HappyMama

I’ll put this post under the category ‘education’ - because spending time with K’Nex toys is quite educational. My 4 1/2 year old loves ‘em, even though he’s still too young to do anything complicated. Grandpa helps. He actually bought the first smaller kit at a gas station, and since we loved ‘em he found some on-line and got some more pieces. They’ll stay here at his house (we’re visiting), so our cousin & future cousins can all enjoy them as the years go by.

Here’s an example of a Yahoo group where you “donate” $30 for 4 months of downloads from the albums of an experienced Montessori teacher. Albums are books/binders full of descriptions of all the presentations a Montessori teacher would use in the school room. The language album I have is full of pre-reading & writing activities, learning to read, write, and spell activities, plus dozens of grammar lessons. I’ve been doing the pre-reading activities with our 2-year-old, and the grammar activites with my 4-year-old. We both really enjoy them.

I’ve added a new category to my sidebar - Montessori & Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Materials. Today I’ll add a few pics of a simple grammar presentation: introduction to singular vs. plural. In a traditional classroom, such a lesson would begin with a lecture by the teacher, while the kiddos sit in their desks trying to pay attention. A Montessori lesson would work like this:

1. Teacher chooses a time when child is peaceful & alert, and the environment is peaceful. [In our home, we do new presentations when at least one younger child is sleeping and the other younger child is preoccupied.] Teacher asks child if he would like to see something new. [Answer has never been No!]

2. Teacher leads child to a container/tray/drawer containing the new materials and wordlessly demonstrates how to carry them to a workspace. This could be a desk or a rug on the floor, wherever the child chooses. Teacher opens the container and takes out two large labels and reads them to the child while pointing to the words: “singular”, “plural”, and lays them out at the top of a workspace. [Working on a mat is a highly effective way of improving concentration by clearly defining where the child's materials, hands, and eyes should be.]

3. One object & label at a time, teacher sets out all of the materials, reading the labels as they are placed (or having the child read them if they want to), then carefully and gently puts everything away back on the shelf. The child is now free to do this work by himself, whenever he chooses. Without fail, he will want to do it immediately, and then will return to the work some other day. The teacher can present the material a second time after a few days or weeks if she thinks it would be of benefit to the child.

Notice that the teacher never explains anything to the child. The child discovers for himself what the two new words mean. He discovers for himself that by adding an “s” to a word it signifies more than one of the object. While at first this may not seem important, it is because when we discover something all on our own, there’s an Aha! moment that occurs in our brain, and the impression of the moment in our memory is more intense and lasting. It would be easy for me to sit down with a child, a piece of paper, and a pencil, and do this lesson with him in the “traditional” way of simply telling him the grammatical rules. And if he was in a good mood, he’d sit there obediently and nod his head yes, and he’d be able to rattle back to me what he had learned. But would it stick with him? The Montessori materials do.

Cheers to Shannon & Lynnette for sharing with me a very helpful Montessori blog - see my blogroll, click on Montessori Teacher Blog!

Well yesterday I read this book. I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened. The day before we hosted a birthday party for twin 4-year-old girls, so the housework was done and every spare minute nursing, eating, or while the kids played in the park I read. More accurately, I skimmed. (The only book I really read is the bible. Everything else gets skimmed.)

Unfortunately the book was so disturbing it took me 2 hours to fall asleep last night. This is the author’s second book; his first was a best-seller about 2 men in Afghanistan, and this one is about 2 women. Although it is fiction, you know that what he describes has really happened to innumerable women in the past, and continues to this very day. To live as though you were less valuable than a dog, uneducated, unable to leave the house without a male escort, covered head to toe in black cloth, arranged in marriage at the age of 14 to men with other wives, beaten at will, without medical care… all in the name of various Islamic virtues. It was nauseating.

It was also a reminder of the absolute necessity of spreading the Gospel. In countries where such false ideas are lived and breathed, there can never be true political peace, no matter how hard our government and our military try to help it along. There just can’t be peace without respect for human life and the dignity of marriage and family. The Church has written volumes on the sanctity of life, marriage, and the proper role of government. For all of her wisdom, I am so deeply grateful. If only more people of the world could share in the freedom it brings.

A happy momma is what I am if you give me 5 minutes of solitude & quiet to reflect on my life!  I am living a life freely chosen.  Both marriage & motherhood are far more difficult than I once imagined them to be, but there’s no question that this is the path I carefully discerned and freely chose.  In the midst of all the noise and busy-ness of my daily life, I often lose sight of the beautiful, bigger picture of my existence, and I become frustrated, edgy, angry, or some other negative state.  I get caught up in the little things, like:

• the 2-year-old decides he wants to go potty standing up like his big brother (instead of sitting down) and somehow loses control and I witness a fire hose spraying every direction except in the toilet bowl;
• meanwhile I hear the baby start crying in the kitchen, so I hurry in there to find that he’s pulled a half-eaten bowl of cereal down from the table, spilling it on his head;
• the 4-year-old has begun his daily game of 500+Questions and wants his answers NOW:  “Mom, are there thieves in our town?  What do they look like?  Mom, what is a carpenter?  Mom, do you know what a baby armadillo is called?  Mom, will there be cars in heaven?”

And it’s only 7:30 in the morning.  I just have these moments when I feel incapable of meeting everyone’s needs.  But these moments are fleeting.  Most of the time, I just wander from one need to the next, enjoying one moment and then the next.  Like yesterday afternoon I was sitting down nursing the baby and we were having a little conversation back and forth - baby talk - and he starts to laugh and spits out milk all over me.  A few minutes later, he looks me straight in the eye and smiles, then starts to bite me… I said, “NO Biting!” And he smiled again and backed off.  He understands exactly what that means.  And he listens.  Because he wants to keep nursing.  And I want him to keep nursing.  It makes for one happy momma.

I’ve resumed taking Mom’s Night Out on Thursday nights.  We have two perpetual adoration chapels in our area, and I stopped in last week while I was out.  When I pray, almost always the same words come out:  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.  But thank you, thank you!”  As today’s 2nd reading says so perfectly,

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
{Col. 1}

a good, simple article here with pictures

fresh fruit & veggie tray ($1 from Target) with dip - a favorite way to get the family to eat better.  It works best if i set it out as an appetiser, so the kiddos can munch away while i’m fixing dinner.  Toothpicks are a “fun” utensil, or make shiskabobs.  Ranch dip is of course the first choice for veggies.  I read that you can process it with fresh spinach leaves for a “sneaky” add-in, but haven’t tried that yet.  Yogurt is a favorite dip for fruits - or make a fruit ‘n yogurt parfait.  (These are great with Kashi Go-Lean cereal.)  Filling up on veggies before meals is a keystone of my diet.

July 4th - Partytime!  Yes, those are ear plugs. 

how grandma responds if you try to take her picture:

It’s too hot for clothes here, but this guy needs denim to protect his knees!

Well happy 4th of July everyone!  Especially 3 cheers to our military friends and my big bro who is out-of-country.  Heard a new song by Brad Paisley on the radio this morning and thought it was cheesy but also funny, so here’s a laugh for you today:  (don’t read if you’re sensitive to slightly crude)

I work down at the Pizza Pit
And I drive an old Hyundai
I still live with my mom and dad
I’m 5-foot-3 and overweight

I’m a sci-fi fanatic
A mild asthmatic
And I’ve never been to second base
But there’s whole ‘nother me
That you need to see
Go checkout MySpace

Online
I’m out in Hollywood
I’m 6-foot-5 and I look damn good
Even on a slow day
I could have a three way
Chat with two women at one time
I’m so much cooler online
Yeah, I’m cooler online