Scrabble Apple!

I've been on the hunt for some fun word games that our whole family could play together. Personally, I love to play Scrabble (I play it on the iPad very often!) and thought it would be fun to teach the kids to play, as well. As we were shopping at Wal-Mart last week I found the game Scrabble Apple. We started to play this afternoon, and it is the PERFECT game for my eight and five year old.

Basically, you lay all the tiles face down in the "orchard" (good vocab. word!). Each player takes a turn choosing a tile and placing it face up in the playing area. When someone can spell a word they holler it out and bring it over to their side. You can add letters to existing words, or even change letters around to make new words. We didn't get that complicated yet. Three letter words were a good place to start. I was also amazed and what different learners my son and daughter are. My daughter just looks at the tiles and tries to think of words. Right away my son was arranging and rearranging the tiles to make words.

Now, the game itself is excellent, but it ended in tears today because my youngest said "But I wanted to win!". Obviously we need to do more things like this so he can learn that it's ok to lose and most of the fun lies in actually playing the game. I was, however, impressed that he was easily making words.

I am also attending the virtual homeschool conference this week and have downloaded all the audios for the different sessions. There is one in particular - Homeschooling During Times of Crisis - that really interests me. The older I get the more "crisis" situations seems to arise and the more complicated life gets. Homeschooling is a blessing during these times because it gives me something to focus on, but today I was very distracted by a particular situation and had a hard time getting the kids to focus as a result. SO, we layed down after lunch and enjoyed several great books and then played Scrabble Apple. I guess that's good enough for today.

Getting Along, blah blah blah

Wow - are my children the only ones in the world who fight with each other? Sometimes it feels that way to me, and the past several days have been particularly bad. In doing some reading last night I came across this book entitled "Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends". It was posted on a summer reading list for moms on the 5Js website (I love her site!). After reading the reviews on Amazon I figured I will give it a try and make it our morning devotion once my son is homeschooled full time (which is in three short weeks!).

Completely unrelated the brother and sister topic is the map my daughter is making of the Thirteen Colonies. I read on a blog about making salt dough maps. So, we are giving it a go. We transferred the map to the inside of a pizza box and tomorrow will mix the dough and shape it to the outline of the map. Should be fun! I'm not a very crafty person, but with step by step directions I can handle most anything.

That's it for today!

Metamorphosis

Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but as I was looking at our caterpillars this morning I thought about just how similar our lives can be to that of the average caterpillar. Last week we received five tiny caterpillars in the mail - we thought they looked awfully small and not capable of much. Within the first three days they had doubled in size, and now, a week later, they have quadrupled in size and one has even climbed to the top of the container and in in its chrysalis.

This past year I have felt EXACTLY like these caterpillars. I have never had such a feeling of change in my entire life. I struggled with recovery from a surgery, and then many health complications afterwards. I was small and helpless. During this struggle, however, I have been growing. I'm old enough now to know when God is working on me - putting obstacles and challenges in my life that test me and also give me endurance. I've been creating my chrysalis recently. Adjusting to life as a homeschooling mom has been HARD. Reclaiming my health has been HARD. Keeping up with the house, laundry, grocery shopping, etc... has been HARD.

Throughout all of it, however, God has placed wonderful friends and family in my life to spur me on and give me the help when it was needed. It has been six months since we pulled our daughter out of school and began homeschooling - now I feel like she and I are turning into butterflies. All of this HARD work is paying off and we are seeing some magnificent rewards. I've heard somewhere that life is hard but God is good. Boy, is this true!

So, as we all prepare to start another week, what stage are you in? Are you the struggling caterpillar? Maybe you are the chrysalis that is preparing to turn into a beautiful butterfly. Or, maybe you have come through the hard times and are flying around sharing your beauty with others. Just something to think about...