Shirley’s Prepackaged Crafts

Even if it’s nasty outside on the day you read this note, nice weather is coming!  Maybe you live in a mild climate and flowers are already blooming in your yard!  Along with the mild temperatures and sunny days come walks outside again.  Time outside lifts the spirits and brings smiles to little faces (and to mommy’s face too)!

When heading out for your next walk, go for a “God Walk” instead.  Go in search of evidence of God.  Those little hands like to be busy, so set their mind on things above, and have them collect anything that God created.  Stones have always been a big hit around our place – we actually put a limit on those!  Wonder along with your children about all the things they can be collecting.  There’s the grass and leaves of course, but what of bee or wasp nests (empty ones of course!), empty bird eggs now found on the ground, bird feathers, twigs, moss. . . and the list goes on!

What on earth do you do with all these things collecting in your home?  It can be your nature center!  Get a shoe box, decorate it, put your items in zip lock bags (label them if you want) and call it your God Box.  If you find you’re collecting a lot of leaves and feathers then tape them to a piece of paper and put them in page protectors inside a binder.  Use field guides to determine which bird or tree God has made that this particular item came from.  It’s amazing at just how creative God is . . . and that’s only in your part of the world!

So get out on some God walks and let your spirits be refreshed!

Why do you want to stay home?  Are you just a mom?  You homeschool?  Those questions from someone truly wondering about our choices can lead to some interesting conversations.  From others, those questions can leave us questioning if we’re making a good decision.

Edith Schaeffer in her book, What Is A Family? answers one of those questions.  Each chapter is basically a response she thought of after the face-to-face conversation.  It’s an encouraging book.

In one of those chapters Edith talks of a mother’s opportunity to be a curator of a museum.  Because you are there with your children, you are able to keep memories.  Some of us do it by taking photos or videos.  There are journals and scrapbooks of special events.  There are more opportunities for keeping memories than there is time to do it all.

With the monthly calendars provided each month you can also be a curator of your family’s museum with very little “extra” time needed.  Use the calendar to write in happy moments that pass so quickly and never return and are often forgotten.  It can be good to write in hard times too but use wisdom here.  When the month is done either keep the pages to read at Thanksgiving or put it in your school records and review them at the end of the year.  While nothing comes close to reading the Bible and hearing of God’s faithfulness to those in the Bible, there is something so close – so personal – when we routinely write, and remember, of His faithfulness to us personally.

Ideas for the monthly calendars:

• Extra time or days with dad
• Last minute family adventures (even if it is a bon fire in the back yard!)
• Seeing an eagle or the first robin sighting of the season
• An answered prayer for desperate need
• Tender moments or special words exchanged between siblings
• Awards earned

This craft needs:
Scissors
Markers / Crayons
School Glue
Tape
Paper plate (provided in subscription kit)
Straw (provided in subscription kit)
Sunflower seeds (provided in subscription kit)

Click on the sunflower pedals below to bring up a PDF file. Print two copies ideally on bright yellow paper. Then cut out the pedals by simply cutting around the outer most edges.  Take the paper plate (notice the circle shape), which is the center of the flower, and color the outer edges brown by coloring along the grooves.  Tape the pedals to the back of the plate with plenty of yellow peeking out.  Then glue the sunflowers seeds to the center of the paper plate.  Finally, tape the straw on to the back of the plate as a stem and let it dry before displaying upright.  For some reason singing You Are My Sunshine is always a big hit while completing this craft!