Live Those Teachings

"It is increasingly clear that we must teach the gospel to our families personally, live those teachings in our homes, or run the risk of discovering too late that a Primary teacher or priesthood adviser or seminary instructor could not do for our children what we would not do for them."

-Jeffrey R. Holland

Library Llamas

No, really. There were llamas at our library.

Well, outside our library.



This was the only photo I got that doesn't have millions of random strangers' faces in it. See the baby llama? One of the cutest things I have ever seen.

{Cross-posted at Teach Me to Walk}

Let's Play a Game: Blokus

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Have you ever played Blokus? [That's not an affiliate link. I'm just tryin' to be helpful.]

Each player has a set of colored shapes, and they have to try to fit all of their pieces into the game board. But your colored pieces can only touch at the corners. [See above. The pieces kinda remind me of Tetris.]

Little Boy loves it. But here's the thing: we've never taught him the rules. He doesn't actually know how to play the game. But he loves trying to fit all the pieces onto the board, and he likes stacking up the tiles to make different colors [like the blue and the yellow to make green].

And that's why I'm posting about it here. I wouldn't have even thought about giving it to Little Boy when I first played it, but it's turned out to be a good open-ended toy for him. He'll spend a good hour, sometimes, messing around with it.

So take a look around your house. You might have something lying around that would be a great toy for your kid. Be safe, though. I don't want any little ones choking on Blokus pieces as a result of this post.

Sesame Street on YouTube

I'm a little bit picky about what I let Little Boy watch on TV. Educational? Good. Violence? Bad. Spongebob? The boy loves it, so I let it slide.

So he's definitely allowed to watch Sesame Street. I read [in The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell] that Sesame Street was the best program at teaching for decades...until Blue's Clues came along. [Little Boy is also allowed to watch Blue's Clues. Steve is hilarious.]

I love Sesame Street's YouTube channel. It has literally hundreds of Sesame Street clips, and a dozen or so playlists. The playlists are awesome because I can start the first clip and it'll automatically move on to the next clip when the first one is over. That means no more running back-and-forth to the computer when I'm trying to make dinner.

And my absolute fav-o-rite playlist is "Sesame Street Classic Songs." I remember most of those songs from when I was a kid.



Seriously, I dare you to watch this and not dance along.

Take Time While They Are Young

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"Take time for your children and your grandchildren while they are young. Special moments may come only once. Before we are aware, they have grown older, and our best opportunity for teaching them how to live happy and fulfilling lives is past."

-M. Russell Ballard

Down on the Farm

Little Boy Loves Scriptures. And Ice Cream.

Last summer I posted about the new scripture chart we were using. And that we'd gone to Dairy Queen as a reward for finishing it. And that we'd printed out a new chart and started over.

Well, we finished that chart. And printed out another. And then did it again. And then...I dunno. I lost track of how many times we've been through it.

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago:



That's Little Boy, at Dairy Queen, celebrating the fourth or fifth time [maybe] that we've made it through that same chart.

I had no idea that we'd stick with it for this long.

We still don't read every night. Not even close. But Little Boy loves it, and he loves ice cream, so we try to read as often as we remember.

[We actually read a page at a time out of the Book of Mormon Stories book--and we haven't finished it yet. After a year. But we have really high hopes for this year! Or next year. Or sometime before Little Boy goes to college. The point is, we're making progress.]

Responsibility

"Unfortunately, far too many parents in today’s world have abdicated the responsibility to teach these values and other Church doctrines to their families, believing that others will do it: the peer group, the school, Church leaders and teachers, or even the media. Every day our children are learning, filling their minds and hearts with experiences and perceptions that deeply influence personal value systems."

Bubbly

I was going to title this post "P.E." as kind of a joke, since...Little Boy's in preschool. And homeschooling. So we don't do formal P.E. That would be silly.

But we do get outside on nice days and run around. Little Boy really likes chasing bubbles around, but we almost never get the bubbles out. So this was kind of a special occasion.

That's my cute sister, by the way. She's a fantastic bubble-blower.

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"Teaching in the home is becoming increasingly important in today’s world, where the influence of the adversary is so widespread and he is attacking, attempting to erode and destroy the very foundation of our society, even the family...While other institutions, such as church and school, can assist parents to “train up a child in the way he [or she] should go," ultimately this responsibility rests with parents."

-L. Tom Perry