My Fall To-Be List

This is the first fall post-college that I'm not nesting my home for new children or nesting a classroom for new students.  It should feel strange, but I must say, I am a little excited about it.  I will miss teaching so much- the spilling of my life and my life's love into other students, the getting out of the house on a regular basis, the excuse to put on a skirt and look pretty and brush my teeth and put on mascara, the coming home in the afternoon to my children napping and my house being cleaned by my rockstar baby sitter..it will be missed.  (I'm still planning on brushing my teeth, I hope.)  It's wonderful and mysterious how God takes a desire and changes it into something new.  Fall is the perfect time for it, because, for me, it is and has always been my "new year".

Here's my game plan for the coming school year.  I've decided I need two things to be successful:

1.  A plan
2.  Accountability

I figure in my limited access to people taller than 3 feet, my accountability will be blogging...so bear with me, and please, please, encourage me, pray for me, challenge yourself along with me.  I do so need it.  My default is slughood....literally wasting my time away on the couch while my house is a mess, and dinner is not planned, and the children are plugged into Little Mermaid for the 147th time.  I am lazy, I admit it.  I don't naturally love to clean, although having a clean house is necessary for sanity for me, which is why I can get depressed and resentful of my husband when he gets to leave the house everyday and I don't.  Which is why having a messy house is bad for my marriage.       

So in addition to trying to keep my house cleaner,  this is my plan...

1.  I started doing the Couch to 5K exercise routine.  I am not a runner, nor have I ever been.  But the baby weight did not magically disappear as I was hoping, so I find myself actually having to buckle down and do something about it.  The free app + an excuse to buy new running shoes and new music + being able to take a break from being in the house are all very appealing to me. 

2.  I want to have a bed time routine.  In bed (not sleep, but up in bed) by 9:30 so I can be up by 6:00.  (I have become a reader, and I love it, and I always love when I get to read before bed.)  I have this terrible habit of wasting time on Pinterest until the wee hours of the evening and then wondering why the next day I am so exhausted.  No more.  There is no t.v. show that is good enough that it will steal my energy away from being a good mom.  I was reading some great tips on moneysavingmom about how to make the most of your mornings, and she challenged her readers with making a before-bedtime routine, and making a list of must-do's before going to bed.  Mine are:
     
1.  No dishes in the sink
2.  All toys picked up
3.  Laundry in washer on delay start (that way all I have to do is throw it in the dryer in the morning, and I'll be able to fold it after breakfast).....because my plan is 1 load a day and to never be burried in dirty clothes.
4.  Juice cups filled and in the fridge.  (Nothing starts the morning off badly for me more than the girls crying for cups, and me realizing there are no clean cups.... or no cups at all.  Seriously...where do they all go?!?!)
5.  Clothes laid out for the girls.  Having two pairs of matching socks is going to highly alleviate dressing-stress.   

3.  I have a friend who is really good about building into relationships, and I think I've tapped into one of her secrets.  She is what I call "a calendar person."  Whenever I talk to her, the conversation never ends with, "We should hang out sometime."  It always ends with, "Ok...lets get out the calendar and pick a day."  We don't get caught up in "my house or yours, plans for the day, who's making lunch," because by the end of the conversation, both of us usually have to go quickly.  What matters is: the day is set aside.  The details come later.

I want to be a calendar person-  A person with a plan for seeing people.  I don't naturally come by this.  I'm not an initiator.  I attend to avoid people because it means my house has to be clean, and that stresses me out.  That's silly.  Friends do not like me for my clean house.  In fact, there is nothing more liberating that going over to someone's house and it not being clean.  The fore-mentioned friend actually has a "don't clean your house before I come over" policy, and I love her for it, and I see her more often because of it.

So call me, friends. We'll get out our calendars together and make a plan, and I won't care about your house if you don't care about mine.  

4.  I want to be a better meal planner.  No more 4:30 scramble.  It is my worst and most stressful part of the day with screaming children serenading me, which turns out is not optimal for decision making.     

5.  And finally, I have an idea for a "curriculum" for my littles, and for me too, actually.  I am pumped, and I mean over-the-moon excited about it.  I still have to flesh out some details, so I'll save that for another post, but its coming soon.    

So during this new fall....  
I want to be a better and more attentive and creative mommy.
I want be a better cleaner and fill my home with the peace that a clean home brings.
I want to be a person who takes the time to stay healthy.
I want to be a better student of the Word, so I can speak truth more into the lives of my littles.
I want to be a good friend.

I just want to find balance.  Anyone with me?   

What is on your fall to-do, or to-be list? 

Making Scripture Memorization FUN for the Littles (and let's be honest...fun for me too)

I can handle the fact that my house will never be clean enough, my clothes may never get put away in drawers after every load, and I'm not the best at feeding my children organic produce...  but if my daughters leave my house one day without a love for the Word and without the ability to make creative messes, I will consider myself a failure at motherhood.  We do a lot of Scripture memorization here, and yes, I realize Molly is 2-almost 3, and she may not "get" what it is we're doing and why.  But I've said before that I feel an obligation to form her mind, and I will pray and trust along the way that the Holy Spirit will one day press those truths into her heart.

So I thought that I would share some fun tricks we use in order to hit different learning styles to memorize Scripture.

Kinesthetic Learners 

...for the movers and the shakers

It didn't take long for me to realize that Molly is a kinesthetic learner.  After having her enrolled in music class for a few weeks, and seeing her pace laps around the room and bang on the heater on the  beat while the other children happily sat in their mothers' laps and sang...I knew Molly wasn't the kind of "sit still, be quiet, and learn this" kind of kid.  She knew how to sing all of the songs and could do all the motions, her body just needed to be actively engaged in order to soak up information.  (Her daddy's the same way, and the constant leg bouncing used to drive me crazy when he sat in the desk behind me in high school.)

So here's the first thing we do....

I break up the verse into phrases, and emphasize certain words so it has some rhythm and meter.  

"For the SON 

of MAN

came to SEEK 

and to SAVE

what was LOST." 

Luke 19:10 

Then we put the beat in our feet and take a walk.  
 We say the verse while...

• Going up and down the stairs
• I push the girls in the stroller
• Swinging on swings
• Tapping on drums when we play with instruments  
• Jumping on our "jumping couch" (our free "trampoline")  

Yes, I get looks from people on the playground, but frankly, I don't care.  

Sometimes we make up motions, snap, or clap our hands or move our head to the beat.  Sign language is a great tool too.  Having her move her hands and arms gets her body to associate movement and rhythm with words.       

Auditory Learners  

..... for the "repeat after me" kid

Molly loves music, and can soak up words like a little sponge when words are sung.  Sometimes I make up my own songs that go with Scripture and sometimes I find songs that I think she'll like.  I came across these little gems, that are probably a little too old for her now, but I can't wait to use them in a few years...     



We say the verse in a silly voice, a quiet voice, a spooky voice, a sad voice, a princess voice, a loud voice, a monster voice, a sleepy voice.... we say it together so its fun for both of us and she hears it lots and lots of times.

We make a video of her and I saying it together.  Molly gets a giggle when she can say the verse along with herself.  Sometimes....as you can see....it takes a little bribery.

After we have repeated our verse a lot, I start to leave out words and have her finish phrases herself.  

"For the _______

of MAN

came to ______ 

and to SAVE

what was ______."

Luke 19:_____

After a while, I can say the first word or two, and she can finish the verse by herself. 

Visual Learners 

.... connecting words and images

As an art teacher, this is the kind of learning I am drawn to most.  I can remember colors and pictures WAY more and far longer than I can than with just words.  One of my favorite things in our house is a chalkboard I painted on our kitchen wall using chalkboard paint, a roller, and some blue painter's tape. (Costs about $15...but I think it's priceless....and did you know that chalkboard paint comes in any color you want???)  I write out our verse and draw pictures for the words that have imagery.  Molly is, of course, a pre-reader, but when we say our verse, I point to each word on the chalkboard, so she is starting to learn that letters make words....words make sentences....sentences make ideas...etc.

Having a visual reminder in a central place in our home not only tells Molly that this is important, it reminds me to go over our verse throughout the day when I see it.  Lots of trips to the kitchen= lots of times saying our verse (more on this later.)        

Molly wanted to learn a verse about mermaids, so this is the one I picked.  She decided to add on it, so at the end she "wrote," "And Ariel and mermaids."  She's getting too tall!  

 

Tactile Learners  

... for kids who like getting their hands dirty

Projects, projects, projects.  I can't tell you how many times we've glued things on things....but Molly can't get enough of it, so any time we can make a project that goes along with the verses or stories we're learning, I'm going to take advantage of it.  (If you look at a few previous posts, you can see some of our projects we've done.)

A verse about the sky?  Make a telescope out of a paper towel tube
A verse about kindness?  Have them put band aids on stuffed animals.
A verse about obeying?  Make a prize ribbon she can wear after she listens to her mommy or daddy the first time.

Be creative!      

 

I can't wait until my littles can read and write and we can find different ways to write the words out (in the sand, with colorful markers, on dry-erase boards, on sandpaper....).  If you find your kid constantly wanting to touch everything, they might be a tactile learner!   

Some other tips....

Not sure what kind of "learner" your child is?  Try a little of everything!  See how they like to learn, and run with it.     


Associate an activity you do all day long with saying a verse.  Molly knows that each time she gets a drink, she has to come with me to the kitchen while I fill up her cup and recite her verse that's on the chalkboard.  Pick something you already do several times a day...brushing teeth, a diaper change or potty break, wiping hands and faces after meal times, each time you go up or down stairs...it will make what is a daily mundane task meaningful.

Bathtub crayons are great for writing on the shower wall and will give you an opportunity to go over your verse during bath time.  (I use this one for myself, and go over verses while shampooing my hair.  Hey- it's probably the only 7 minutes of uninterrupted time I get all day, so it's a great time to practice saying them out loud.)  Once you think you're starting to memorize it, try erasing a few words each day until you know it all!   

Make a folder or flashcards to go over old verses.  (We leave our projects up on our frame wall for a while, so that reminds us of our verses too.)

Choose verses that have visual imagery.  We have done a lot of "God made" so that gives lots of ideas for fun visual projects.  

Pick verses based on what interests your child, or verses about character qualities your child needs to practice (obeying parents, showing kindness, loving others...) or verses that they learn from Sunday School.   

Memorize for as long as it takes for your child to learn.  My first inclination was to have a "verse of the week," but lately it seems it has turned into "verse of the month," before I feel she really has it down.  

And finally, use these tips to memorize Scripture yourself!  I want to lead by example!  Trying to teach Molly about the Bible has helped me to be more creative, to love God's word more, and to think about the God more throughout the day.  What a blessing it has been to hide God's word in my own heart as I try to speak it into hers!

Deuteronomy 6:6-9“These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7“You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. 8“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9“You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

What other tips and tricks do you use to hide God's word into your own little's heart???   I would love for you to share your ideas!