Emotions & Behaviors - Homeschool Theme Learning

I am not sure if it is because we are in the middle of winter (or hopefully nearing the end) or what but emotions have been running high at our house lately!  With three energetic boys it is a constant job as parents to keep emotions in check and teach and guide them how to properly express and process their emotions.  We decided to take this week to work specifically on this task, with our homeschool theme of Emotions and Behaviors!

 

 

1.  Reading/Phonics:

 

We have a lot of Karen Katz books and enjoy them especially with the young toddler age.  We just got this book No Hitting and we really like it!  It talks about getting mad and both good and bad choices to do with that emotion, like instead of hitting your brother, hitting pots and pans! 

 

We also love the Help Me Be Good books by Joy Berry that talk about lots of great emotion and behavior issues like Whining, Throwing Tantrums, Being Bossy, etc.  They have great little examples of what good and bad behavior is and how to be good!

 

2.  Arts / Crafts:

 

We decided to make Glitter Bottles or "Calm Down Bottles" as a craft this week.  We got the recipe from My Crazy Blessed Life and we had a lot of fun making them and they have already been a great addition to our home!  We made three different ones to use at different times, reasons.  Depending on how much glue you use the solution will settle faster or slower.  The blue bottle we made takes about 5 minutes to settle and the red bottle takes about 10 minutes to settle.  They have been taking these bottles to time out with them or on the couch when they are upset or in trouble and they really are very calming to the children. 

 

The recipe is:

• 3/4 bottle of hot/warm water
• 1 bottle of glitter glue
• 1 small bottle of fine glitter
• Extra water or clear glue to get to the level / time of settling you want
• Super Glue the Cap on at the End!!!

 

 

 

The yellow/gold bottle we used glow in the dark glue and fine gold glitter.  They love that this one they can take to bed at nap time or bedtime to help them calm down to fall asleep.  It really does look really cool!  The bottle continues to glow for about 30-40 minutes in the dark.

3.  Music:

We sang "If You're Happy And You Know It" and made up lots of fun different verses using our "How Do You Feel Today" Poster that we have hanging in our Homeschool Room.

 4.  Religion Connection:

We love the book Leading The Little Ones to Mary which is included in the Seton Kindergarten Curriculum.  It has "little lectures" that talk about how to be good and what you can do to follow Jesus and Mary.  It talks about basic issues of behavior with listening to your parents, being kind to your siblings and friends, listening in mass, etc. 

We also enjoy using the Building Good Character curriculum from Catholic Heritage Curricula which addresses many behavior issues to help learn good behavior habits!  We love that they include pre-made sticker charts to use for each issue that is addressed! 

5.  Parental Help:

 

I know when I see behavioral issues at or house a big part of what needs to happen is that I need to re-visit and re-examine what I am doing as a parent.  Am I being present and available to each individual child?  Am I being consistent in discipline?  Knowing this, I took time this week to look at where each of our children are developmentally and what we are expecting of them.  I "checked in" which each child to give them special individual time and try to determine if something extra is bothering them, concerning them, etc.  I discussed and continued to set expectations for our children so that they know what to except and what consequences are if they are not following rules.  I also re-examined the Love Languages of each of my child and reflection on if I am showing them love in the best way for them to receive it!  Here are some of my favorite parenting resources for behavior and discipline:

1. Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp
2. Discipline That Lasts a Lifetime by Dr Ray Guarendi
3. Parenting with Grace by Gregory Popcak
4. The Catholic Family Handbook by Fr. Lovasik
5. The 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman
6. It Doesn't Have to Be This Way by Ginny Seuffert
7. Parenting with Love and Logic by Foster Cline & Jim Fay

Also, if you are like me and have all boys, or honestly even one boy the following are some of my favorite resources for parents of boys!  I have read all of these books more than once already and know I will continue to go back as our children grow up.

1. Strong Mothers, Strong Sons by Dr. Meg Meeker
2. Boys Should Be Boys by Dr. Meg Meeker
3. Bringing Up Boys by Dr. James Dobson

Ask Me #3: Our Sleeping Schedule with Little Ones

 

Welcome to the third part of the Ask Me series at Children of the Church!  Visit the first two parts about Photography and our Homeschool Schedule.  The next question asked of me is how we handle sleep at our house!  If you have any questions, please use the "Contact Me" section on the Children of the Church Blog!

 

Sleep is a very important thing for everyone and even more important for people in a home with little kids!  As I explained in the post about our homeschool schedule, I am a Type - A momma who really likes order and schedule.  One thing that I learned quickly as a new parent 5 plus years ago was that our kids NEED a sleep schedule.

 

Sleeping in our house is made even more difficult because my husband works as an Emergency Physician and works shift work.  His schedule is constantly changing and he works multiple different shifts during each week, sometimes until 11pm, 2am, or 7am!  Because of this, and because we homeschool (and thus are usually all home during the day) we truly need to be conscious of the level of noise in the home to allow my husband to be able to sleep.  That is one reason why I am thrilled that our homeschool room and toy room are in the basement of our new house.  This truly gives us some separation and helps with the noise issue!

 

YOUNG CHILD: (Children ages 5 to 12 years old need 10-11 hours of sleep per day)

 

Our oldest son, who is now 5 years old, stopped napping around age 4.  He had been fighting his afternoon naps for a while and then we finally just decided to stop.  Once he dropped that nap he was tired early in the evening and his typical schedule is now to sleep from 7-8pm until about 7-8am, getting on average 12 hours of sleep per day.  He is a fantastic sleeper and always has been!  I am already learning that a great blessing of homeschooling is allowing him to be able to sleep in on mornings when he is tired and not having the "morning rush" when he is little.  I do know there will be a day when I need to teach and enforce a morning schedule no matter what.

 

I'm not sure why he is sleeping with his Tae-kwon-do uniform here!

 

PRESCHOOLER: (Children ages 3 to 5 years old need 11-13 hours of sleep per day)

Our middle son, who was 3 years old in October is our early riser and we have finally training him to STOP waking up at 4:30am and now gradually we have moved his wake up time to around 6:30am.  We got a sleep clock which visually shows him when he can get up and when he needs to stay in bed and this really helps!

 

 

He still takes an afternoon nap, although he thought for a while that it would be fun to stay up with his big brother in the afternoon and was fighting naps.  When he was doing this I would find him mid afternoon passed out on the couch or his bed, so we are back to enforcing naps for now!  He now takes one nap a day and usually goes to sleep by 1pm.  Once he falls asleep he would sleep for hours (2-3hrs), but we have learned that we need to wake him up around 3pm or he would then stay up until 9-10pm at night!  He shares a room with his big brother and thus also goes to bed between 7-8pm.  He now gets about 10-11 hours of sleep at night and a 2 hour nap, so 12-13 hours of sleep per day).

 

 



BABY/TODDLER: (Babies need 14-20 hours of sleep per day and Toddlers 1 to 3 years old need 12 - 14 hours of sleep per day)

 

Our youngest son is 1 1/2 years old and is also a great sleeper!  I'm not really sure how we lucked out so much with this, other than knowing that I kept a pretty tight schedule with sleep from the beginning.  Our third child was our first child who I really co - slept with.  He would breastfeed at night for so long that the only way that I could get sleep at night to function the next day to take care of the other children was to let him sleep with me.  I know that there are lots of opinions about this, and I'm not going to be one to say it's right or wrong, simply that it is what worked best for our family and I did it as safely as possible.  He and I co - slept until he was about 10 months old and then he was simply getting too wiggly at night that neither of us were sleeping well.  He had always been taking his naps in his crib, so the transition to the crib at night wasn't TOO bad!

He took the longest out of our children so far to "sleep through the night".  In my mind "sleeping through the night" means going from when I put the child to bed until when I am wanting to wake up in the morning without waking up at all.  Our babies go to bed early, usually around 6:30pm (again I know a lot of people put their babies to bed late around 10-11pm when they are going to bed, but that doesn't work for us!)  My husband and I truly treasure our kid free time together in the evening, so we have always made it a priority that all of our children (even babies) go to bed early!  Our youngest went from waking up 1-2 times a night to breastfeed to sleeping through the night around 13 months old.  He now sleeps from about 6:30-7pm until about 6:30-7am.  He has transitioned to also just one nap and sleeps from 1-3pm, totaling about 14 hours of sleep per day. 

He also has recently weaned from breastfeeding completely now at 20 months old.  He was our first child that I had to initiate weaning with so it was an entirely new experience for me!

MOM: (Adults should get 7 1/2 - 9 hours of sleep per day)

For myself, I am usually in bed by 10pm and then sleep until 5:30-6am (7-8 hours).  I love to try to have a little time before the kids start waking up to read, pray and have a cup of coffee, but sometimes that doesn't work out.  I just try to remember that these years with little kids are going to go by SO fast.  I love and appreciate their morning cuddle time so much!  When I have a new born baby in the house I usually get less sleep, but still try to make it a priority to get at least 6 hours of sleep per night.  I have learned that I need at least 6 hours per night to be "functioning" the next day. 


My sleeping tips for parents:

• Figure out what works for you (do you want your kids to stay up late so they sleep in late, do you want kids to nap at the same time, etc) and then make a schedule and stick to it!
• The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep from Harvey Karp is a great resource.  When I used to work as a community health maternal/child nurse I would help LOTS of parents with how to get their children to sleep.  I love all of Harvey Karp's parenting resources, and this one is a gem for kids from birth to 5 years old!
• If your toddler/preschooler is having a hard time sleeping in the morning get a sleep clock!  It changed our lives! 
• Keep the same routine for bedtime - We always take baths, read books in bed and say prayers and they KNOW that routine!
• Make sleep a priority!  If you need to cancel or reschedule events to make sure your children nap, don't be afraid to do so.  If you have a family event that continues past bedtimes and you need to adjust the time your family can participate, communicate that!  Everyone will be happier when children are getting the sleep that they need!

Color Fun - Homeschool Theme Learning

All of our children have learned their basic colors by age two, but then the learning fun with colors continues!  Learning the rainbow, learning about primary and secondary colors, etc!  Our theme for learning in our homeschool this week has been COLORS and we all had a blast!

1.  Reading/ Phonics:

Some of our very favorite books go with our color theme this week including:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?: We love all Eric Carle books and Brown Bear, Brown Bear is just one of those great classics to learn about all of the colors and animals.
Mouse Paint:  Mouse Paint is the perfect book to learn about the difference of primary and secondary colors and how the colors mix to make different colors!  Plus our kids love to "do a little dance" like a mouse mixing the colors with their feet!
Blue Hat, Green Hat:  This book is the silliest little book, but it is one of the first books that all of our boys know by memory and they think it is SO funny!
Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes:  All of the Pete the Cat books are great for pre-schoolers and I Love my White Shoes is one of the best.  The boys especially love the song that goes with this book!  Our 1 1/2 year old will find it on the shelf "Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!!"
Freight Train:   With a trio of train loving boys we love the book Freight Train and learning about all of the different colors of the cars and all of the different jobs for the train cars!

Some other books we enjoy to learn about colors are The Deep Blue Sea, Color Train, Color Train and White Rabbit's Color Book!

2.  Art/Crafts:

Our children love painting and we had had a lot of fun mixing different colors and finding out which primary colors together make different secondary colors.  They also really liked adding different colors to a mason jar of water to watch the colors change!

3.  Music:

The Rainbow Song and Rainbow Connection are some of our favorite songs!  We love having music on all of the time during our school time and love singing and learning things through song!  We use Pandora a lot and also are loving Making Music, Praying Twice CD's!  This week we sang these songs while playing with our Grimm's rainbow puzzle and learning about all of the colors and also God's beauty on this earth!

4.  Math:

We have lots of fun learning toys that help us with counting, patters and sorting.  I love the Melissa and Doug Abacus and the Melissa and Doug Shape Sequence set to help learn colors, counting, sizes and sequences.  We also played a lot with our Magna Tiles this week organizing them in rainbow color and our oldest son is learning about his 3 dimensional shapes so he had fun making cubes, pyramids, etc!

 

 5.  Science

Our science experiments are still pretty basic with the little kids, but they LOVED this experiment with prisms and refractory light!  They thought it was SO cool to be able to see the different colors of light from using a flashlight or the sun!  They also figured out on their own as well that they could use their Magna Tiles in the windows to see the colors on the walls from the sun, which they thought was pretty awesome!

 

6.  Theme Boxes & Library Resources:

We are so blessed that our community library has amazing recourses and a lot of respect for homeschool families!  They have reading time, homeschool book clubs and lots of on-line resources specifically for homeschoolers!  The library has also bought all of the Theme Boxes from Lakeshore Learning and then add library books that go along with the theme that you can check out for 2 weeks at a time, and the Color Box was one of them!  It is such a great resource to have and I love having a "go - to activity box" when I might not have as much time to plan fun activities! 

7. Saint/Religion Connection:

As we transitioned from Ordinary Time into Lent this week it was the perfect time to discuss how the colors change within the Liturgical Year!  We used the awesome Liturgical Season Wheel from Catholic Icing and the book from Catholic Inspired about Priest Vestments to learn about transitioning to PURPLE for the season of Lent!  Our children love to wear the priest vestments that I made from them out of felt and love that they have the different liturgical colors that the priests wear in church!

 

Linking up over with Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum!

Finding Peace in Suffering

I hear from so many people that they think Lent is the most difficult time during our Liturgical Year.  I get that, I really do.  But at the same time, I think that there is something beautiful in finding peace within suffering.  There is something life changing in letting silence enter our lives to try to process, even just a little bit, the suffering, offering and love that Jesus gave to us by dying on the cross for our sins. 

I have been doing a lot of my own suffering lately as I have been carrying the cross that God has asked of our family with the loss of our son Samuel, as we experienced a miscarriage.  So I think, what can I do this Lent to bring that suffering to Him, how can I bring my suffering to unite with Jesus at the cross?

We are all hurting in one way or another, and our job is not to compare our sufferings with others, but to bring them to God and to be a support to each other through this time.  Our job is to be quiet enough, and give ourselves enough time and space to really listen to God and what he is asking of us and then trust what he has planned for our lives. 

Can we give God silence each day this Lent?  Through prayer, in adoration, or in listening to Him through scripture? 

I am learning that bringing the Church into our domestic home is not always about having activities, but learning how we witness our faith to our spouses and children through our daily actions and words.

How can we show trust in God through our suffering today? 

How can we witness God's love and devotion to us that he would die on a cross for our sins within our families, church and community? 

How can we allow Jesus to become a part of the fabric of our love to extend to the people who we are closest to?

How can we find peace in the suffering?

This is my challenge to myself this Lent.  I hope we can come together and offer our sufferings, no matter how big or how small, to the foot of the cross. 

Celebrating Ash Wednesday

 

Here we are!  Lent is upon us and we now experience the 40 days (plus 6 Sundays), going through the suffering with God as we prepare for the death and resurrection of Christ.  The first thing that we did after we celebrated Shrove Tuesday with a yummy pancake brunch and going to Ash Wednesday mass was Bury the Alleluia. 

 

We bury the Alleluia as a reminder that we do not use the word Alleluia throughout the days of Lent at home or at church.  We let the word "rest" during Lent so that when it reappears on Easter we hear it with new vibrancy and then can say it again and again! This year we got some fun wooden letters at Hobby Lobby that we decorated with gold glitter spray paint and decorated this simple wooden box that we will hold them in throughout Lent.  It is a great physical reminder to our family!

 

 

 

"Remember, you are dust, and unto dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19)

Our children enjoy going to mass on Ash Wednesday especially because they know that they can actively participate in mass by receiving the ashes!  Receiving ashes are not a sacrament but instead a "sacramental", meaning a "sign to help us prepare for the receiving of sacraments by giving us graces and blessings".  The ashes come from burning of the Palm Branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday mass, which were blessed by a priest before distribution.  We keep our palm branches as well to burn on Ash Wednesday as a fun little tradition.  In receiving the ashes we are embracing the suffering of the cross and the promise of Resurrection!

 

"Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel" (Mark 1:15)

We have chosen what we are going to give up / take up this Lent and I think that it is going to allow for our family individually and together to draw closer to God. 

1.  Individually:  I am going to do the Whole 30 program (Or Whole40 for Lent!).  I have been wanting to do this for a while, especially after I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism this past fall.  I was going to start at the New Year, but after we experienced the miscarriage of our son Samuel the idea of starting something new with my diet faded quickly in the distance.  I know that God gave me this amazing vessel of a body and I want to use it to glorify God.  Out goes the things that I do not need for nourishment and in goes healthy whole foods.  I hope that at the end of this I am feeling healthy, more rejuvenated and have more energy to give to myself and my family.  Kelly over at This Ain't the Lyceum started a Lent Whole 30 group on Facebook for support!

I also am adding some great spiritual reading and journaling, and going to be more mindful of my time on social media.  I know that I receive a lot of graces and support from social media so I am not going to cut off completely but I will set a timer and be more mindful of what I am using it for (plus nothing at all on Fridays- see below).

2.  Couple:  My spouse and I love our time together in the evenings when he is not working, but too often than not we end up on the couch in front of the television simply due to exhaustion from our busy days.  We decided that we want to bring more fruitfulness to that time together and so during this Lent instead of watching our regular television shows and movies we purchased the Symbolon series and study guide that we will do together as a couple!  We are both really excited to learn more about the Church together!

3.  Family:  As a family the main thing that we are going to do is change the routine of our Fridays to take more notice of Christ's death on the cross.  As I previously mentioned we are going to not use any electronics (except for my husband when he needs to for work).  That means no e-mail, no television, no Ipads, no Facebook, no Neflix, nothing.  We got the Holy Heroes Stations of the Cross CD and Prayer booklet that we will use to pray the Stations of the Cross each Friday as a family.  We also got the Stations of the Cross images that we will display in our Little Oratory from Leaflet Missal, and made little flip books by laminating the images from Family in Feast and Furia for the kids.  The rest of the day we will just spend time together as a family reading, playing and having quality time.

 

I pray that as we travel through Lent that we are able to truly use this time to draw closer to God and each other.

Does your family have any traditions that you are adding to your Lenten season this year?  Do you need any special prayers during this season?  Please share!

Feasting on Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday in the Catholic Church when we "shrive" or "absolve from sin as a reminder that we are entering a season of penance".  It is a great reminder to go to confession before we enter the season of Lent.  This day has many names, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras and Pancake Day! 

Eating pancakes are a tradition on this day because pancakes require many eggs, milk and butter for their preparation, all which people did not use during times of abstinence and fasting of Lent.  We decided to make pancakes and bacon for a fun brunch to celebrate since tonight is a date night for my husband and I!

We also made a King's cake to signify the ending of "Carnival" or the time between the Epiphany and the beginning of Lent.  The boys had a great time helping make the cake last night and an even better time eating it today!

 

 

 

Truly, it has been a day of feasting before the fast!  If you want to learn more about fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church here is a great illustrated guide from FOCUS! 

We also set up our Lenten table as we enter our home with our sacrifice beans with a fun new printable from Lacy at CatholicIcing.com, an image of the Last Supper, and a beautiful Lenten quote printable from Kendra at Catholic All Year.  I love that there are so many awesome ideas that help make it easier to celebrate the liturgical seasons our homes!

Proverbs 28:13 "People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy."

 

Now is the time to "shrove" and ask for forgiveness.  What have we done wrong in our lives that we need to ask forgiveness for?  What relationships might need to be attended to?  We should prepare to enter Lent with a repentant heart, seeking forgiveness and humility.