Whining

Does anyone have a cure for whining? I would be willing to try just about anything. It can be a fast cure or a slow cure. An in depth, intensive procedure or something you heard on the radio once 13 years ago. We need help in our home to eliminate the "whine factor." I for one am sick of it, and by the contention that the whining inevitably arouses on an hour to hour basis, I dare say I'm not the only one. Please swamp me with suggestions.

Time for sleep now . . . . Dental surgery tomorrow. Pray for me.

Listening

Yesterday I attended a pre-k workshop all day. One of the presentations was all about teaching listening skills. Although hearing is a natural process that develops, listening is a learned behavior involving mental processes. It makes total sense right? But how much time do we spend teaching our children how to listen? I think I can recall maybe two times I've played listening games with my children to help them with this. I also learned that listening is the first step in the phonological awareness continuum. It goes likes this:

Listening - Rhyming - Alliteration - Sentence Segmentation - Syllable Blending and Segmenting - Onset/Rime Blending and Segmenting - Phoneme Blending, Segmenting, and Manipulation.

Each skill builds upon the prior skill and prepares children to read and write.

Modeling: To teach listening, one must model it, so first take time to really listen to your children. Try listening to your child for five minutes. That can seem like a really long time when you have a million things to do, but pay attention to what listening skills you are teaching through your actions.

Listening Games: Listening is developed through practice, so here are some games you can play with your kids no matter what their age.

• Books on cd: Provide books on cd with the book for your child to listen to. Children have to listen for directions to know when to turn the page. This also helps teach book knowledge.
• Egg Shake: Gather those old plastic Easter eggs and fill them with a variety of materials. Make sure you have two of each material, so the children can match the eggs by shaking them and listening to the sound each makes. Some suggested materials include dried rice, beans, and peas, pom poms, safety pins, paper clips, and buttons. Begin with just three pairs for the children to match and add more to increase the challenge.
  
• Egg timer: Set a ticking egg timer and hide it in a room. Have your child walk around the room listening for it to find it. As their listening skills improve hide the timer in an unknown room and send your child listening for it.
• Listen to food: Sort a variety of snacks by the sound they make. Label some crunchy and not crunchy. have your child bite into the foods to figure it out.
• Play Simon Says.
• Play Red Light Green Light.
• Play Mother May I.
• Read a book: Choose a book and some sound effects that your child can make when a word is repeated. For example in Goldie Locks and the Three Bears, your child could growl each time you read the word bear and say "Oh my!" each time you read Goldie Locks. Read the book and instruct your child to listen for the words.

Family Home Evening

We played Pictionary (sort of) for our family home evening activity a few weeks ago. Take a look.






I think Luke's is my favorite.

Pool

A few years ago my sister gave us their pool. It was heaven sent that first summer. My children played in it everyday until we left to visit family for a week. When we got home, the pool was something entirely different. It was greener than green, and the pump broke a short time later. This year Paul promised the kids that he would get the pool working again, and after our long drive home from NC a few weeks ago the kids jumped into the pool immediately! As you can tell from the photos, the pool just isn't as deep as it used to be.

Catching up again

Our growing family at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Yes, my kids have long legs!

This is our crew enjoying a swim at my parent's townhouse community pool right before Luke threw up in it:)
Okay, so it has been a little while. Enough said about that.

With our heavenly, summer vacation quickly coming to a close I thought I ought to blog at least once, so here it is. We are well. Since my last post we have endure several trials including shingles, poison ivy, lice (again!), and a variety of other non-skin and bug related events. More importantly however, we have had a lot of fun times together.

In the recent months, we visited family in NC and had a blast at Carowinds, a combination amusement and water park. We were there long enough to get our money's worth out of the season passes we purchased. We also got to see a bunch family (We love and miss you all!). Even more recently, Paul had vacation, and we took a couple of day trips. A few days ago we went to a hands-on science center in Birmingham and to the botanical gardens. It was SO peaceful at the gardens. I really need to spend more time outdoors.

Here are some of the highlights we captured.


The Lego Store otherwise known as heaven for my nephews:)

Vacation is here!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

We made it to vacation time. I am relearning how to relax, and the kids are enjoying the dry weather by playing outside. Paul gets to work until midday on Christmas Eve. We have had little time for making goodies, but we did manage to make some chocolate covered pretzels. Yum! Yes that is chocolate on their faces.

Here what our tree used to look like. It is has been thoroughly attacked by Ella the cat now. All the decorations have been knocked off. The lights are still on, but that is only because they are wrapped around the tree.

Eliza went wild decorating. She did the front and back side of her bedroom door, cut a piece of hedge from our neighbor's yard, placed it in her room for a Christmas tree and decorated it, and created a faux fireplace with several stockings.

How a field trip saved my education

Two hours ago I turned in my last assignment for my child and adolescent development class. I have to say I truly didn't think I was going to make it through that class. I wanted to quit school at least once a week throughout it, and one night I nearly did. Luckily for me, Luke had a field trip the next day. I decided to blow off my paper due that day and enjoy the day with my son instead. I even went to the Trunk or Treat at church that night. Although my stress was not gone, I felt much better after that and managed to get my paper written the next day.

Feeling stressed? Go on a field trip and discover the world again through the eyes of a four-year-old.