Many years ago when our children were younger, my husband purchased several books for me on how to develop new and creative learning experiences for our growing children. I made the choice to be a stay at home mom when our first daughter was not quite eighteen months old. It was not an easy decision, I thought I could do it all, be the working mom with a successful career. However, I soon discovered with the demanding hours of my job, it was impossible to be the mother that I wanted to be and therefore something had to change. With that in mind, I resigned from my job.
This was the decision that would work best for our family. In time our family grew and we were blessed with four fabulous children. That decision proved to be the most rewarding and yet the most exhausting time of my life and yet, I wouldn’t change a thing about it!
Your First Experience with Learning
I realized that our home was their first experience with learning, and it was up to me to establish a home where exploring, creating and finding new ways to discover God’s great creation was a priority.
One of the first books I read was, Teach Me Mommy, A Preschool Learning Guide, by Jill Dunford. The book was set up with simple, weekly activities geared towards children ages 3-5 years old. It was a wonderful resource to help me get started with building a valuable parent/child relationship.
Another great resource I used with our children was, Weekday Programs for Children, Teacher’s Guide. This particular resource was more faith based. Each activity and lesson had a goal in mind and seeked ways to teach values for Christian living in the home. Some of those values were, “love, faith, hope, sharing, caring, forgiveness, honesty, obedience and responsibility,” all are so important for children to learn at an early age. These values will set a foundation for children as they grow into adulthood.
In today’s world there is Pinterest and various other resources on the internet that can help mothers, and fathers gather information to help foster learning and experiences of wonder for their children. And, yet sometimes just some simple advice and suggestions from grandma, can also be very helpful.
That’s why as a mother of four and grandmother of four, I wanted to share with you some simple daily activities you can do with your children or grandchildren.
Daily activities to do at home
Below you will find seven days (plus 2 extra bonus ideas) of fun and faithful activities. There is a Bible verse to focus on for the day and a few fun activities that you can do in your own home or outside in your neighborhood.
Day 1
“Love is patient and kind…” 1 Corinthians 13:4
Activity: Roll a ball, underhand toss a ball, roll a ball to different objects, pass a ball and catch, allow each family member to take a turn rolling, tossing and catching.
Run in place, jump up and down, do 10 jumping jacks
Play your favorite music, run around, skip or walk quickly then freeze when the music stops.
Have fun today, be patient with one another. Share lots of hugs!
Day 2
“He “God” cares about you”…1 Peter 5:7
Activity: Draw a picture of your house and write your street address, memorize your address.
Everyone sits in a circle and each person tells something that he or she likes to do. Then repeat it, for example, “mom likes to bake banana bread”, then your child would say, “mom likes to bake banana bread and (child’s name) likes to play with legos”, the next child (if more than one in the family) would say “mom likes to bake banana bread and (child’s name) likes to play with legos and (child’s name) likes to dance”…(or whatever you choose)… keep going with other family member’s names. See how long you can go without someone forgetting.
Play the “Hokey Pokey”, “I put my right hand in, I put my right hand out, I put my right hand in and I shake it all about….
Sometimes it’s just fun to be silly and laugh! Remember to have fun, laugh and enjoy being together.
Day 3
“Let all you do, be done in love…” 1 Corinthians 16:14
Activity: Go outside and trace your body on the sidewalk or driveway. Each person takes a turn tracing the other person. Next, color it in..then take a walk around the neighborhood and find things that are tall and short. (for instance, flowers, trees, or doors and windows of houses)
Have mom or dad make some homemade biscuits and see if they rise and get tall when they bake.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/easy-self-rising-biscuits-recipe
Day 4
“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a real blessing” Psalm 127:3
Activity: Plan an indoor picnic, everyone helps to set up the room with a blanket, making the food, and preparing the drinks. Then everyone helps to decide which movie to watch. Before the movie, talk about how we need to care for each other, list some things that you can do to help each other out, even when we are sick, what can we do to show each other that we care for one another. As a family, we love each other and are patient with each other.
Day 5
“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have…” Hebrews 13:16
Activity: First, talk about what the word good means to you and your family. So often I will hear a parent tell a child to “be good,” and yet I wonder if the child really knows what being “good” means. Does that mean following directions, listening to an adult, helping out a friend or just doing the right thing? Each child takes a toy from their room and shares it with another, let your brother or sister play with your toy for the day, then ask them why they liked playing with it. If you have only one child, ask them to donate a toy, (be sure to sanitize the toy or perhaps you could go to the toy store to purchase a new toy to donate to a shelter) Do something good today for mom or dad, help set the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner, clean up your room, take quiet time without bothering anyone, read quietly in your room. Do something good!
Day 6
“He has made everything beautiful in its time” Ecclesiastes 3:11
Activity: Fall is the most beautiful season, the colorful leaves show off God’s wonderful creation. Go on a nature walk and pick up some fallen leaves. Come back home and make a leave print. Take a piece of white paper and fold in half, next take your leaf and put it in the middle of the fold, then take a crayon and color over the leaf. See what a beautiful leaf you have. Or you can take a piece of wax paper and fold in half, then put your leaf in the middle of the fold and use an iron on low heat and iron your leaf print.
Pretend you are a bird or a squirrel, a bird will fly south where it is warm for the winter and a squirrel will gather up supplies for the cold winter months.
Talk about the change in seasons and what happens to animals during the winter months. Perhaps you could stop by a local lawn and garden store and purchase some tulip bulbs or another flower that will bloom in the spring. Plant the bulbs and then wait, watch and prepare for the amazing timing in which the flower will bloom. In time, all is beautiful!
Day 7
“It is good to give thanks to the Lord” Psalm 92:1
Activity: Make a thankful tree, trace out a tree on a piece of paper. Next draw a leaf shape on separate pieces of colorful construction paper or whatever paper you have available. Then write down all the things you are thankful for and place on the tree. Each day take a leaf off the tree and talk about what you are thankful for and why. If we teach our children to have an attitude of gratitude, their lives will be filled with joy in the most simplest of things. Try to incorporate the words, “thank you” in your daily conversations. Find ways to thank each other for something each day!
Extra Bonus – Two more ideas!
Day 8
“Protect me, O God, I trust in you for safety”…
Activity: Talk about ways to stay safe at home and outside, (no running out into the street, watch for cars, be careful of people that you do not know…)
Draw a picture of ways to be safe..(make a stop sign or traffic light, wear a bike helmet when riding your bike, hold mom or dad’s hand when you cross the street)
Make your own personal pizza with either an English muffin or a plain/or everything bagel, add some sauce and cheese, bake in a toaster oven and have mom or dad use hot pot holders to take it out when the pizza is done. Use the pot holders to keep your hands safe from the heat of the oven.
Day 9
“Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another” Ephesians 4:32
Activity: Everyone gets a puzzle and sees who can put the puzzle together first, or get a big floor puzzle and everyone takes a turn putting a piece of the puzzle together. Remember to be patient and kind, each one taking a turn.
These are just a few ideas to help you create a loving, supportive and creative home environment for your family.
1 Timothy 3:4
4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.
The following is an excerpt from Habitudes, “Images That Form Leadership Habits and Attitudes,” by Dr. Tim Elmore. “I once heard of a teenage girl who lived in Alaska. She had joined a local youth group but was struggling with her values and ethics. Part of her wanted to do what was right. Another part of her was still rebellious. One day, she went to see her youth director. She described her dilemma this way. It was like there were two husky dogs inside her fighting all the time-one good and one bad. She felt the pull of these forces all day. These “dogs” were constantly struggling to control her. Finally, her youth director asked, “Which of the two dogs is stronger?” She thought for a moment. Then, it was like a light bulb went on inside of her. She said, “I guess whichever dog I feed the most.”
She finally was able to answer her own question, the “dog” she fed the most was the one that was getting her attention, whether it be good or bad. Paul struggled with this same dilemma, and wrote about it in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” He goes on to summarize that he follows the law of God with his mind but that his flesh serves the law of sin. That in itself is the conflict that dwells within every Christian. This is also the struggle that faces most of our children today, no matter what their age. Our goal as parents is to help our children in this struggle by encouraging them to avoid the negative and focus on the positive. Feed the positive and starve the negative!
Which Dog is Your Child Feeding?
One way in which you can “feed” the positive is by being aware of what your children are watching on tv, listening to on their electronic devices, and monitoring their social media. “Feed the positive” with encouraging, thoughtful, and compassionate messaging. Today’s children are constantly being saturated with characters in the media that have no moral compass, no ethical ability to reason, and no family values. There’s no room for negative thoughts or images for our children. Don’t feed into the negative frenzy. It’s time for parents to recapture our nation’s moral conscience. Hopefully, you have made conscious decisions about the outside forces that contribute to the emotional and spiritual development of your child.
Here are a few positive phrases that you can share with your child:
- You make me smile
- That was a good choice
- You solved the problem all by yourself
- What you did was brave
- That took a lot of courage, I’m so proud of you
- You can learn from your mistakes
- You are so thoughtful
- You are a good friend
- You are working really hard
- You matter to me and to this world, you are important
These are just a few positive phrases that will “feed” your child and give them the confidence they need to succeed.
Try This Exercise
An exercise you might try with your children is to watch a television show together, or listen carefully to the lyrics of a popular song and then have a discussion about what you are seeing and hearing. Are you seeing positive and encouraging information or negative and demoralizing information? Once you ask your child to be aware of the information they are putting into their minds, they may be more selective in the future. It is my prayer that your children will have that “a hah” moment and discover that they are feeding the good “husky dog” and not the bad one.
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It’s a beautiful hot, sunny day at the beach. Blue skies overhead, seagulls gliding by and in the distance you can see a cruise ship sailing by. Families are enjoying a wonderful summer day at the beach. Children are reluctantly running towards the ocean water and begin to scream with delight as the waves come crashing towards them. You notice a sweet family building a very elaborate sand castle. Dad carefully fills the mold with sand and turns it out to see a perfectly formed castle tower. Mom guides the children as they gather sea shells to decorate the castle. After the children carefully add each shell to the castle, the family takes a few steps back to marvel at their creation. For a moment, everything is perfect! But as the tides roll in and out, a huge wave is just on the horizon and completely destroys their castle with one big wave, the castle is gone.
Now, here is where you have to make a choice, do you get angry at the waves or do you choose to start again and make a newer, even better castle? Perhaps you may be feeling like the waves of life are beating you down and you don’t know how you can begin to start over. Where do you start? Will you find the courage to pick up that pail and start to feel it with sand again?
Just when you think you have it all figured out, guess what happens? It becomes unclear again. If you had been told several months ago that everyone would be wearing face masks, you couldn’t eat at a restaurant, and visiting with family and friends would be out of the question. Would you have believed it? Probably not and yet this is where we are today.
Those waves of life came crashing in and everything that once looked so lovely and wonderful is now unrecognizable. What are we to do? We so desperately want to know what the future holds and yet, God says hold on a minute. I’m God and you are not! You can build amazing castles, put all your hopes and dreams into them, but be prepared for those waves. Just as the tides come in and out and no matter how hard you try, they keep coming.
You can build, and rebuild, of course, those are the tangibles of life. What a person of faith builds are the intangibles. You have faith even when you can’t see beyond today, you have compassion on those around you, you have peace in the midst of the storms of life, those are the intangibles that are created when you live a life of faith. SO what a wave crashing in on you, your faith allows you to pick yourself up and start again.
This COVID-19 virus has certainly left it’s mark on 2020, it feels like this wave that keeps crashing in and won’t let up but we know that the waters will be calm again. Jesus has a way of doing that. We know that as believers in Jesus Christ, what we will build will have lasting value, it’s faith, hope and love. And of course, the greatest of these is love. We are called to love one another, support each other through each trial and wave of life. I pray that God will grant you peace and comfort as we continue to navigate through this covid pandemic. Choose today which castle you will serve, the one you build on this earth or the one that is waiting for you in Heaven.
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Even if you aren’t a baseball fan, you can still appreciate the power of those words, and the key word is “fear.” How often do we allow our fears to dictate how we respond to our lives? Under our current situation with the Covid-19 virus impacting everything from spring and fall sports to basically everything we do, it’s no wonder that we find ourselves in a bit of a fearful state of mind.
A child can be fearful of the darkness of the night, needing a night lite to keep their room illuminated. Adults find themselves fearful of the future, not having a paycheck, the loss of a job, uncertainty of their own health. The Bible tells us, in Proverbs 29:25, “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” Fear can be such a powerful emotion that we can become paralyzed, not able to move forward, and yet if we put our faith and trust in the Lord, He will calm those fears.
Fear of the unknown, fear that you will not succeed, fear that you will fail, we wrestle with fear knowing that it isn’t a healthy emotion and yet it is one that can be debilitating if we let it. What frightens you the most today? It’s ok to acknowledge that fear, but we are called to “fear not”, don’t be afraid, God is with you.
I recently watched as a parent tried to coax their child to jump into a swimming pool. Fear of the cold water, and fear of the parent not catching the child was every present on the child’s face. Of course the parent knew that the child would be safe, but it was very difficult to convince the child otherwise.
Parenting is full of fearful situations, afraid that you aren’t holding your baby just right, afraid that the baby will start to cry at the moment you finally put your head down to rest, afraid your child is not making new friends on their first day at school, afraid your child won’t get selected to the “elite” team, afraid of your child driving for the first time without you beside them at the wheel, afraid that social media is having a negative influence on your child, afraid as you await the medical report from the doctor, afraid of letting your child go. . . and the list goes on.
Personally I’m finding myself in several of these fearful situations with our adult children and yet I know that the Bible tells us to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7, NIV) Just knowing that God really does care about every detail of my life gives me comfort.
God cares so much for each of us and He has a plan and a purpose that does not include fear. He wants us to keep playing the game and not be afraid of striking out. Even if you do strike out, guess what? You get a chance to bat again, and isn’t that what life is all about, trying again and again until you hit a home run!
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2) Get into the game of life, cast all your fears and anxiety on the Lord Jesus Christ, step up to the plate and knock your fears out of the park. Amen!
“I tried to teach my child with books,
He only gave me puzzled looks
I tried to teach my child with words,
They passed him by often unheard
Despairingly I turned aside, “How shall I teach this child?” I cried
Into my hand he placed the key, “Come” he said, “And play with me.”
Anonymous
Perhaps the poem above best describes the last few months for many parents who were dealing with “homeschooling” their child. The “puzzled looks”, the “unheard” words, all made for long days of frustration and exhaustion and yet sometimes the best way for a parent to “teach” their child through playing.
As the weather turns warmer and summer returns, spend some time playing outside with your child. Play, such a simple and inexpensive thing to do with your child but one that reaps many rewards.
The word play is defined as engaging in an activity for enjoyment and recreation. Play is any activity that is done by a child for the pure joy of it and having fun!
When was the last time you actually had fun playing with your child? This does not include playing a video game or playing some sort of game on an electronic device. No this means going outside or staying inside if necessary, and creating a game just for the fun of it. Playing hide and go seek, or making a tent out of blankets, building with blocks or Legos. Any activity that brings you and your child joy just for the pure enjoyment of it can be such a special bonding time.
Play teaches your child many important life lessons
Play teaches your child many important life lessons, for instance when you play a game, you have to take turns, be cooperative, and sometimes playing requires strategies. There are other times when play is simply just having fun, like sliding down the slide, building a sandcastle in the sandbox or swinging on the playground. (As our current conditions allow, be safe at the playgrounds).
One of our children’s favorite activities to do in the summer was to play badminton. We would set up our net in the backyard. Then with racquets in hand, we would start out seeing how many times we could keep the birdie going back and forth across the net. Then as the birdie got higher and higher up in the sky it became a battle of the arms to see who could hit the birdie the highest. Next, the laughter would begin as we struggled to even see the birdie, much less hit it over the net. Just having fun and hearing your child laugh, that’s what makes spending time with your child so fantastic.
Depending on how competitive a person you are, play can be a little tricky, but when you play with your children, there are always winners. It is a win/win situation. Parents win by spending time with their children and children win by spending time with their parents.
There is a lyric to a children’s song that says, “Let the children be children, it’s ok to be a kid for awhile, let the children be children, please make it last.” It really is ok to be a child for a while, as we all know children grow up way too quickly, savor each precious moment.
Jesus even commands us to become like children in order to enter into the kingdom of God. Luke 18:16-17 says, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Try to remember what it was like to have no worries about bills, stress at work, house payments, car insurance, etc. and just be at peace with the world and have fun, go out and play. Throw a Frisbee, play croquet, toss a football, kick a soccer ball, jump rope, skip around the block, do something fun that will make you and your child laugh. It will be such a blessing to you and your family. A joyful heart really is good medicine!
Have a happy day!
Peace
Priscilla
