1) Family read alouds

2) Crafts

3) Play hide and seek

4) Tea party

5) 50s night

6) Camping inside or backyard

7) Scavenger hunt

8) Charades

9) Spelling Bee

10) Movie night

11) Opposite Day

12) Make bean bags and learn how to juggle

13) Bible Theater

14) Hiking

15) Do good deeds for each other

16) Sprinkler obstacle course

17) Breakfast picnic

18) No electricity day

19) Hawaiian day

20) Baking contest

21) Go get ice cream in pajamas

22) Take a walk.  At each corner, flip a coin.  If it’s tails, turn left.  If heads, turn right.  See where you end up.

23) Play freeze tag

24) Chinese day

25) Blow bubbles

26) Make friendship bracelets together

27) Build a fort with blankets and furniture

28) Nature walk—take pictures or sketch items for a nature notebook

29) Draw pictures of each other

30) Bible number game—Someone says a number and everyone has to guess the Bible story they are thinking of with that number

31) Fly a kite

32) Mexican night

33) Play dress up

34) Remove all the breakables from your living area.  Put the couch in the center of the room and play volleyball over it.

35) Do a puzzle together

36) Have races

37) Make up a skit and perform

38) Go to the beach and build a sand castle

39) Board games

40) Make a cake and decorate

41) Build a house of cards

42) 70s/Disco night

43) Have a holiday party

44) Have a water fight

45) Brain teasers

46) Listen to an audio book together

47) Play with building toys (Legos, K-nex, wooden blocks)

48) Make a scrapbook page together

49) Card games

50) Make an old family recipe together

51) Decorate cookies

52) Play Twister

53) Tell progressive story-each person gets a turn taking over where the last person left off

54) Go to the park and play football, volleyball, or tennis.

55) Set up a seasonal or holiday table

56) Play Pictionary

57) Karoake

58) Tell jokes

59) Visit Dejongs dairy in Wildomar

60) Have a picnic and walk around San Diego’s Balboa Park

61) or visit one of their more than 70 museums (check out their website for free Tuesdays)

62) Bible trivia

63) Make cards and send to someone who needs encouragement

64) Play the alphabet game—think of a category (foods, animals, books) and take turns naming an item in that category for each letter of the alphabet

65) Get some friends together and do a field trip of a restaurant

66) Play bingo

67) Readers Theater

68) Make ice cream sundaes

69) Ride bikes or roller blade through the neighborhood or at the park

70) Play video games together

71) Paint ceramics—at home or at a ceramics shop like Color Me Mine or Painted Earth

72) Make cards and deliver to a nursing home or children’s hospital

73) Walk through the mall

74) Go see local historical sites and landmarks

75) Have a lemonade stand

76) Write letters to missionaries or family members

77) Have a puppet show.  You can make puppets out of mismatched socks or paper bags.

78) Go through old photo albums together

79) Make up carnival type games to do at home

80) Do manicures and pedicures

81) Work on a family blog

82) Go to the Temecula duck pond

83) Paint

84) Make smores in your fireplace or over the stove burners

85) Learn some magic tricks and have a show

86) Go to the library

87) Have a garage sale and let them keep the profits from their items (or donate them to a missionary family)

88) Have a “science fair”.  Everyone does a project or experiment and shares

89) Play basketball in your driveway.  If you don’t have a hoop, just mark a circle with chalk on the ledge above the garage and use it as a target

90) Work on a big project such as a go-cart or treehouse

91) Make and play with play-doh

92) Have a talent show

93) Play 20 questions

94) Wash the car in bathing suits

95) Lake Elsinore outlets kids activities on Fridays

96) Get a how-to book or rent a how-to video for something and learn together

97) Have a sleepover

98) Invite missionaries or foreigners over to talk about the culture of their home country

99) Play musical chairs

100) Go for a ride down the coast

101) Talk about favorite family memories

 

Backyard Campout

Tonight we had a "campout" in the backyard.  We have had a canopy set up back there the last couple months so that Paul can barbeque no matter what the weather.  My MIL wanted to come over and hang out in there with the fire pit going, make some smores, and enjoy an evening together.  So, she brought over a bunch of food and we went for it.  It was a little rainy, so we were all huddled under the canopy together.  It was great–good food, good company, good way to relax at the end of a long week.  Here are some pictures:

Taylor and Anthony stuffing their faces (of course!)

My sweetie cooking the best burgers ever!

Taylor hiding her beautiful face, as always

Christian taking apart a toy-just so he could put it back together

It started to get a little smoky…

Ten Ways to Simplify Homeschooling





Ten ways to simplify homeschooling

Colette Longo

  1. Keep everything as simple as you can. Jesus wrote with a stick in the dirt, and He was the greatest teacher that ever lived. He used no curriculum or flannel graphs or lesson plans. Homeschooling can be made far more complicated than it should be. A simpler approach is much more effective.
  2. Stick to the 3 R’s. They form the foundation of life-long learning in every field because they are the tools of study. There will be no need to formalize any other subject if the children are doing their best in these 3, because people who are well grounded in reading, writing and math will approach other subjects boldly, independently and confidently.
  3. Let the children teach themselves as much as they are able to. This teaches them responsibility, intellectual independence, and builds confidence. It’s also better for the parent/child relationship because you can focus on parenting instead of playing schoolteacher.
  4. Use the most direct method available. For reading, read. For writing, write, for math, do it, and for Bible, read it. Don’t fall for catchy curriculums or methods that are really just something else for you and your child to learn.
  5. Don’t worry about your child’s age or grade. Just let him do the best he can each day. Children grow intellectually like they do physically: in spurts. Although we may have an audience of skeptical relatives, homeschooling is not a circus, and we refuse to train our children to do tricks for people.
  6. Minimize distractions in the home. Watch for excessiveness in entertainments, snacking, outings, phone conversations and the like. These sorts of things can easily get out of hand and compete with the effectiveness of a homeschool and sap the family of time and energy.
  7. Seek quality over quantity. A few tapes of great music, a small case of carefully chosen books, a few special play mates, and an occasional outing is better than a large, but poor quality collection.
  8. If you must document your school activities, do it after the fact. This way you will not make promises you cannot keep. If you are required to make lesson plans, be as vague as permissible. Don’t let transcripts, diplomas, records and tests determine your academic plans. Focus on learning and the rest will follow.
  9. Put the needs of your youngest, most vulnerable children first. If an older child gets a little behind in school, I’m sure you can forgive yourself. But if something happened to the toddler while you were busy homeschooling, I don’t think you would be able to say the same.
  10. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and don’t neglect to seek him early…giving him the first fruits of your day and teach your children to do the same. I know that you are tired and that there aren’t enough hours in your day, but we serve a God who can make the sun stand still.

Teach them Diligently

I just finished reading the book Teach them Diligently by Lou Priolo

I have had this book for years and have many people told me how good it is, but just never got around to reading it.  Well, the Lord always has perfect timing and this was just the right window for me to read this book.  I have to admit, I found it a little dry and 

methodological.  But the message was important and something I really needed to hear.

I have been having a lot of disciplinary struggles with my 7yo–the extremely active one.  There are many areas in which he does need to grow and change, but how unfair it has been of me to expect a certain level of behavior from him without first equiping him and training him in righteousness.  I was very convicted to be constantly using the Scriptures to teach and train my children.  In doing this, I can be more proactive than reactive.  Also, when the time does come to correct, I can use the previous training in what the Scriptures say regarding the area of offense. 

I am somewhat overwhelmed at the long road ahead, but also encouraged that if I am faithful to teach the Scriptures diligently to my children, the Lord will produce a harvest of righteousness in them. 

"And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."  Deut 6:6-7

30 Day Prayer Challenge

This month one of my goals is to pray for my family everyday. This morning on my walk, the Lord prompted me to stop the audio message I was listening to and pray for my husband right then. I did, and that prayer turned into Him instructing me and confirming that He wants me to spend at least 30 minutes praying for my husband every day. I am going use The Power of a Praying Wife as a guide, praying for a different area of my husband’s life and walk with the Lord each day.

If anyone would like to join me and commit to praying for your husband for a half hour everyday this month, you can either…

email me at dawn@spicefamily.net to sign up:
Just put 30 Day Prayer Challenge in the subject line and "Sign me up!" in the message. By signing up here, you will get your challenges in your email box every day. This will also put you on my mailing list for future events.

join the facebook group to be notified:
Signing up here will enable you to access each day’s challenge on the facebook site. This will also allow you to interact with others who are doing the challenge too.

(You can, of course, sign up both ways)

I look forward to seeing how the Lord will use this to work and move in the lives of us and our husbands.

~Dawn

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