she told me she created a church and a sunshine.
On Wednesday, we took to the mountains for a hike at Chimney Rock in Lake Lure, NC. I haven't been here since Ellie was 6 months old! So what a treat to be back on this beautiful mountain with friends. I love Lake Lure. I have had some special times out there with my husband and it's just always a treat to be out that way.
Thursday we went to Kindermusik and our teacher Mrs. Rosalind had such an awesome outdoor sensory exploration setup! Ellie wanted to stay forever making nature soup haha!
Friday we had a special date for Forest School. A mommy and Ellie date to the pumpkin patch where we played all day, then came home and did a lot of really cool things to follow the theme.
We read the book, "How many seeds in a pumpkin?" and used the educational points in this book to estimate how many seeds were in our pumpkin. We weighed our pumpkins and discussed the difference in size and weight. We experimented with float and sink...does the pumpkin float or sink? She made art with her seeds, counted her seeds (some - over a thousand total! ha!), made a bird feeder with the seeds and a pinecone and PB. We read other pumpkin themed books also.
We read the poem, "October" by Robert Frost during poetry and tea time that evening. We also observed an art piece by Van Gogh (who we will be studying next month for 3 months), "Still Life with Two Jars and Two Pumpkins." I also had her draw a pumpkin in her nature journal and then we labeled the parts.
Doing all this, Ellie got to practice writing numbers, counting, making estimations using logic, and observation skills. Oh and the sensory fun was awesome with the pumpkin guts. Ellie thought that was just excellent!
And since Ellie got to "Go Mining" at the farm, we brought her rock treasures home, identified them, and read a book on rocks. When I was little I would collect so many cool rocks so this was a really cool way to teach and bond! She was genuinely interested in identifying the rocks and placing them on their "home" on the ID card. Actually, all three of us this evening learned a lot reading and playing with the rocks about the rock we find even within our home! Very interesting.
Books read this week: A few repeats because of Tchaikovsky and Dale Chihuly Study for greater emphasis. She has really gotten these artists down!
