Read.Explore.Learn.-Valentine's Day

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

• Link your activity below.

• Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.
                                                         
  
  
  

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• Please try to visit at  least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

• If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

The little girl named Cornelia Augusta in The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond is amazing. She takes to the time collect hearts that rain down one day and she uses them to create wonderful valentines for each for her friends.

I love how Cornelia Augusta takes the time to send cards to the people she care about not only the year hearts rained down but, every year after that.

The children in Anne Rockwell's Valentine's Day create wonderful valentine's to a classmate that has moved faraway. Each child decorates their card with a memory they have that is tied to the student.

What a wonderful way to share memories with a friend and let them know they are important.

I loved getting see what each child picked and how they decorate their card to represent their memory.


What did we do?


Card Making

I cut out six pink and  two green hearts out of tag board. JDaniel was able to push the pink heats  up the lollipop stick to create a petal effect. 

We added the green hearts as leaves with a Valentine message of the largest leaf.

This lollipop man is so easy to make. You just cut four small slits in the an old playing card for the red pipecleaner through. A simple heart is the head and a lollipop is placed in one of the hands.

Here are some of the cards we decorated. I colored in the robot and JDaniel put stickers around the heart on these cards.

Hearts 4 Kids

Our local radio station His Radio is sponsoring a program called Hearts 4 Kids. We sent our cards that didn't have candy to that project. The project is open until Feb. 6th at midnight. Click here for more details.

Surprise a Neighbor

We took the cards with candy to the older lady that lives next door.

This post is linked to Lets BEE Friends, Play Academy and Link and Learn.

Pinterest- Leaping into Groundhog's Day

Happy Groundhog's Day! Whether the ground sees his shadow or not, I think spring has arrived in South Carolina. The temperatures have been in the 50's or 60's all week.
I thought it would be fun to celebrate Groundhog's Day with JDaniel anyway. I made a leaping groundhogs game due to the fact that it is a leap year too and searched Pinterest for Groundhog's Day crafts and snacks.
The leaping groundhogs game is the only thing I really made myself. You will find links to the others ideas I found under each picture.

Leaping Groundhogs Game
Supplies:
Sections of a white milk jug
Brown felt
Green felt 
Wiggly eyes
Black construction paper
A margarine tub

Directions:
1. Cut three inch long sections out of a white plastic milk jug for as many groundhogs as you will need
2. Fold each strips  into thirds.
3. Cut out a groundhog shaped head out of brown felt
4. Glue the head onto the front third of the strip with his nose facing away for the bend.

5. Cut a black circle out of construction paper.
6. Glue two wiggly eyes and a black nose onto the groundhog head.
7. Cut a green rectangular piece of felt that will fit around your margarine tub and is a little taller than the tub.
8. Snip off some of the green felt that reaches above the tub to make it look like grass.

How to play:
1.Bend the groundhog into thirds. 
2. Place your thumb on the groundhog's nose.
3. Watch him fly into the margarine tub or back into his hole.

Here are some wonderful ideas I found on Pinterest:

This is a really cute craft from Playschool Playbook. Here is its link on Pinterest.

Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons came up with this really cute snack. Here is its link on Pinterest.

Two Bears Farm made this really cute Groundhog's Day lunch. Here is its link on Pinterest.

Gourmet Mom on- the Go made this wonderful drink! Here is its link on Pinterest. 
Click on the word Pinterest if you would like to follow me. I will follow you back.   This post is linked several places including Mama Kat's Writing Workshop and  Link and Learn.

Knowing There is Scar Tissue on My Heart

Recently we have been talking about letting God heal old scars in our lives in the mom’s group I’m in at church. We have discussed how most people don ‘t even notice that you have any scars or that many have gone below the surface of your skin.

This  discussion reminded me of  the scar JDaniel has on  his forehead.

Last Halloween JDaniel tripped and fell into a coffee table at a friends house during a playgroup Halloween party. We had to rush to the hospital so he could get internal and external stitches. (I wrote about it on a guest post I wrote for Mom of a Monster and Twins.)

When we got home, he looked like Frankenstein for a few days. The external stitches stood out on his head.

Over time the external stitches dissolved and wore away. There was still a scar there and we don’t know if it will ever really go away.

Internally we can’t see the stitches or the scarring . We can feel the scar tissue that formed above them. It is like a ridge right below the surface.

We are supposed to massage it and try to break down the scar tissue two times a day for fifteen minutes each time. JDaniel hates it when I massage it . He does a better of tolerating it when my  husband does it.

I am so glad he lets someone massage the scar tissue. We really don’t want him to keep it.  Although it may be that no one  never  notices the scar tissue, we will know that it is there and that we  at least tried to make it go away.

Mental, spiritual,  and emotional scar tissue behaves in the much the same way that JDaniel’s physical scar tissue has. It forms calluses that can create very real scaring on our heart and minds.

I carried into adulthood calluses caused by the scars of my parents divorce and several other things from childhood.

I am going to be honest with you I am just like JDaniel is when I am trying to massage his scar tissue. I tried to avoid it, limit the time I allow for it to be broken down,  and fussed at God for making me finally deal with.

Being challenged to hand over something old that you have been come used to is hard but, I am so glad that much of the scar tissue has been broken down and the areas under those old calluses has been allowed to heal.


Do you have calluses you need to have massaged by God? Are you ready to hand them over to him?

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe Thursday.

Pause Life for a Moment- Green Grandma

I am so blessed to have Green Grandma here today to share this amazing post. I hope that you will pause a moment after reading it to visit her wonderful blog and read about her new book Vinegar Fridays.

She truly is wonderful writer and storyteller.

The Misuse of Imagination

 

“I’m going back to Iraq,” my brand-new son-in-law said.

I stopped breathing. Tom and our daughter, Bethany, informed us they had something they needed to tell us and as we sat around the dining room table with hopes of a grandbaby on the way or something else equally wonderful, a cloak of worry descended upon me.

“My unit’s been deployed,” the Marine sergeant continued, “and I volunteered to go with them.”

I couldn’t speak. Fear gripped me with its threat of impending doom. After all, I was widowed at just 32. Was history going to repeat itself? Would my daughter hug her husband goodbye, never to see him again?

I was scared.

For the next month, I struggled to sleep. I worried constantly. I played out scenes in my head – the knock on my daughter’s door, the primal scream, I knew too well, emerging from the depths of her soul. My rushing to get there to offer her comfort that was impossible to give. My own collapse onto the floor as I heard the news. Would he be killed, or would he come home severely maimed, altering their lives forever?

I had this worrying thing down to an art.

One day, as I ripped the previous day’s saying from my inspirational page-a-day calendar, I read these words:

Worry is the misuse of imagination. – Anonymous

I paused and read it again. Something started to happen in me … I could feel it. I started to weep.

At that moment, my life changed. Dramatically. Hopefully, forever.

As a writer, I never take for granted the gift of imagination with which God blessed me. After all, what fiction writer can be without it? It is a necessary tool of our trade; one in which, I believe, we are born with. God planted the desire to write in me from the time I was a small child. Imagination. What a blessed gift! A gift I turned into a curse.

Before my first husband was killed in a flash fire, I worried about him all the time. If he was ten minutes late, I was pacing. Fifteen minutes, I was crying. Twenty minutes, I was calling the local hospitals. What a rotten way to live … for both of us. I was just so worried that he was going to die. And he did. Worrying did not prevent his death; it simply made his life with me a bit on edge. That is something I will regret forever.

Quite honestly, however, I didn’t know I had a choice.

“I’m just a worrier,” I would say, excusing this flaw in my character as an inborn trait I had no control over. “It’s just the way I am.”

The fact is I did have control over this character flaw. We all do. We can choose not to worry. For me, it was as simple as realizing I was misusing the gift God gave me. I admit it -- I have a rather vivid imagination … and I was wasting it on worrying.

That morning, over five years ago, I came up with this strategy:

When I start to feel anxious, I ask myself this question – Am I projecting into the future and imaging things that might happen, or is this a legitimate concern that requires some action on my part?

If there is no real basis for my worry, I dismiss it. If, on the other hand, I’m concerned about catching a cold or whether or not I paid a bill, I proactively take steps to alleviate the concern. I take extra vitamins or wash my hands more often or I check my online bank statement to see if the payment went through. Do you see the difference? Concern often requires action.

There was nothing I could do to keep my son-in-law safe. No amount of sleepless nights would prevent my daughter from early widowhood. So I rode out Tom’s deployment in prayer for him, leaving his safety in the hands of his Heavenly Father and leaving my worry in His hands, too. After all, He’s God, and He was more than happy to take it off me.

And you know what? Tom made it home safely and is now co-parenting an active little boy who, no doubt, will challenge this ‘no worry’ approach to life his grandma has. But for now, I’m worrying less and enjoying life more … letting my imagination lead me into the wonderful world of fiction.

Hana Haatainen Caye, agency principal for

SPEECHLESS, is an award-winning writer, editor and voice-over talent serving the creative needs of clients worldwide. She leads Writers at Work, a Pittsburgh-based monthly writing workshop and leads workshops at writers’ conferences. Her first book, Vinegar Fridays, based on a popular feature of her blog, Green Grandma, was released in November 2011.

Super Bowl XLV: Patriots vs. Giants Muffin Tin Meal

JDaniel really isn't into football but, I thought it would be fun to have muffin tin lunch with a Super Bowl theme anyway.

Let me start by saying that I don't usually serve JDaniel bread with a fruit chew on it. It was really hard to come up with a way to create the symbol for the Patriots. I must have thought through five different ways to do it but, they seemed even more complicated than the way I ended up with.

Creating the Patriots logo was one of the hardest things I have done to create a muffin tin element. I had to trace the symbol onto cardboard and then trace it onto the fruit chew. The red elements were easy to trace onto a red fruit chew. Placing the cheese under the logo for the face and star were the easiest of all.

I am so thankful that the Giants are in the Super Bowl. Why? They have an easy symbol recreate.  It was so easy to trace their logo onto American cheese.

The rest of the meal is made of ham rolled into a cylinder help in place with toothpicks and football shaped Oreos.

I really thought about trying to try and make the bread into a football shape but, I was afraid it wouldn't be  big enough to hold the symbols if it was cut down.

While this isn't the healthiest of meals, I think it contained enough healthy elements in it.

What would you serve in a Super Bowl lunch?

This post is linked to Muffin Tin Monday?

  

Acts of Kindness- Montessori Style

Toddler Approved is hosting a wonderful project called the 100 Acts of Kindness Project. I love the idea of JDaniel and I doing things for others between Jan. 15th and Valentine's Day.Each week she puts up a challenge for you to complete as some of your 100 Acts of Kindness.

This week's challenge was to perform  five acts of kindness for members of our family using a Montessori technique. The challenge was issued by  Living Montessori Now!


Here is what we did:

Act One

JDaniel helped me volunteer at  Angel's Attic consignment sale at my mom's church. We were asked to help move all the bikes and vehicles outside. When that was done we were asked to help people that were looking over them to know how to take the stickers off them and where to go to purchase them.

He followed his interest of car care. How? JDaniel used a pretend gas pump to fill all the Cozy Coupes up with gas and test out the seats in all the wagons and cars.

Act Two

JDaniel practiced transferring coins with chopsticks into a baby bottle that I was given at church.  The money in the baby bottle with go to help a local women's center.

Act Three

Our third task was laundry. JDaniel helped me fold  laundry into almost neat piles. We will need to keep practicing this skill.

Acts Four and Five

JDaniel helped me pour more soap in our soap dispensers. He loved using a funnel.

We tried just dumping it in but, it went in to slowly for JDaniel.

He decided to help the soap along by pushing it in.

Finally he squeezed the remaining soap into the bottle.

For more information on the 100 Acts of Kindess Project please visit this post on Toddler Approved.

Read.Explore.Learn.-If You'll Be My Valentine

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

• Link your activity below.

• Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.
                                                         
  
  
  

<center><a href="http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/"><img alt="Shibley Smiles" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-wYnCaxCjpQ/TIbl9KccMVI/AAAAAAAAB98/vjalStjjb-I/s1600/ReadExploreLearn.jpg" alt="jdaniel4smom" width="150" height="150" /></a></center>

• Please try to visit at  least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

• If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

JDaniel is very much into rhyming words. He loved the rhyming poems in If You'll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant. I love how the little boy in the book created cards for all his friends ( stuffed animals and pets), siblings and grandmother.

I love how the card is shown on one page of the book and the memory that inspired it is on the opposite page.

What did we do?

Craft- Valentine's Day Cards

We recieved tons of political mailing right before  the South Carolina primary. I decided they would be great for creating Valentine's Day cards for JDaniel's sleepy time friends and robots.

I put out the mailings, markers, stickers, and crayons to make the cards.

Here are the cards:

Pretend Play- Valentine's Day Post Office

While JDaniel was a preschool, I converted his McDonald's  counter into a post office. I placed  post office signs on  most of the McDonald's related ones and put some stamps (stickers) into the register.

One of our reusable bags was labeled a mail bag. JDaniel was able to use the bag to deliver his cards to his toys.

This post is linked to Lets BEE Friends, Play Academy and Link and Learn.