Garden Update

It's amazing what a difference a few weeks can make in a garden.  Look at my potatoes, they're HUGE!  I've planted several other things, but not much else is big enough to see yet...it's growing though.  I love watching it come to life.

Look at my strawberries, they're getting so big I can almost taste them.  It won't be long. 

I find it amazing how very green pea plants are.  So, so green.  And they feel thick and healthy.  They've recently started blossoming and they're gorgeous! 

How's your garden growing?  I'd love to hear about it, or your dreams of having one someday.  In fact, start today, even if you only have one pot, you can begin your garden dream!!

Heart of Iron

I started reading this book last week and it's made quite an impression.  It's amazing.  I love Kyle's ability to tell ridiculous stories (like when he was drugged to make his second bone marrow test a little easier and he wasn't sure if it was the doctor or the unicorn dancing around the room that pierced his bone), detail his everyday life and then share something profound.

Seriously profound.  I keep telling everyone about this one part and each time I do, I tear up and can't get through it without sounding slightly strangled.

Kyle shares feelings experienced while waiting in his first waiting room for his first radiation treatment at the age of 17.  While waiting he watches a young boy and his mother and thinks about God.  This is what he had to say,

"Where is God when a young child like that is stricken with terminal cancer?  Where is the beauty in having a promising life snatched away before it begins?

It's in the humanity that the mother and son still maintained in spite of a lot in life that could have easily stripped them of it.  It's in the love that they shared in that small room, on that particular afternoon, that I was privileged to witness.  It's in the hundreds of thousands of people that deal with daily struggles so immense that surely their spirits should collapse - yet not only does that spirit endeavor to endure, it flourishes."

The opportunity to read and learn from the journey of others is a great blessing.  If you have the opportunity, I would greatly recommend this book.  It will make you stop and think.  It will make you thankful and hopefully, give you the urge to love your life and those around you a little more.

June Sharing Time - I Will Follow Heavenly Father's Plan by Being Baptized and Confirmed

This month's topic follows the path of baptism. 

We'll first learn about why and how we're baptized, focusing on the covenants we get to make.  I love covenants.  The blessings associated with them more than make up for any perceived inconvenience in following the guidance given to us by our loving Heavenly Father.  Only perceived, because in reality, that guidance leads us to true happiness, joy and peace.  Peace in the midst of any storm life can throw at us.

Next, we get to talk about receiving the Holy Ghost.  This is one of the most amazing and important gifts that anyone CAN receive.  Can, because we do not always choose to have Him with us.  Can, because He is always there, waiting for us to ask and seek.  Like I said, amazing.

Then comes the opportunity to partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants.  To re-promise to take Christ's name upon us.  To be His again. 

Last, we'll talk about repentance.  Up until the age of 8, our beautiful children haven't sinned.  They can't.  They're perfect in their innocence (yes, I promise, they might not always seem so very innocent, but they are).  They need to quickly learn about another of the wonderful gifts we've received from the sacrifice of our Savior, repentance. 

I've been amazed at how excited I get about the opportunity to teach these truths (and watch them taught) to the children in our primary.  The more I study and learn the more I want to jump up and down while hugging each of them to share and show these feelings with them (I'm not sure how that would look, but you get the idea).

Here are a few talks I've found that look really great.  I'm excited to dive into them and get inspired!

The Covenant of Baptism, by Elder Robert D. Hales

Receive the Holy Ghost, by Elder David A. Bednar

Blessings of the Sacrament, by Elder Don R. Clarke

Born Again, by Elder James E. Faust

This month, we're adding the Shield of Faith to our Armor of God guy.  Everything we do, every principle we teach requires faith to bring us from knowledge to action. 

I found another talk that teaches about this principle (it's got a pretty great title, too).

The Shield of Faith, by Elder Boyd K. Packer

Have a wonderful month and remember, it is the Holy Ghost that will truly touch and teach your kids, He is who you NEED!

PS. I've posted a few ideas for the June's first week of Sharing Time here, I'll post ideas for following weeks the Monday before each Sharing Time.

Sharing Time - June Week 1 - Baptism & Covenants

This weeks sharing time focuses not just on baptism, but more specifically on keeping our baptismal covenants. 

Example
To introduce the topic of baptism, ask the kids whose example they follow.  There are lots of good answers: friends, teachers, parents, older siblings...  When they answer, ask who that person follows and so on until you get the answer Christ.  Why do we follow Christ's example (I love why questions!)? 

Then ask what one BIG thing we do when we're 8 to follow Christ's example?  Did you know that both Christ and each of us are or will be baptized for the very same reason?  Does anyone know what it is?  John 3:5 says, "And Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee.  Except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."  Then discuss that this means to be baptized and confirmed so that we can live with Heavenly Father again.

Preparing for Baptism
In Junior Primary, it's important to talk about how to get ready for baptism and I really love the steps and questions listed on A Year of FHE (I also found these same questions as part of a larger Sharing Time Lesson on lds dot org).

1. Believe in and learn about Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. Why?  Where can we learn about them?
2. Pray to Heavenly Father.  How can praying help us to prepare for baptism?
3. Be forgiving and love others.  What happens when we forgive? How can we show our love for others?
4. Choose the right everyday.  How?
5. Read or listen to the scriptures/scripture stories.  How has/does this help you prepare?

I also like this picture story that teaches the kids exactly what happens once they turn eight found in the family home evening packet on Parenting in the Latter-days.  You could have a recently baptized child come up and tell the story with the pictures (or help you tell the story) and tell the other kids how they felt about being baptized.

Covenant Keeping
Once we've been baptized, we aren't done.  In fact, our journey has just begun.  We made promises when we were baptized.  Promises with a special name, who knows that they're called?  We make 3 covenants, who knows what they are?

1. Take Christ's name upon us (become a member of His church).
2. Aways remember Jesus.
3. Keep His commandments.

To help the kids learn how to keep their covenants in everyday little things, have them play this board game from the Friend magazine.  You could split the room into 2 or 3 teams and have them take turns rolling the die to progress around the board, landing on decisions that have been made.  Each decision teaches about a good or poor choice and the consequences that come from them.  It's simple to print out and pin or tape up in your room!

To teach how covenants are a protection to us, use this fun object lesson I found on Give 'em Heaven (along with a TON of other great ideas) using water, pepper and dish soap.  Ask the kids about things that are hard in the world (mistakes we make) and with each answer, sprinkle a dash of pepper into your water (if you put the water in a clear baking dish, it would be easiest for everyone to see).  Then ask them what's one thing that makes a covenant different than a promise?  It's a two way promise, when we keep our end, Heavenly Father will bless us in certain ways. 

1. He will give us the Holy Ghost to be with us,
2. forgive us when we repent,
3. and let us live with Him again. 

As you give each answer (or have the kids complete the promises with pictures found in the baptism packet from Parenting in the Latter-days), add a small drop of soap and watch what happens to the pepper (if you've never seen it, the soap repels the pepper, it's really pretty cool).  Our covenants protect us from the influence of the world.

I also found a fun idea on the Desert Saints Magazine website that you can use throughout the next few weeks.  As you discuss each of the 3 covenants we make, show them a piece of yarn for each, talk about how each promise is small and simple, but when you braid them together, they get stronger, just like when you keep your covenants, your testimony and faith grow stronger.  You'll have another 3 strands to weave together symbolizing things we need to do to keep the Holy Ghost and a final 3 for the covenant renewal that can happen each time we partake of the sacrament.  After you make your final braid, you will braid all three strands together, showing how they all work together to make you even stronger.

Testimony Challenge
Ask the kids either, what's one way they can get ready for baptism or, what's one way they can keep their baptismal covenants and have them commit to work on it throughout the next week. 

Testimonies only grow through living the commandments every day with faith (if you are doing the Armor of God guy, point to the newly added shield).  Don't forget to bear your testimony of the covenants in your own life!  I've often heard it said that while the kids might not remember what you taught, they will remember how they felt.  Get them feeling the Holy Ghost as often as possible!

Have a wonderful week!

Report Style Book Report

For Makenna's last book report, I decided she should do a more report style book report as opposed to the projects we have been doing throughout the year. 

As I mentioned earlier, she wasn't too thrilled with me for a while, but by the end she told me it was actually kind of fun.  Yep.  She did.  Honest.

I found and saved the instructions months ago and I'm not sure where I got them (so I can't give correct credit), but the outline is fairly general.

For this book report, you will end up with at least 6 paragraphs when you're finished.  Makenna liked how easy the report ended up being because I only had her work on one paragraph everyday, which only took her a few minutes. 

1. Introduction: Introduce your reader to the book.  Including what was interesting about it, the main characters, the title, and author.

2. Setting: Describe where the story takes place and when.  The when can be a little harder if your story is complete fantasy, like Makenna's, but you can still do it if you talk about time in relation to what happens in the story.  For example, if you were reading The Lord of the Rings (which she didn't), you could say it happened during the age of man.

3. Main Character(s): Makenna chose to talk about the two main characters, each with their own paragraphs.  You could talk about one character, a group of characters and split it into as many (or few) paragraphs as you choose.

4. Plot: What's the main problem of the story?  What are the characters trying to accomplish throughout the story?

5. Resolution: How do they solve their problem?  This is basically the ending describing how the characters (and the author) wrap the story up in a neat little package...or do they?

6. Conclusion: This section is your review of the book.  What did you like or dislike?  Is there a moral to the story?  Do you think the author did a good job of teaching it?  Would you recommend it and to who?

In addition to one paragraph a day, she added an extra day to print out and edit her report.  Then one last day to make her title page with some pictures/artwork she'd found showing her favorite characters. 

 

It turned out pretty good and as you can see, she's very proud of it!

Folder Book Report

For our last set of book reports, I split the kids up. 

Makenna wasn't very happy with me in the beginning.  She loves doing the "fun" book reports with her brothers, but I wanted her to do at least one report style book report this year.  I'll post about her report a little later because right now, I want to show you the boys folder book reports.

They loved doing them.  Anything that lets them draw, cut and paste is pretty fun in their books.  I found the original idea for this report while perusing Pinterest during the year.  You can find it (and a template to download) on Thinking of Teaching.

I made a few changes to the template to better fit my boys and how we wanted to do our book reports.  It turned out pretty darn fun, although different than I originally thought. 

I'm not sure if my template ended up bigger or if the original from Thinking of Teaching had larger folders (do they make them bigger?), but our pieces didn't fit neatly like hers, so I ended up having the boys put some of their pieces on the back.  I also let them put the pieces wherever they wanted, I told them to think of it like a puzzle and make them fit however they wanted.  And they did. 

This is the front.  It includes a little information about the book with most of the room taken up by a picture which is always their favorite (both boys LOVE to draw).

Here's the inside for both boys.  Ben's is all brown, while James wanted his to be multi-colored.  It's interesting how they so fully express their own individual personalities in just about everything they do. 

We tried to make all our flaps different, just to make it a little more interesting.  This set of flaps shows a picture of the boys very favorite parts from their respective books.

This next set asks them to describe their favorite character.  It's interesting that James (the Kindergartner) will sit and write for a few minutes, but getting Ben (the 2nd grader) to write is, and always has been, like pulling teeth.  But they both got it done.

The fold-out-flap (my technical term, do you like it?) was by far their favorite to make.  This works on their summary skills by asking them to write about the beginning, middle, problem/resolution and ending.

The last flap is their review of the book.  They were to write how well they liked it, what they liked about it and who they would recommend to read it (if they would).

Here's the back of each of their book reports.  In addition to the flaps, they drew a picture of their favorite character and wrote the title, author, genre and who the report was by.

We did one section a day, cutting out the borders and gluing on two separate days at the end.  It went really quickly and the boys had fun.

I love learning with my boys, teaching them and watching their eyes light up with understanding.  It's one of the greatest gifts in my life. 

Do you have any favorite book reports?  I'm on the lookout for some fun ones to fill next year and would love to hear about any you've done or come across!

Nuggets of Wisdom

Have you ever heard of LDS Nuggets?  If you go to their website, you can subscribe to their service simply by entering your email address. 

And what do you get in return?  A "golden thought to treasure" every week.  At least, that's what they say. 

The quotes are always good, but there have been a few that have resonated with me.  Made me stop in my busy day and re-read (and sometimes re-read again).  Then ponder why this passage touched my heart and what I should do about it. 

I just had another of these moments yesterday when I received this quote by President Henry B. Eyring from his October General Conference talk last year,

"The Holy Ghost is sent to you and to those you care for.  You will be strengthened and yet inspired to know the limits and extent of your ability to serve.  The Spirit will comfort you when you may wonder, "Did I do enough?" I testify that the Lord will be with you and that your way will be prepared and marked for you by Him in your service to those He loves in their needs and trials."

When I read or listen to a General Conference talk, I read it as a whole and sometimes miss little pieces of it.  Or perhaps I don't miss them, but they affect me differently in the context of the entire talk.

It took pulling this quote out on its own, to strike me and make me ponder about the service I give in all areas of my life.  I try to not second guess and worry about what I could have done, but it happens.  I worry about my abilities as a mother, a friend, a visiting teacher, a member of the Primary Presidency. 

This quote brings peace to my heart and I'm pretty sure was meant just for me.  Okay, maybe not just for me, but it's a blessing how much it inspires and comforts me.

If you'd like to try out LDS Nuggets for yourself, click on the link and subscribe!  Just do it, maybe one day, when you're struggling, you'll open your email and find just the piece of wisdom you've been looking for.