Control

This past week I was feeling depressed and so wanted something really light and easy to read. I went through my moms book shelf and took two books "Christy" by Catherine Marshall and "The Shell Seekers" by someone I can't remember. I was pleasantly surprised both these books. Christy was very motivational for me (hopefully not just because I was moody and depressed!) I would suggest reading it and The Shell Seekers while light as I thought still made me think about something. In this book a mother in her old age is recounting life and also the lives of her three children. Two of the three children are absolutely horrible and I keep waiting for as in all lovely novels for them to learn their lesson and be good! They never did. I was really moody and thought I wish I could smack them and tell them how to behave. But in the book the author portrays the mother as very accepting. I realize she is not complaining about her rotten children, she is not fretting (not much anyway), and she is most definitely not trying to change them. She knows what they are like, she loves them in their own way, and just lets go of those parts of them that are distasteful. Because she does this she is much calmer then many mothers I know in my own life. Moms who worry and try to hard to influence and get angry at all their children's bad or seemingly bad choices. I thought about myself and while I have thought about being controlling before and have tried to overcome it I realized I still had a "bit" more to go. I too view people and if its someone I care about, and they are seeming to jump off a cliff I want to jump in and stop them. Does this do me any good? No because usually that means the person now really wants to jump off that cliff, and I just make them mad. I get myself upset and lose my sense of peace and usually they jump off the cliff anyway. When in truth maybe it wasn't the cliff I thought it was. Or maybe yes its a cliff but if they won't look at it for what they know it is they need to jump off it to learn a painful lesson. I know I have jumped off my painful cliffs but needed that lesson to come through experience. So my light hearted novel brought me to think about this quote that used to hang on my mothers fridge "God grant me the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to accept the things I cannot" I do not need to control things, I can trust God and have peace!

Counting

A friend pointed out to me that if children learn to count by 5, 10, 2 etc. they are ready to take multiplication. We've been working on it. I made a big poster board with numbers going across 1-10 and numbers going vertical counting by 10's. We fill in the numbers as Katrina can count higher and then every day count to 100 by 5's and 10's. They were getting bored with it so I kind of stumbled on doing a little clap game for pairs. Count by 5's hitting 1 hand, count by 10's hitting both. They wanted to do it again and again this way. Little tip.

Speaking of getting bored... I am finding that I have got to be Ms. Creativity to keep them excited and frankly, it's quite the challenge. They love school time, but sometimes they don't love doing what's in school time if that makes sense. I'm trying to balance "cover the basics" with "Learn whatever you want!" Perhaps this is the challenge for everyone, but I would love to hear your ideas, your suggestions, how do you make the basics fun? BTW, Sue showed me a great intro to reading game that we're starting if anyone is interested.

The Universal Questions

So today I taught in YW's. I got a ton out of my lesson, I don't know if anyone else did, but I did. I wanted to share.

The lesson was on testimony, and frankly, after preparing briefly from the manual, I thought to myself that what I had prepared did not inspire me to gain a testimony, and probably wouldn't inspire anyone else either. This realization lead me to ponder on what would. Here's what I came up with.

It's been said that the three universal questions are,

Who am I?
Why am I here?
Where am I going?

As I gathered my thoughts further, (in the mother's lounge with another leader :)), she pointed out that we don't ask "Who am I" in the same way. This led to a great discussion in class on "How do you, ask this question." Am I smart?, Am I dumb?, Am I pretty?, Am I fat?, Am I a Loser? Am I spiritual? Does anyone value me?. After writing these questions on the board I asked the girls, "Aren't these surface questions to the real question?" Who am I? A light went on for several as they said, ...yes!

The topic turned to their younger siblings and how they don't ask these questions. I asked why? They said things like, they aren't mature yet, they don't understand yet, they don't know enough. To which I had to ask, "Do they really understand less? or do they understand more?" Having been enveloped and present in the sphere where it was all clear so recently, perhaps they take for granted what we have but forgotten.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/523/


We can only understand why we are here to the extent that we know who we are. We can only understand where we are going to the depth that we understand why we are here.


Idolatry - I guess there was a lesson today in Relief Society on this very thing. This sin, and I'm starting to think all sin, ties into the universal questions. Who am I? If we don't get THE ANSWER, (which there is only one answer, and only one source for the answer) does it leave such a chasm, that we (the human family) attempt, even "have to attempt", to "fill it" with something else?

A testimony enables us to eventually "see" Who can/will fill that universal need and answer the universal questions. It's so pertinent to every age, class, person --and every day... Marion G. Romney said that our testimony is our most precious possession.

So there's my latest "inklings". I'd love to hear yours on the topic. I think it's pretty powerful stuff.

The Creation

After talking to Tammy one evening I was feeling a strong desire to refocus my children's school time and find something that would be exciting for me and for them. So I prayed fervently that night for some guidance, the following day took me to Desseret Book. A new book jumped out at me "The Story of The Creation From the Book of Moses" by Daniel and Rebecca Ridges Jensen. I felt a strong pull to it and loved the pictures so I bought it. I am so glad I did. It was the start I needed. As I have read the book with the girls it has opened up so many questions and ideas of what they want to learn about. All about the world and everything in it. I suddenly realized how by studying the scriptures we truly could be led to learn about everything. Just by going into detail about the creation we have things to learn about that could take years! We talk about learning about the planets, stars, sun, moon, earth, water, plants, animals, and our very own bodies! I am so happy to be learning this with the girls and to be doing it while tying it all into the creation and the creator. The learning has become just beautiful to me. Right now the girls are especially interested in the plants that where made to cover the earth, how the seeds are in each one, and how they grow. So I bought a book made for children about herbs and plants and it teaches the medicinal properties of plants and how to identify them. When we learn this alongside the fact that Heavenly Father created these amazing plants it is surprising how they just eat up all this knowledge. Harley came running up to me with a plant root from the yucca plant knowing if she chewed it and put it on Niyahs sore that it would stop the pain. WOW what a neat thing to know about. There is so much for them to learn and I am so happy to be able to help them and learn with them. What a gift I have been given.

Physics with My 5 Yr. Old

I found a fun way to do a little physics with my 5 yr. old ... in the kitchen sink. I filled up the sink with water and then grabbed different objects around the house and with each item asked my son if he thought it would float or sink. It was surprising even to me that some of the objects I thought would float actually sank and vice versa. This idea came in a great little book that I found on Half.com for 1 penny (plus shipping) called '365 Days of Creative Play' by Sheila Ellison & Judith Gray.

Geography Lessons From the 'Friend'

My son and I recently found a children's atlas at the D.I. in town and he's spent many hours perusing the pages telling me about all the wonderful places he will go when he gets 'Daddy's age.' The other day, I sat down to read to him out of the 'Friend.' He always loves the page with all of the faces of children from around the world. I grabbed the atlas and with each new child we read about, we found where that child lived on the map. It was a really simple, yet fun way to teach geography.