The Wise Man and the Foolish Man - Build your life on Christ

Sundays and the command to keep the Sabbath Day holy are such a great opportunity to be creative and have fun. I say a "great opportunity to be creative" because too often we focus only on the things we cannot do, that we forget about all the things we can do on Sunday.

Here's what we did for last week's Sunday activity: the reenactment of the wise man and the foolish man!  Mami Chula is the Sunday School teacher of the adults. We are studying the New Testament, and just reviewed the beatitudes. The new BibleVideos.org videos are just fabulous! I love that they follow the words of scripture word by word, and the production is just excellent. 

So for our Sunday family activity after dinner, I pulled out an empty fish tank that I just had sitting around, hauled a rock from the backyard, and pulled a couple houses I had bought at the craft store when they were on sale for ten cents.  The kids had a lot of fun playing in the water. I gave each of my three kids a house, and asked them where they would build. Last month when we talked about the weather, I had showed them on my phone, in our car commutes, a video about the wise man and the foolish man from YouTube. So they were familiar with the story. So when I asked them were to build, they remembered. Puma Tiger  said: "mine is going to be on the top of the rock!" and quickly took possession of the limited real estate on top.. Seeing this, Blueberries said in an even more excited voice "mine is going to be on the bottoooom!! because I want it to flooooood!!!" Hahaha, I had to laugh. She knew what would happen, and she wanted that fun of seeing her house inundated and floating around.  Aren't we like that sometimes? Crazy people!

"The wise man built his house upon the rock,

And the rains came tumbling down.

The rains came down, and the floods came up,

And the house on the rock stood still."

At the end, when because of the water the house would not stand, Blueberries did say she wanted her house to go on the rock. Just for a change I guess :)  But before putting it on, I told her there was only one way to go from the flood to the rock.... "what is it?" I asked. Sometimes I ask questions even thought I know they don't know the answear so that they pay lots of attention. They love knowing the answear, so when they don't and I ask, they will often give me a good guess, or they'll just listen for about three seconds in anticipation. That is when the answear has to be something I want to stick in their brain.

Something, easy, simple, clear. So I just said "a-rre-pen-ti-mien-to!"  That is "repentance"  I had her say it one or two times, which she did delighted with an extra triple rolling of the arrrrrrrepentimiento   (it took her a while to be able to roll her rrrs, so she will take every chance to show off!).  Then I simply explained "repentance is when we come to Christ. HE is the Rock. HE always wants us to come to him, to move our house over and live His way, the best way."

Papi Chulo and I have decided that besides going to Church and having family dinner, on Sundays we want to be proactive in giving ourselves opportunities to bond together as a family, learn the doctrine of Christ, and come closer to our Heavenly Father, through family activities. We prepare a bit, but most of the time, we just look for connections to gospel principles on activities. We have been doing this for about a year now, and we LOVE IT! The memories, and the learning, are just so worth it!

What do you do to come closer to God on Sundays?

Identifying cumulus, cirrus, stratus clouds. Clouds give us protection and guidance.

I never thought my preschool children could learn the scientific names of clouds, but the Montessori method has done it again! Annieli prepared for our weather month activities in her bin for our Montessori Bin Exchange. I set it all up, and my kids did not really care to pick it up.

They did like this fine motor activity. Holding a dropper helps practice the correct hold for a pencil.

This fun activity is done from left to right to prepare for reading, and top to bottom. I demonstrated a bit, and Blueberries really got into it.

But, one day I stood by the window and asked Puma Tigger "Hey, look what do you think is going on in the sky?"  We had the three part cards on the clouds right there, so I then said: "look which one of these pictures is a match to our sky today?" we then pulled out the laminated guide to the sky from national geographic, and read about stratus clouds.

Puma Tiger had some idea because she had watched "Rainy Weather" from Rachel and the TreeSchoolers. She loves it! And this is the best learning videos out there. You can find them at the website of Two Little Hand Productions.  I loved these videos so much, I lent them to the Weather bin for other kids to enjoy.

But as we started that day, I myself did not know a thing about clouds as we were going. But we had all the materials right there thanks to Anniele's work. So we learned and discovered together! And this is what we learned.

We ended up learning a lot about the clouds. There are basically three kinds: cirrus, stratus, and cumulus. The rest are combinations of these.

We looked out and saw this. What type of clouds are these? STReachty clouds, that is STRatus, the kind that are a huge stretchy stretch of low clouds, the kind that give us precipitation. Memory aid: stratus starts with STR just like stretchy.

When the clouds acCUMULate they are CUMULUS.

 If they aCUMUlate and also STReach out, they are STRatus CUMULus, like in the following picture.

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Or this one. Stratus cumulus look like rows of puffy clouds that stretch out in the sky.  Puffy clouds give the "cumulus" and the strechy length give the "stratus" part of the name, hence stratus cumulus. This one is a more impressive example:

When it is puffy, but it seems to go up in a castle-like form, it's called Nimbus.

We remember "cirrus" clouds because it sounds like "zero," zero chances for rain, because the clouds are so high, so wispy and light, not heavy, like a zero that carries nothing.  They tell us we will have nice warm weather, perfect for flying a kyte. 

The Provo LDS temple architecture is inspired in the Biblical story of Jeahova guiding and providing protection for his people with a cloud. A pillar of fire by night, and a cloud for shade and guidance by day. I honestly believe that through the power of the Creator our family relationships can be good, bright and lovely for the duration of our lives, and also that they can last beyond this life.  I love looking at the sky, at clouds, at the starts, and contemplate in amazed wonder the beauties of nature and the miracle of life. Nature awakens awe in my soul, and it inspires me. I believe the Almighty Creator has the ability to guide me individually, and each of the members of my family individually, so that we can find Him and each other during, and after, this life. He can guide us, just like He guided the Israelites on the cloud.

We love the temple. Whenever we drive past it we sing "I love to see the temple." Sometimes I forget, but my kids remember! I started this tradition after my mother, who would do this when I was a little girl. I want my children to know that with God our family can be strong and it can last. Click on the image to listen to a Children's choir sing this beautiful song.  A picture of each child in front of the temple hangs in their room, as counseled by president Monson. I didn't think my kids noticed or cared for the picture, because they never mentioned it. But one day one picture frame fell off the wall and I took it away. That very night my Blueberries noticed and asked "mami, donde estoy?"  "Mom, where am I?" I didn't quite understand, so I asked her what she meant and she said: "mira, ya no esta mi foto!"  "Look, my picture is missing."  So they do notice!  I am glad they like to see themselves with the temple.  

 The base of the building looks like a nice puffy cumulus cloud, don't you think?  It was inspired on one after all. 

Click on this cloud to watch the video of the Israelites and how Jesus guided them with a cloud.

Wells, deserts, duck pond, water for life

We went out to "find water" outside. Any place, any form. Clouds, irrigation canal, water fountain. We observed that ducks loved to be near the water. Plants were being watered. The water was cold and nice on their feet.



 We wondered how the water got there. We talked about how the water falls and gathers in depositories in the mountains. Then it is transported through pipes to a damn, and cleaned, and then brought to the city. Sometimes it is collected in fountains ,or ponds.

If there is no mountains with rain, or ponds, people sometimes dig well to access the subterranean water depositories.Jesus Christ is the water of life.

Living Water 

Measuring Water and Rivers, Lakes, Oceans, Puddles

The Sun and the water of the Oceans is where most of the action for weather impact originates, one could say. 

We started our circle time watching and singing this (click on the image above for a video, or on the words for link to sheet music):

 "Give," said the little stream,
"Give, oh! give, give, oh! give."
"Give," said the little stream,
 As it hurried down the hill;
"I'm small, I know, but wherever I go
The fields grow greener still."

"'Water depositories' are places where water collects."  I showed them pictures of the water cycle, and  of rivers, lakes and oceans. Then I asked: What are some of the places we can collect water?"

The Montessori Bin Exchange provided laminated cards with the puctures and sizes of common measurments. To make it funner, I prepared clean empty containers from the kitchen on the most popular sizes: gallon, a liter, a pint, a cup, a table spoon, a tea spoon, and a mililliter to match the cards. I wrote in permanent marker the names on the bottles.

We then got a big empty container outside, and had the kids pick their "depository" to then carry the water to our "big depository," an emty plastic bin.  Blue Berries picked the biggest, the gallon size, and merrily went on to fill it with water. This was a great idea, she thought, until she had to haul it all the way outside ;) it gave her a good sense of how much smaller a pint is in comparison to a gallon.

Water depositories

Sweet boy loved pouring the water from one container to the other. Baby had losts of fun watching.

TIP: call each container by its name, not just "this one or that one" but "the cup," the "gallon" the litter.

Gotta love that smile! the joy learning brings to children is inspiring! 

How many "cups" in a "sixty gallon" bin?

I had Pumma Tiger practice her math and handwriting by asking her just about how much water covers the earth, do you think?  She suggested we look it up online.

out 70 % of the surface of the Earth is covered in water, approximately 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 (three hundred, twenty six million trillion).  We practiced our hundreds, millions (seven to nine digits) and trillions (twelve digits). AbWe got the idea that it is a LOT of it from writing down all those zeros.

Seven tenths of the surface of the earth is H20, or water.  We graphed seven tenths montessori style, two columns, five rows each (to make ten spaces).  She counted and colored them in.

You can't really see it, but the big drop of water says H2O for two atoms of Hydrogen and one of Oxigen to make one water molecule.  These words are big, but I use them to explain thngs, and they totally get it. It all started with our YouTube Astronomy playlist where

This was a fun day.

Our scripture study for the day was the following:

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."  John 4:14

Rainy Weather

1. Rain is falling* all around,
   On the housetops, on the ground.
   Rain is falling on my nose,
   On my head and hands and toes.

We started off our study for the day with this painting project. We do a "one room school house" approach, meaning, we all study the same topic at the same time. Super educational and super easy! I just pulled out the guide from  our Montessori Bin Exchange, pulled out from the shelf the paint that was conveniently stored and kept with paint in it, in these reusable cups.  We are painting on paper that we are "reusing" as any good boy or girl scout would, "reduce, reuse, recycle." 

 Monkey Boy here is proud of his underground water pool.  

You can also enjoy Sweet boy's grass floating in the sky.  

This paper can absorb the large amounts of water my kids will inevitably put on it when they pain, unlike the butcher paper from the dollar store. The paper came from Costco, it is garbage to them because its just the paper the store uses in their toilet paper section to separate bags.  We just got it and told the lady at checkout it was just for a project. We love Costco because they always let us take boxes, cardboard and such. :)  

We, meaning the six of us, from my 2-year old, to my 9 year old nephew, were copying the Water Cycle that was nicely laminated and provided in our Montessori Bin Exchange.  You can see the finished product in the background.

Now, I know it's not the most beautiful painting, I mean it has green grass floating in the sky right next to the cloud. But, it got everyone interested in it, and because we were focused on the process, and not the final product, no body minded that Bluberries painted a family of six rainbow rabbits jumping higher than the clouds. Because we talked as we drew, everyone understands now that the water cycle starts with evaporation of ocean water produced by the Sun, which then condenses into a cloud, and then there is precipitation in the form of rain, snow, sleet, etc. They know these big words: "evaporation, condensation, precipitation, filtration." They have been hearing it in the car in three of our commutes from our Weather Youtube Playlist.  

And what determines if precipitation will be rain or snow?  I let them respond, but they got distracted. So I let them go. 

We took a break, had lunch, and they all played. while they played, I "finished" the painting. I think this is an important step because I am modeling finishing a project, and also making it more complete so that we can use it later. I went ahead and hanged it in our Montessori room for reference. 

After a while we went into the Montessori room and started our circle time. I hung the artwork on the wall.

What determines if precipitation will be rain, or snow? I asked this open question and referenced the painting on the wall, and listened to their answers. Because everyone had worked on it, everyone paid attention.

I sang, and they did their best to follow and sing a song I had never taught them, "rain is falling all around."  We sang it with rain, and with snow. I had them look at our painting and determine where it might snow, and where it might rain. Puma Tiger went to the window and said "look, snow would fall on the mountain tops, and rain down here!"  She made this connection to real life in her own. 

I set on the floor our model of the sun and the earth (also from our Montessori Bin Exchange , it's just a movable paper model), and gave each kid three cards with the months of the year. I told them they had to figure out where theirs was supposed to go. I grabbed the earth and started singing a song of the months of the year, while moving the earth around the sun.  They had to listen and put their month down in the right spot. I started at twelve o clock and moved clock wise. 

Then I took out the four books on the seasons, and had them pick one.  I had in mind to have them match the seasons to the months, but they got interested in reading so I fueled that. Puma Tiger chose summer because she loves to "swim in the lake," Bubbles picked Spring because she "loves flowers." They all read their books out loud at the same time, and then traded (I didn't even ask them to read or to trade, but they wanted to so they did it themselves). It was a bit noisy, but they were all engaged.

 This picture was taken at the request of Rooster boy to showcase the "Spring buddies" because they were both born in the spring. We had a great time.

Our scripture study often has to do with the subject of our academic study. They seem to get more out of the scripture and of academics when we relate it. I usually read it to them while they are all sitting down having breakfast.

"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?…