Drawing Pictures with your Mind

In February I attended a Valentine’s Ladies’ Conference at a local church with my two daughters. Somewhere during the teaching, the Guest Speaker, visiting South Africa from Germany, mentioned the peace she experienced when walked into the local church’s Pastor’s beautiful study room. I immediately felt a tuck at my heart. My personal little corner I use for Bible study and working on my computer, fervently came to mind… To my shame I has to admit it is currently in such a mess, I cannot find space to open my Bible or computer.

The Guest Speaker continue her message from Song of Solomon 2. The message, “Come away with me, my Beloved!” was beautifully illustrated with a DVD clip of a young woman following her Beloved hand on hand, through green vines. I experienced the touch of the Spirit when she started to talk about looking with eyes of faith and using my imagination to see things to come, promised to me, by my Beloved.

During the past few months the Lord constantly spoke to me about the word “imagination”. 

In the physical realm, nothing can come into existence unless someone ‘saw’ it in their imagination. After receiving a picture in the mind about something, people run to the drawing board, and from their nothing can stop physical manifestation, of the image.

While listening to the inspiring message that Saturday morning, I saw a picture in my mind of my little corner. Images came to life and I got all excited about things I could change and do, to make it an inspiring, beautiful place where I can fellowship with my Beloved. 

That same afternoon I shared my vision with my husband, especially about something I wanted him to make for me. I also shared with a friend, to keep me accountable. I committed  to change my corner into a place of peace and refreshment, before my birthday, only days after. One important point though, I had a shoestring budget to make it happen, thus making it even more exciting to make use of things I already have. 

Now I’m going to interrupt myself for a moment. I’ll come back to My-corner-make-over just now.

As the Lord revealed to me the beauty of imagination and the manifestation thereof, over the past few months, I experienced an increased hunger to know the Lord through His Word, and meditate on His word. A few years ago I tried memorising scripture through Scripture Typer. I did it on my computer and though I longed to make a commitment to diligently memorise scripture, I didn’t persevere.

As I hungered to meditate on God’s Word, I came to understand the connection between meditating on the word, the renewing of your mind by the Word and memorising the Word. 

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Rom 12:2

I came to realise as I memorised and meditated on the Word of God, I allowed Him to draw pictures in my mind of His will for my life, according to his Word and then it can come into manifestation!

Danika our youngest daughter is a very artistic little girl. She started painting on canvass two years ago and at the beginning of this year advanced to oil painting. I’m constantly amazed at how she is gifted to paint pictures with a brush. She just have a feeling for colours and lines.

In the same way I’m amazed how the Lord can paint pictures in my mind with His Word, as I memorise His Word. Pictures of His goodness and truth, mercy and grace, faith and love. Pictures that make me act in faith and truth. Inspired that I can overcome the world with all its trials and tribulations through the Power of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, who died for me and know lives in me. 

So as I seek ways to memorise Scripture, in order to have more colours to paint pictures of God’s goodness in my mind and I remembered Scripture Typer. I downloaded the Scripture Typer App on my iPhone and seriously started to memorise scripture. This time not because others memorise scripture, but because I need the scriptures in my mind to draw pictures of victory! 

We read in Proverbs 27:3, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” 

Every where you go, the world is pressing to fill us with worldly believes, mostly contrary to the Word. If one doesn’t deliberately fill one’s mind with God’s Word, the world will fill it with ease.  Since I started memorising Scripture I’m amazed how my mind is in the process of being renewed, and how I’m experiencing peace and victory over my thoughts.

Now to come back to My-corner-make-over.  As part of renewing my mind, memorising scripture, I also wanted to surround myself with His Words.  One of the first pictures that came to my mind was to have beautifully decorated words against the wall. I want to see them when I wake up in the morning; I want to meditate on them during the day and I want to be reminded by them when the enemy wants to blind me with chaos in my home. I also want pictures of my family for when I give thanks to the Lord and pray for their protection and walk with the Lord.

So two weekends later I accomplished my goal. My husband made a beautiful frame for my year schedule. I had a ball decorating the words, “Believe” and “Faith”, diving into Heidi-Mari’s inexhaustible source of scrapbook supplies! I also collected photo frames, all had pictures of at least two years ago, from everywhere in the house and replaced them with resent pictures. I hung a rusty cross from the last letter of “Believe”, which I got as a present a year or two ago for my birthday. For this birthday, my oldest daughter gave me a beautiful, inspired word picture on my birthstone, the Amethyst - symbolising royalty and encouraging me in my walk as the daughter of the King. I added a beautiful painting by Danika of bright yellow daffodils, with the cross in the background. And my husband patiently put brackets in the wall and hung my carefully chosen treasures. 

What a delight to now work in this lovely, inspiring place, reminding me of the power of imagination and then acting on those images. 

We all have an imagination…. Who is inspiriting your imagination? Do you allow Godly inspiration to come to life, do you act on them with God’s power in you?

Do you want to join me in memorising the Word? 

It is always easier to persevere when you have others joining you. I’ve created two memorising groups at Scripture Typer. Join me in memorising Proverbs 31 and/or Psalm 37.

Remember: “As he thinks in his heart, so is he.”

This posting is linked to :

With much love

Linnie

Homeschooling the Primary Years

I wanted to share our cleaning routine/rhythm, after the previous post on Balancing homeschooling and domestic work, but I thought it good to first share a little about my homeschool style. 

Insight into how I homeschool, might give more insight on our cleaning routine, because the two cannot be separated.

I often get questions on how I manage to homeschool 8 children, give individual attention to each one, what  I teach at what age and how  I make sure they know everything they need to know.

With my eldest now almost at the end of his homeschooling journey, my youngest not in the journey yet, and 6 children in between, you might think I have it all figured out! To the contrary. Every year, like every season, is a challenge and bring along new trials and fears, as well as joy’s, laughter and learning opportunities. But most of all it results in more trust in the Faithful One who called me to homeschool my children. 

If I could give advice to any new homeschooling mother it will be: 

“The way you homeschool in the primary years of your child’s life will make or break your homeschooling journey!”

The single, most imported thing I’ve observed over the past 12 years, was the learning curve in my children.  Observing this learning curve, helped me see the big picture of when to do what in our homeschooling journey. I’m so thankful that I have the little ones on which I can apply the wisdom obtained while homeschooling my older children.

When I just started homeschooling CJ and Heidi-Mari, people often asked me if I’m intending to homeschool them all the way through high school. It was an interesting question for me, since I believed (and now after 12years, know) the biggest challenge in homeschooling is the preschool and primary school levels.  I truly believe the success of your homeschooling journey rises and falls on how you homeschool the primary years of your child’s life.  Not only are these early years of homeschooling crucial for your child’s learning experience and capturing a love for learning; it is paramount for you as the homeschooling mother’s satisfaction of homeschooling, in the midst of sacrifices and hard work.

I’ve come to recognize three stages of learning in my children:

First Stage - Exploring through playing and making messes.

This stage is roughly between 2 and 9. The years of investigating and exploring. Now this is not new to you! Children love to explore, take things apart, want to know how things work and making a mess. Children in this age range, constantly ask questions and eagerly want to learn! At least once a week I read about mothers who proudly share how their toddlers love to learn. How these little ones at the age of 5 are begging them to go to school or “do school” with their older siblings. They are like sponges and the Mother just don’t have enough activities to keep them busy, while they learn to write their names, want to read and write and eagerly listen as she reads to them.

But then at the age of 7 to 8 years old, things often change.  The child who with delight and enthusiasm jumped into the first few months of learning, now rather wants to go and play, reluctant to join mommy for the learning activities. I get these concerning letters, on a regular basis. Mothers who now have to drag their children to their activities. 

In observing my little ones, I got the answer: Little ones love to explore and investigate new things, and soon start to push mommy to teach them how to write their name, or read, eager to learn simple maths, after picking up how to count spontaneously. With the influence of the school system, and often pressure from family and friends the parent begin formal teaching. After all the child indicated that he/she is ready to learn.

BUT the school journey very soon become routine work and repetition. In the beginning everything is new and interesting, but then after a few months there isn’t much new, interesting stuff anymore, it is mostly the same work over and over again.

From the mother’s side the workload of formal teaching, is exhausting and frustrating due to a child who now is unwilling to learn and how does she fit in the other children or take care of her home.

Our work plan: 

Stay away from formal teaching for the first 8 to 9 years!  Do very little maths, reading and writing - let the child be free to choose and guide you. Create a positive atmosphere of creative playing, arts and crafts, Bible stories and accidental learning of numbers, letters, followed by spontaneous reading, writing and maths. 

These can easily be done by lapbooking and very simple, informal unit studies.  Lapbooking and informal unit studies, allow children to explore life around them. Answer their many, many questions incorporated into some kind of learning activity, with very little, to no routine work, especially with boys. Girls might start earlier with routine work and more formal teaching.

  

We’re playing most of the days. 

Bible teaching is done through Discipleland. Discipleland is hands on, each age group’s worksheets appropriate for their interests and due to the extra learning activities,  not one day is the same! 

We use Maths-U-See for maths and we play with the manipulatives over and over again, without me pressurizing to move on. I like to share with you what I’ve observed with each of my children, concerning maths. Each one of them begged me to start maths at the end of their 5th year, just before turning 6. For months they will eagerly learn about numbers and count the blocks. Then like clockwork at the age of 7 they would loose interest. It would appear that they forgot everything. But interestingly, around the end of the 8th year towards 9, it all comes back again. And then they are on the run! They will grab the concepts and in no time catch up with the 18 months they lost interest. During the time they lost interest, I put the books away, till they ask for it again, or I introduce it every 6 months and evaluate the response.

Since Afrikaans is our mother tongue, we do Clever to recognize letters and start simple spelling and “Mart Meij’s Lekkerlees” for early reading, but never on a routine basis. I observed the same pattern, I observed with maths, with language too. But I noticed, the language would often excel during the period the maths stagnate. 

Because the first language’s reading and writing only gets established at the age of 9, we never start the second language before the age of 10. Interestingly again, the child is then at an emotional level, that enable him/her to master the second language in no time, without frustration. At the age of 12 no one would be able to say the child only started with the second language at the age of 10.  We use Christian Liberty Reading Series’ Adventures in Phonics level A and B and the Noah Webster’s reading handbook with the Grade K phonics readers. For South Africans these books are available from Christian Liberty Press in Cape Town.

To summarize: 

Lapbooking and discovering every day things is the focus, not language and maths. Currently we are learning the days of the week, months of the year, we observe the weather, seasons, as well as what to wear and what is in season to eat. We also learn time and sequences in a fun way, using all 5 senses to reinforce the knowledge. 

I had an interesting conversation with a mother whose 6year old child is in Gr 1 in the school system, about crafts. Children don’t do starch painting, modeling clay and messy arts anymore.  I remember when I was still at that very young age (many, many moons ago!) how I enjoyed it. The first 3 years of school, grades one to three now days, consisted of arts and the occasional formal learning. Tests and exams didn’t exist!! I wrote my first exam in Grade 4.

It is a known fact that young adults leaving school, are not capable of spelling, doing maths, or have a love for reading. But at the age of 10 (grade 4) their workload is the equivalent of grade 7, three decades ago!  What do we want to accomplish by squeezing in loads and loads of information in an under 10 year old’s little head, while that child should still be playing, making messes? They are not able to concentrate for longer than 10 minutes, but have to sit in a classroom for 6 solid hours!

Dear mother allow your child to play the first, almost decade of his life. There are more than enough time to fill their heads with information, at an age that they are emotionally ready to receive the information.

With much love

Linnie

Spring Clean, Injuries and Felt Toys!

This coming week one of my best Friends, who is not from Cape Town, will have her 6th baby, by caesarian - YES, her 6th caesarian, isn’t that amazing - and they will stay with us for the week.  So during the past week, we spring cleaned and reorganized our home.  

While busy organizing the home, I sorted through clothes; I steam cleaned the carpets; 

and we deep cleaned the kitchen and room our friends would stay in.  

Then while in the final step of our spring cleaning, I seriously injured my head against the corner of a cupboard and our spring clean came to an abrupt stop!  The razor sharp corner of the cupboard, split open the skin on my forehead just into my hair line.  CJ and Heidi-Mari immediately knew how to stop the bleeding with Yarrow - so much blood with a head injury! They supported me through the immense shock and Josua and Danika took over caring for the little ones, while Christo, who arrived minutes later, attended to my wound.  With CJ and Heidi-Mari’s help Christo "stitched up” the wound with corn starch without taking me for stitches - not without cutting off some hair (LOL!). They ordered me to bed rest and I gladly gave in.  The rest of the day CJ, Heidi-Mari and Josua, cleaned up the room, prepared dinner and looked after their younger siblings.

On Friday I felt like someone that had brain damage!  I couldn’t think straight or do things at the same pace and fervency I’m used to, and decided to take the day off, as well as the weekend.  But I do have to stay busy, so I worked on my latest hobby - making felt food for Danika and the girls who will stay with us during the week! 

Here is my first finished project!

  

I enjoyed every minute making this Strawberry Cake and can’t wait to see the girls playing with it. 

One of Heidi-Mari’s best friends, Kelly-Anne started a Sewing Challenge a few months ago, and this month’s theme is Children’s Toys!  I like to enter this project into her challenge.  

The pattern for the Strawberry Cake and Plate I got here. The felt I bought over the years for different craft projects, at a local craft shop, the yarn I had from previous sewing projects and the buckram to strengthen the plate was left over from a ballet costume. 

I only had to buy the patterns, foam and filling. I got a cut off piece of foam at a local foam shop in Durbanville for next to nothing, and the filling at a local Craft shop!

I’m so thankful for Kelly-Anne starting this Sewing Challenge.  Since she’s running the Sewing Challenge, Heidi-Mari became interested in sewing and enjoys it more and more.  She already made a Duplo bag for the little one’s Duplo;

and a Princess crown for Danika who is always ‘dressing up’ as a Princess.

Wait till you see Heidi-Mari and Danika’s children toy projects…

Why don’t you give yourself some creative off time and enter Kelly-Anne’s Children Toys Sewing Challenge.

With love

Linnie

Making Easter Real for my Children!

It is so encouraging to experience the spiritual growth in our family every year!  Two years ago we did an Easter Lapbook with the little ones, Danika, Andrew and David.  

Last year we build on the Easter Lapbook knowledge.  

We had an Easter dinner and watched The Passion of Christ with the children.  Beautiful to see the impact the movie had on their hearts and souls. 

This year the Lord amazingly lead us to add more to the children’s understanding of His greatest gift to them!

Two weeks ago, I had to take Heidi-Mari to a very interesting craft shop in Northumberland street, Bellville.  While waiting to pay for our goodies,  the children drew my attention to a Wooden cross scene, exhibited on one of the small tables.  The children were fascinated by it. With their knowledge of Christ’s crucifixion, they were entertaining each other with what they knew about Jesus on the cross.  Then it was my turn to pay and within seconds I made the decision to get us the same scene.  Although there were a few impatient ladies behind me, waiting to pay for their goodies, too, I quickly enquired where I could find the crosses and the stand.  The children were over the moon and proudly walked out of the shop with their new priced possession!

The crosses we bought was just plain wood, but the crosses in the Craft Shop was decorated and painted and had a very interesting rustic look. Now it was my challenge to find the crafting stuff to decorate and paint our crosses to give it the same rustic look.  Fortunately there is another very popular crafting shop in Durbanville, near Christo’s health shop and I went in to ask for advise.  I took my wooden crosses with and tried to explain to them what end result I was looking for.  They immediately knew what I was talking about and gave me a coarse paste to cover the crosses with.

In the next few days, I would tell the children the crucifixion and resurrection story, illustrated on our felt board with felt characters. 

Then, with great excitement, we would cover our wooden crosses with the coarse paste. 

After we covered a certain part of the cross, we used a kitchen fork to add some texture. 

The day we decorated the stand, they went outside to pick up pebbles in my vegetable garden to mount in the paste.

By the end of the week the crosses were covered, dried and ready to be painted.  We experimented with different colours.  

First we spray-painted it with a grey colour, left over from a previous crafting project.  But it turned out to be blue, so I got black crafting paint.  Next we painted it with a dark brown colour and roughly painted it with a light brown to gave it a rusty look!  I was really impressed with the outcome!

CJ also twisted a small crown of thorns to put with the cross.

We at first thought it wouldn’t be necessary to paint the stand or ‘soil’ of Golgotha between the ‘rocks’, but after the paste dried, it didn’t look natural, so we started the patient, precise job of painting between the pebbles.  I just did a small section of it, when I had to stop to put little ones down for their afternoon naps.  Since we mixed different colour paints, to get the right colour for the soil and I didn’t want the paint to dry before I’m finished, I asked CJ to take over.  

When I came back I realized he’s doing a far better job than me, and deligated the job to CJ. He has the precision to paint between the pebbles!

In the mean time I opened a blog I don’t read often, but which has excellent postings and ideas.  Some of you might remember my posting, Naming a Year, by Ann Voskamp from A Holy Experience.  In this specific posting Ann showed the Easter Garden they made. She beautifully compared the Garden of Eden, where “our beginning and mortal fall began” with a garden where “Christ’s beginning to right that fall began”. I was immediately fascinated by the idea of making an Easter Garden.  

On Friday afternoon after dropping CJ off at the horse farm and Heidi-Mari at Ballet classes, we were on our way to Stodels Garden Centre to buy small plants for our Easter Garden. On the way, I also stopped at a stationary shop, to buy modeling clay to make the tomb and stone that was in front of the tomb. 

The children was jumping up and down with excitement by the time we reached the Garden Centre.  I gave each one the opportunity to choose their own plant and we returned home, each one proudly with his or her plant on the lap! They couldn’t wait to make the Easter Garden!

On Saturday morning Josua mixed some soil and well matured compost, from our own compost heap and filled the pot.  

Then each one got a turn to plant his or her little plant!  

They had such a ball, concentrating on planting the plant, as well as posing for the camera, as I’m taking pictures, to capture the moment!

The previous evening CJ made the tomb and stone and some rocks out of the modeling clay and left it to dry.  

We covered the clay tomb, stone and rocks with waterproof coating and by Sunday afternoon it was all finished.  

This was such a fun activity and at the same time a life changing experience for each of our family members at their different level of understanding.

Easter will never be the same for me again, looking at the crosses, feeling the rustic texture under my skin, seeing the crown of thorns, imagining the sun getting darker, the earth quake, all while I stood at a distance, watching... 

The tomb in the beautiful garden, the large stone against the door of the tomb, it is so final and I feel the hopelessness of His disciples and the women whom He loved, their mourning for Jesus, their Master and Friend.

But then, I marveled with Peter as I saw the stone had been rolled away, the tomb is empty, the linen cloths lying by themselves... 

and I know Jesus is risen, and He commanded us to ‘Rejoice’ and I, like His disciples fall to His feet to worship Him - our Risen King!   

May you all experience the presence and peace of the Risen Jesus Christ, this Easter.

With love

Linnie

I have linked this posting to Meaningful Easter: Tips, Ideas & Traditions at Impress your Kids.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, 

that whoever believes in Him should not perish

but have everlasting life."

John 3:16