Metaphysical discussion of the week

This afternoon we were watching "Happy Feet" on the TV when Iona started asking "Who made the adverts?". I replied "The people whose products are being advertised". This seemed to satisfy her, but shortly after she continued:
"Who made the TV?"
"People in factories"
"Who made people?"
"God"
"Who made penguins?"
"God"
"Who made God?"
... Gulp!!!
"Um ... nobody did. He's always been there."
"No - God made God!".

Seeking Baby Jesus: a Lesson Learned

Over Christmas I've discussed the Christmas story a lot with Iona. She played an angel (or, as she was determined to view it, a fairy!) in our church Nativity, and we also used Truth in the Tinsel as our advent Bible study. It certainly seems to have sunk in: this morning we were both upstairs when she came rushing in to my bedroom saying "Come quickly to Bethlehem. There's a baby there!". She was holding a small, round, glittery scrunchie above her head, and told me "This is a halo". When I said "Are you an angel, then?" she replied "Yes", and led me in to "Bethlehem"!

Jobs lapbook

2 or 3 weeks ago I reached the story of Moses' call with Iona in her morning Bible stories. This led to me telling her about God having a good plan for her life, so I made her a colouring sheet about jobs (the pictures came from DLTK).

Unfortunately, Iona is currently at the stage where she doesn't tend to want to do what I suggest, so not much colouring got done! However, it gave me inspiration for her next lapbook - a 2-week unit on jobs, which she's quite enjoyed.

When we put the lapbook together Iona was the most interested she's been in the process, and insisted on helping to decorate the covers, front and back!

We borrowed various books about jobs from the library, and used them to make mini books about what different professions did:

Where possible, I asked Iona to come up with ideas, after reading each book, of what the person did. As you can see from the first page of the police book, I must admit to using the police as a bit of a threat to her when we're getting in the car! I put that in the book, though, as it was her own words, which is the most involved she's been in any lapbooking.

I was very impressed by how carefully she coloured some of the police book, and even added a lollipop lady to my lollipop sign, as well as adding an RSPCA inspector to the front of that book.

Over the 2 weeks of the unit I tried to theme Iona's Bible readings around jobs, so at the end I made her a quiz of matching the character with their job. She didn't really answer any of them correctly, but I think that was because she wasn't really interested in the activity at the time. This is quite a problem at the moment, when I'm trying to encourage Iona to learn more around specific topics, and particularly when I try to use the "Teach Your Baby to Read" flashcards with her; she appears uninterested and gives silly answers which I think she knows are wrong.

The last page of the lapbook was an attempt to encourage Iona to write. When she gets magazines these days she seems to enjoy "colouring in" large letters which are outlined to encourage children to write over them, so I attempted to reproduce this. I asked her what Daddy did, and what she wanted to do when she grew up (the answer to the latter varies from day to day), then asked her to write over the words, but apart from the "i" in "fairy" she point-blank refused.

One of the Bible stories we read was the wise and the foolish man (builders), so I suggested we make a collage from torn pieces of tissue paper and egg box on a picture I drew. Again, I ended up doing most of the work, although Iona was interested; she preferred to draw her own pictures of things she was interested in at that moment. However, she enjoyed tearing the egg box, and did stick some down. She also agreed to me putting it up on her wall afterwards (sometimes she gets very worked up about me not doing that because she wants to keep working on it, i.e. destroying what's already been done).

Interestingly, although Iona seemed to enjoy and learn from this unit, it had most of an effect on me. For one thing, I am now learning to plan our work more. I recently read a very interesting post on Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett on planning your year with unit studies, and decided to timetable at least some projects at times of the year when I know we are likely to want to do them. This has had the very useful effect of focusing what I do with Iona into a discrete period. In this case, for example, I restricted us to 2 weeks on jobs, so when I reached the end of the second week I forced myself to tie up the lapbook with Iona, despite not having covered all the jobs or books that I'd planned to. What we did seems to have been enough for her, and we didn't end up this time with the unit dragging on and on, so I will try to continue working like this.

Secondly, and most importantly, I realised, after doing Bible studies with Iona stressing that God has a plan for her life, and discussing with her what she could do when she grows up, that it really doesn't matter to me what she does. Previously I've given lip service to the idea that the most important thing is to serve God, whatever he asks of her, but privately I felt I would be deeply disappointed if she didn't go to university. However, since doing this unit I really do feel now that, although I'd still like her to go to university, it really doesn't matter if she doesn't, as God's plan for her is a good one.

Love is in the Air

For Valentine's Day this year I decided to do a little project with Iona about love. We began by making this wreath from a paper plate, sugar paper and tissue paper:

I found the idea and templates at http://www.examiner.com/family-holidays-in-denver/easy-valentines-day-crafts, and it really was very easy to make. I cut the hearts out from the paper, and allowed Iona to stick them onto the plate, although, as I didn't cut the centre of the plate out, I had to prevent her sticking them in the middle. She's definitely improving in her ability to stay on task when doing crafts, although I have to choose ones that allow her to do her own thing to a large extent, which is quite restrictive.

Another craft I then went on to do with Iona was making these Valentine cards:

This idea came from the blog Artful Adventures. It required a little more effort than the wreath, to prevent Iona doing her own thing and sabotaging the painting, but I helped her do 3 fingerprint hearts on one sheet of paper, then removed that to dry while she fingerpainted to her heart's content on another spare sheet. I explained to her that on Valentine's Day we give cards to people we love, and asked who she wanted to make her cards for, expecting her to say Mummy, Daddy, and 1 or more of her friends. She replied "I love Mummy, and I love me, and I love Daddy", and insisted on making her cards for Mummy, Daddy and herself! I love the way she is so un-self-conscious in her self-regard, and wish that she could stay that way, although I recognise that she will have to change, and probably sooner rather than later. Still, I hope that she will learn to accept and love herself as God loves her, rather than accept any negative judgements that the world will try to impose on her.

For Valentine's Day reading I borrowed The Love Bugs from the library and read it to her. She was keen to read it, but the story was a bit complicated for such a young child, and I don't think she really understood, even with me trying to explain the intricacies as I went along.

On the day itself I tried to make heart-shaped jellies, but failed in that attempt, due to being unable to find the raspberry jelly. However, I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out bread hearts, which I then used to make Iona Valentine's pizza:

Iona enjoyed these, and was easily able to name the heart shape.

Funnily enough, although the lesson at church the day before Valentine's Day was about Paul's letter to Timothy, it fitted in well with our Valentine's theme, as it emphasised that God loves us. In fact, the leader actually arranged for each child there to receive a letter addressed to them, telling them so, so that aspect of my theme was well-covered.

Finally, I found this channel on YouTube with various Valentine's Day activities on it. Iona loved this song, and I had to sing it to her repeatedly for several days!

Father Abraham

Work with Iona on her morning Bible studies continues. We have now begun studying the story of Abraham. We spent a couple of days looking at God's call to him, which was quite hard to find online resources about. I emphasized how Abraham trusted God, who looked after him, as well as telling her the simplified story of how we moved to our current house before she was born. In addition, we played a little bit at travelling. Yesterday and today we read and talked about Abraham giving Lot the choice of where to move to. That was a little easier to find resources for, but there still wasn't much about, especially as she seems to be a lot less careful about colouring in the last week, possibly because I've given her too many sheets lately. We talked about sharing, and I demonstrated fair sharing with some sweets she was eating. I also followed the suggestion of http://www.theheights.org/preschool_lessons/b/B2-Abe-3.pdf and did an activity with Iona sorting coloured bricks, as Abraham and Lot had to sort their flocks and herds. This gave her a bit of practice in an important maths skill, and I found she could do it quite easily - so much so, in fact, that she got distracted partway through and insisted on building with the bricks instead!

Moving on from Bible study, we have also continued to practise with the reading flashcards. Introducing "knee" threw her at first, but by today she seemed to have some idea of which was which out of that and "hand" so I asked her if she wanted to learn another word. She said yes, so I showed her the flashcard for "foot". I don't know if that's too soon, as I wanted her to overlearn each word, to give them the best chance of "sticking". However, it's a fine balance between that and her getting bored of doing the same old words, so I took the chance, and she was very happy to be taught another word. We'll have to see how she does with recognising it tomorrow.

Adventures in Bible Study

So far, I've managed to achieve my aim of discussing her Bible reading with Iona each day, using resources I've found online, 'though I'm guessing it may be more difficult with more obscure ones. Iona's been really receptive to doing colouring and crafts based around the stories of creation, Adam and Eve (both of which she already knows quite well) and Cain and Abel. For creation we talked about how God made everything, and I printed out a colouring page of the world with Genesis 1:1 on it (can't find a reference to it now). For Adam and Eve we talked about disobedience (though not using that word) and I printed out a nice picture of Eve in front of the tree, with a snake to cut out and put through a slit in it (again, I can't find it online now). Cain and Abel was interesting, as it's a hard story for children and Iona didn't really know it before. I used it to emphasize how we should look after each other, especially family and friends. DLTK's site was very useful in this - I was able to print out a picture of 2 children playing together, saying "Share and be a friend. I am my brother's keeper" (http://www.coloring.ws/cain-and-abel.htm). We also made toilet roll tube models of Cain and Abel (http://www.dltk-bible.com/mcain.htm and http://www.dltk-bible.com/mabel.htm), which we used to act out the story and Iona played with a bit. Lastly, as suggested in the DLTK site, I used the story as a jumping-off point to introduce our family tree. I made a large copy of the family tree (http://www.dltk-bible.com/genesis/families/my_family_tree.htm) with sugar paper as a poster for Iona's room, labelling 3 generations of family members, as well as putting on a photo of each. While doing so I talked a lot about how Mummy's mummy and daddy were Nanny and Grandpa and Daddy's mummy and daddy are Grandma and Grandad. The poster will go up in her room. In addition I printed out the details sheets for each member of the family and began filling them in, stapling them into a book for her all about her family.

Concerning reading, I have now laminated the "Mummy" and "Daddy" flashcards I made, and used them with Iona for 2 days. On every occasion she has been able to tell me what they said and distinguish between them, although she could not at first read the word "Mummy" when I wrote it in smaller writing later today. I am therefore going to try making the next flashcard in the series very soon (if I can remember the next ones, as I can't find my "Teach Your Baby to Read Kit".

Happy New Year

Well, it's a new year, and I'm back. For those who don't know, I've had heart valve replacement surgery 4 weeks ago, so education has had to take rather a back seat, both now and in the weeks leading up to it. However, I did use the chance to teach Iona something about the heart and about jobs of people in hospitals. I'd planned to do it as a lapbook, but that never quite happened. She was very keen on the hospitals books, though, and also the book which I used to introduce the idea of Mummy as a little girl (as I was explaining to her that I had my first heart surgery then) - "Before I Was Your Mother" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Before-I-Was-Your-Mother/dp/0152058427/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3AS4HUZ1CTVE7&colid=11ACYI4B09FFG). I was disappointed, though, that it was almost impossible to find any books about a parent going into hospital for an operation, as I could have done with that to help prepare her. The only one I could find was from America, "Let's Talk About When Someone You Love is in Hospital" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lets-about-Someone-Hospital-Library/dp/0823950379), which wasn't specific to a parent, and didn't talk at all about after-effects, but which was some help.

Unfortunately, due to my operation, I wasn't able to do much work with Iona on the meaning or customs of Christmas, as even when I got home the breathing tube had bruised my voice box so I couldn't talk much. However, I did find this printable nativity set to make - http://mama-jenn.blogspot.com/2009/12/printable-nativity-sets.html. We made the characters on half toilet roll tubes, and managed to make a stable from a cereal box. The original idea had been to assemble it in the window and leave it there, but that was reckoning without Iona! She adored playing with the characters, and did so for days. One day she placed both the angel and shepherd in the stable and I heard her saying "Hello, angel, what are you doing today?" "I'm in the stable"! We don't now have a usable stable scene, but I feel it's worth it, as she knows all the characters and their role in the nativity story well.

Now we have entered a new year, and I have made some new goals for me to achieve with Iona during the year. Firstly, I plan to have her toilet trained, which I will be able to begin working towards as soon as I am able to lift again, after the wound has completely healed. Second, I intend for her to start attending the youngest group of Sunday School on her own some time around her 3rd birthday. I started taking her into it a few months ago, but as the minimum age is supposed to be 3 I have been staying with her to ensure that she doesn't cause problems for the teachers. She enjoys the craft in it, and has been learning some of the names from the lessons, although she still misses being able to play with the toys in creche.

When I can drive again (probably February) I will be able to re-start attending home education groups with her, but I also intend to start going to some new groups. Our local home education group runs a weekly gym session for children from the age of about 3, so I will try her out at that around then. She is also very keen on ballet, so I plan to try a local class that takes children at a similar age and allows you to pay by the week.

At church we have several native speakers of other languages which I don't speak myself. I want Iona to become proficient in a variety of languages, so I'm planning to ask them to help her learn at least basic greetings in them and see what happens from there, to complement my teaching her Spanish and French. If she can just chat to them in their own languages whenever they meet, I think she'll be part-way to becoming fluent, in a way that I never have been in anything other than English.

When I was 4 my Mum started teaching me to read using Glen Doman's "Teach Your Baby to Read" Kit (the nearest I can find now is http://www.gentlerevolution.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=G&Product_Code=0402&Category_Code=K2). I tried this with Iona when she was still a baby, but it didn't really work out, as she wasn't really interested. I thought maybe now would be a better time, so I asked her today if she would like to learn to read this year. She said yes, so I wrote the word "Mummy" in red on an A4 piece of paper and told her what it said, as per the programme. However, she became more interested in the fact of the writing, and wanted to write on it, too, so I'll just try again tomorrow. My hope is that by the end of the year she will have completed the programme and be a competent basic reader. However, she may have other ideas, so I'll just have to accept it if this doesn't happen!

Iona really enjoys craft these days, but still can be obstinate about doing it her way, so I wasn't able to let her help make any Christmas cards this year. I also ran out of time due to my operation. Next Christmas I hope to be able to make all our own cards, and involve Iona, so I plan to start this with her in October to give us enough time.

Lastly, to ensure that I get into good habits with Iona's education before the local authority wants to get involved, I plan to do at least one educational activity (or something that can be considered educational somehow) with her per day. I also intend to contribute to this blog at least once a week, to keep a permanent record of her progress.