Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is place in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into it's soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no others hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Turning everyday life into teachable moments

Sorry I don't have much time to post at the moment - we have limited internet access and limited funds to go along with it lol.

But just wanted to share how an ordinary day can turn into lots of educational activities if you think about it a little by sharing what happened in our family last Thursday!

My husband has been doing a little work with my Dad and on Thursday they happened to be working close by - about a 5/10 minute walk downhill - I was just planning on a normal day, getting ready then was gonna get the school books out do some maths etc but my phone rang - it was my husband.
"Darling, I'd love a nice warm drink, it's cold and we've got no access to hot water here" (well maybe not put quite so eloquently lol)
I made the decision to get the children ready and take him a coffee down in a travel mug and forget about the school books. In all honestly it did annoy me a little - after all surely he should realise I need to get the children their schooling done! Especially now the LEA have been informed about us but I couldn't not take him a drink down - love him too much hehe.

After a little bit of hassle (ok a lot of hassle) getting all children in their outdoor attire and getting the pushchair out of the door and the cup of coffee ready we set off.
The conversation as we were walking was about falling leaves and signs of Autumn - so really it turned into a bit of a nature walk! Then when we arrived where they were working we discovered it was next to a bit of a conservation wildlife patch - with loads of apple trees!!! Of course we had to "forage" for apples and on the way back home I explained "foraging" so the children learnt a new word and got a vocabulary lesson.

And when we got back - we made apple crumble!! Home ed and science all in one - of course to make the crumble involved measuring ingredients - so there was our maths!

I never did get the "school books" out that day but learning happened anyway - and as well as learning we experienced the whole thing - how exciting to pick apples in the "wild" and then come home and make apple crumble - in all honestly I think I found it as exciting if not more than the children - a real sense of satisfaction of making something when you haven't had to buy the main ingredient!

And the overall lesson I learned (never mind the children hehe) was that if we put our own plans and desires aside in order to bless another person, as long as we have the right attitude then we will ourselves be blessed - if I had chosen to ignore my husbands need in order to do my planned school work with the children then none of us would have gotten to eat delicious crumble at teatime! And a whole nature experience would have been missed!

1 comment:

Everday Edwards said...

Came across your blog today and wanted to say hello. Precious family! It's great to see family's loving the Lord!

Jaimi