Teaching Our Kids to Minister to Others

It is important that we teach our children to serve others with love.  And that we teach ourselves as well.  It builds character and helps conform us to the image of Jesus.  There are many ways to do this.  The first thing to do is start with the Bible.

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matt 5:16

Just recently we finished a project in our homeschool group where we put together bags for our car to be able to hand out to the homeless.  You know when you are at that street corner and you would like to reach out to that hurting person but don’t know how or what you can do?  So we put together zip lock bags containing a New Testament Bible, new socks, pen, paper, stamped envelope, water bottle, snack, and a rain poncho.    We will keep them in the car and easy to reach for those times when the opportunity presents itself.

There are many programs that you can find to help minister to others.  Here is a list that might help you find a ministry that is a good fit for you and your children.

Samaritans Purse Operation Christmas Child This is a great organization that you can participate in all year around.  This year you can donate boxes between November 16-23rd at a local drop off.  If it is any other time of year you can send them directly to Samaritans Purse.  They have a system that even allows you to follow your box so that you will be able to know where your box went and a little information about it.

Angel Tree – Angel Tree is a ministry that reaches out to the children of inmates and their families with the love of Christ. It seeks to transform the lives of these families and to reconcile them to their Heavenly Father and each other.

Volunteer Match- Enter your zip code to find places that you can volunteer near you.  Volunteer at soup kitchens, food banks, nursing homes and shelters.  Or just contact the locations you know of directly and ask if there is a way to help out.

World Vision Gift Ministry- Do a fundraiser or have your children save their money and buy an animal for a family in a third world country.   For instance give a goat. Goats nourish hungry children and families with healthy milk, cheese, and yogurt. Goats also give a much-needed income boost by providing offspring and extra dairy products for sale at the market.

World Relief Gift Ministry

World Vision Sponsor- As a child sponsor, you are connected with one special child who will know your name, write to you and feel your tender love and prayers. Your monthly sponsorship gift will provide a child with things such as clean water, nutritious food, health care, educational opportunities and spiritual nurture.

World Relief Refugees-  Volunteer to sponsor a refugee or refugee family.

Donate clothing, toys or food to your local charities or drives. Put together homeless help bags for your car.

Milk and Cookies Party

I just threw a super sweet birthday party for my 3 year old.  I thought I would share the details of throwing this type of party here.

The Invitation: Take a photo of your child with a glass of milk and a cookie.  Using your favorite photo program, add a speech bubble inviting them to join your child for milk and cookies.  Have the photos printed.  Get some mailing labels and print the details of the party on them and stick them to the backs of the photos.  Mail them in a festive envelope and address in crayon if it’s for a young child’s birthday.  Here is my invitation:

The Cookie Jars: Line your cookie jars with scrap booking papers, ribbons and stickers.  It is also a good idea to line them with wax paper so that the butter of the cookies doesn’t ruin the paper.  Depending on the amount of cookies you make and how large your jars are you can crumble up wax paper at the bottom so that the jars appear FULL of cookies.  These were my jars:

The Milk: Milk, chocolate, strawberry or even vanilla milk.  Check with your local dairy farm and see if they sell milk in jugs such as the dairy in the link below. You could also score through second hand stores and find mini milk jugs to serve the milk in.  Here is how I decided to serve the milk:

The Cookies: Choose your family favorites or just be creative. I thought a great combination was homemade oreos, snickerdoodles and oatmeal chocolate chip. See below for links to recipes. Here are the cookies I served:

The Decorations: Simple balloons and curly ribbon is all that you really need.  I have several plastic and vinyl table cloths from the dollar store.  These work great for kids parties and to line a table for activities that are messy such as glue or play dough.  If you happen to have vintage milk jugs, crates, and or containers you could really do it up.

The Favors: Cookie cutters with the guests first initial or just a cute cutter in cello bags with curly ribbon; Empty bags to take cookies home for later; or you could make a special cookie for them to take home, a great one would be these Play Dough Cookies on a stick wrapped in a cello bag.

The Activity: Homemade play dough with an assortment of cookie cutters; or actually decorate a plain cookie to take home.

Ronnybrook Farms Milk

Cookie Recipes:

Homemade Oreos

Snickerdoodles

The chocolate chip oatmeal cookies are the recipe on the Toll House bag.  I use the regular chocolate chip cookie recipe with these modifications: melt butter to liquid in the microwave and set out to cool for a bit; add one cup of one minute oats.  I then refrigerated the dough for a couple hours and made the balls of dough and froze them.  I then baked them from frozen.  They turn out thick and delicious every time.

I hope you have a “Milk & Cookies” party!  It is super sweet & simple!

Seattle Children’s Theatre HURRY!

If you haven’t already, please visit Nadine’s website to get all the details you need to order your tickets for the 2009/ 2010 Seattle Children’s Theatre season.  Nadine has been selling tickets to homeschoolers for 20 years! You cannot order tickets at these prices anywhere else.  The deadline for ordering this season is coming up quick on August 15.  If you are new to ordering she has an extended time period for you up until September 15.

Seattle Children’s Theatre is really great, you will not be disappointed!

Homeschool Days by Nadine

This upcoming year’s lineup includes:

Mysterious Gifts Sept 24 – Oct 11
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie Oct 15 – Nov 29
Peter Pan Nov 12 – Jan 10
Pero Jan 14 – Feb 14
Nordic Myths Feb 11 – Mar 14
Getting Near to Baby Mar 11 – Apr 18
Brementown Musicians Apr 8 – May 16

Book your dates now before it’s too late! Visit Homeschooldaysbynadine.com for more information.

Blueberry Season – Teaching for all Seasons

I am taking the 100 Digits berry picking this week.  Since we need to get back into school gear after a couple weeks of summer camps I decided to look into a blueberry unit study.  The blueberry council has put together some great pages to make learning about blueberries fun.  You can download them below or visit blueberrycouncil.com .  There are 3 worksheets for grades 3rd and 4th and 3 worksheets for 5th and 6th. I think that you can find ways to use them at any grade level.  They are great, check them out.

add-up-fruit-fun -Math 5th/6th

blueberries-for-every-season -Geography 5th/6th

latest-fruit-news – Language Arts 5th/6th

one-blue-three – Math 3rd/4th

read-write-and-blue – Language Arts 3rd/4th

blueberries-cuisine-Geography 3rd/4th

blueberry power worksheet (shown above)

For information on U-Pick Farms local to western Washington click here.

Fun Blueberry facts

• The blueberry muffin is the official muffin of Minnesota.
• It is also the most popular muffin in the U.S.
• The blueberry is the official state fruit of New Jersey.
• July is National Blueberry Month in the U.S.
• August is the National Blueberry Month in Canada.

Seattle Children’s Theatre 2009-2010 Great Deal

It’s that time of year to book dates with your kids at The Seattle Children’s Theatre.  They have a great lineup this next season and with thanks to Nadine Smith, all of us homeschoolers have the opportunity to enjoy these wonderful performances at a great discount.  And homeschool groups and families can only get these prices by ordering through her.  To print out your order form as well as find all the information you need for the season visit her blog at Homeschool Days By Nadine.

This upcoming year’s lineup includes:

Mysterious Gifts Sept 24 – Oct 11
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie Oct 15 – Nov 29
Peter Pan Nov 12 – Jan 10
Pero Jan 14 – Feb 14
Nordic Myths Feb 11 – Mar 14
Getting Near to Baby Mar 11 – Apr 18
Brementown Musicians Apr 8 – May 16

Book your dates now before it’s too late! Visit Homeschooldaysbynadine.com for more information.

PS – We thoroughly enjoyed Goodnight Moon at the theatre today. The performance was absolutely delightful!!

Christmas Pageant

You can act out the Christmas story right in your own living room.  Your children will be thrilled to play the parts of Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men and the shepherds.  This is a beautiful tradition that can keep your eyes focused on the meaning of Christmas as you play parts and sing songs together as a family.  I have had this script that may be useful to you.  Depending on the number of participants, you will need to alter it a bit to fit your family.  This can be done using simple props around the home or if you start early enough you can put quite an elaborate act together with full costumes and homemade props.  Feel free to comment and give ideas and tips that have worked for you or that you have considered trying.

• A baby doll wrapped in a blanket
• Blue fabric or scarf for “Mary”
• 3 crowns (made with construction paper)
• 3 boxes for the gifts to Jesus
• angel wings
• 2 walking sticks for shepherds
• 3 hand towels for Joseph and the shepherds heads

You can view the script here in PDF format.  Of course, reading the nativity story to your children is a wonderful tradition too.  The Christmas story can be found in Luke 2:1-20 and Matthew 2:1-12. If you have a manger scene, sit around it as you read.   I also recommend watching the movie,  The Nativity Story with your family.  I would recommend this movie for ages 6 and up.  Although I think the entire family can sit to watch it, younger than 6 may not be able to grasp what is actually taking place in the movie.  There are two scenes that you may want to guard and that would be when Elizabeth and Mary are about to give birth.  Although there isn’t anything graphic in this movie the women are shown in pain which could of course raise some questions with your kids.