Ideas of Teaching Your Children to Serve

This morning I had the privilege to speak at our first  MOPS meeting of the year. I shared with the other moms encouragement of why we teach our kids to serve and project ideas they could do at home. So, I decided to share some with all of you as well. 

Serve the Lord with Gladness

 Psalm 100:2

                I used a small corkboard from our kitchen and created a Pumpkin Patch of Service. Children can "pick" a pumpkin and complete the service project.

           I did a project for each letter of the word pumpkin. Here is a list of ideas but you could also just do random projects that your family chooses. 

P-put a surprise note on Dad's car before work

U-Unexpected visit to a staff member at church with treats

M-make muffins for a friend and their family

P- pick a family and take a meal to them

K-Kit Kat for a kind friend

I- Icee at QT with a friend

N-Note to an elderly member at church telling them why they are special

        I also thought this idea would be easy for all who have children's books at home. Here is a list of ideas for these books, but many more books could be used. 

Read and Serve

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey- Read the book and then take blueberries to someone special

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen- Read this book and then make a scavenger hunt for a friend. Invite them over so their mom can run an errand.

The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall- Read the book and then make an apple pie and deliver it to an elderly member of your church.

Duck and Goose by Tad Hills- Read the book and then take a friend to the pumpkin patch and get them a pumpkin

We’re Going on A Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger- Read the book and then hunt for a yard that needs the leaves raked and complete the task.

Good Night Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann- Read the book and then choose a friend to go to the zoo with you.

If you Give a Moose A Muffin by Laura Numeroff- Read the book and then bake muffins for someone of your choice

Giggle, Giggle, Quack by Doreen Cronin- Read the book and then type a note to someone special

      On Pinterest I found the idea to do service projects for each day of the Advent Season. I thought you could also do a project for each week of Advent. This is a cute way to display the project ideas. Your child would pick up the bag for the week and find the project idea inside. 

If you are interested in more ideas please send me your email and I will send you my handout from MOPS that includes my list for our A to Z service projects along with others for shorter amounts of time throughout the year.

Here is a full picture of our morning board. I downloaded my printables a great blog by Mama Jenn She had the amazing and efficient idea to use metal rings for storage of each days cards. It is great because you don't have to switch out cards each night. I also laminated everything it will last longer. We also do our memory work and calendar during this time.

As I mentioned in my last post we are using materials from Handwriting Without Tears. I am also reading through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons to see if we will use it in a couple of weeks for reading. For "science" we are planning on keeping a Nature Journal where we simply take nature walks and Lillian and Cely Kay will draw what they see and describe to me what they see so that I can journal their responses.

For Cely Kay we have a new letter every two weeks. We are currently on Q. I use pictures from the internet for each letter. I also have printed out pictures of objects starting with Q in the color we are working on as well. For example one of our pictures these two weeks is a purple question mark. With each letter we also do the sound of the letter.

For bible we are reading through the bible. We read two chapters a day and I ask simple comprehension questions based on what we read. We also work on whatever we are memorizing at that time. For example we are currently working on the Lord's Prayer.

I do not share these ideas to boast in what I am doing, but to encourage and share that if you are thinking about what should you do with my child, or when you should do it, or if what you are doing or not doing  is the right way, JUST DO IT!

First Day of School

                      I started weeks ago taking down last year's school room...

 I love decorating and thinking through where everything will go for the upcoming school year! I used to decorate my "classroom" as a little girl as well. It is still a favorite!

           And I love the result! As you can see apples are my theme this year.

 Here is how I display our schedule. It is more for me to refer to during class. I found these apple cutouts at the dollar tree. Great find!

 This year I wanted to start a morning board. After prayer at the beginning of class we go over our morning board. Most of my ideas and printables for the board came from www.MamaJenn.com.

 This is how I organize our papers and supplies for each day. I try to restock this at the end of the week, so that supplies are ready to go on Monday.

 This is how I organize Lillian's centers. Each apple has a center number on it. As Lillian completes a center she removes the post it from the apple and places it on my desk. After she has worked through all centers I will replace the post its and she can start again.

                 I place activities in each center basket for our current unit.

             I found this adorable apple lantern idea on www.schoolgirlstyle.com

 These are Cely Kay's tot trays. I change these as well about every week depending on how well Cely Kay has done with an activity.

                        We have composition notebooks for everything!

                   And this year Cely Kay starts her first notebook!

My first day with two students was an adventure! Cely Kay really enjoyed sorting plastic silverware.

                                And she was actually very good at it!

 Lillian was working on one to one correspondence in math. We are using Handwriting Without Tears preschool math program and it is Fabulous! We are also using the same program for handwriting. I will post pictures soon of the Hokie Pokie with our wood pieces!

                                          Finished party of six!

 I can not remember a time in life in which I did not want to be a teacher. I thought that desire was meant for a traditional classroom with new students every year who move on to a new classroom. I never imagined that the "classroom" would be in my home with my children who are truly a blessing from the Lord and who he uses to teach me daily to Rejoice!

 The Lord has blessed us tremendously since the last time I blogged. We not only finished our first year of preschool at home, Joey started a new job he loves, our heavenly father granted peace through a time of loss, and we are enjoying summer!

We did finish the pre school co- op year with an end of the year party. I have pictures of the event, but can not locate the card they are on as of now. I will post soon, I hope!

In our preschool at home we continued with our service projects. For the letter U we payed an "unexpected visit to Uncle Josh" (my brother). It was a great lunch and a big surprise to Josh.

For the letter V we gave a Velvet Violet flower to the Vogenitz family. Jack and Ryan are friends of ours and they were thrilled with the flower. They were even excited when I took their picture.

We have not completed the letter W yet, but have plans on delivering a new word search to my grandma who is a widow.

For the letter X we went to New Covenant School and made Xerox copies for Mrs. Lamb. Lillian loved serving in this way and Mrs. Lamb appreciated the work as well.

We have not completed Y or Z service projects either but have plans to complete them by the end of the summer.

Speaking of the summer, we have started our " A to Z Clothesline of  Activities". I found this idea on a blog, but can not find it anywhere now. So if this idea came from your blog please let me know and I will give you credit. I did modify some of the activity ideas to fit our family better. While completing each activity I am going to take a picture and then place the picture on the piece of scrapbook paper under each letter. At the end of the summer I will have an ABC book of our activities. I will use this book with Cely Kay next year for her "school".

                                          Pumpkins before we planted!

                                      They loved digging in the dirt,

                                                  Great helpers!

So far we have completed two of our activities. The first was to plant pumpkin seeds for the letter P. We should have planted them earlier, so we will see what happens. We hope to be able to follow our pumpkins progress and then use the pumpkins for school this fall.

               We swam in our little pool for the letter S! Lillian loved relaxing!

                          Cely Kay found a new love for pouring water on her head!

Toffee Treats for Terrific Teachers

               For the letter T our service project was "Toffee Treats for Terrific Teachers" Lillian put the treat bags together. I helped tie the tags on each bag! Fun to see her enjoy putting these together.

                                                Completed bags!

 We delivered the treat bags to the "Terrific Teachers" at New Covenant school! She was thrilled to go into the office!

        Lillian enjoyed placing the treats in the boxes of each teacher. She also made sure that her daddy received a bag as well! We are in the process of completing our last few projects for the end of the alphabet.

 

       Here is another fun center that we worked on in the last few weeks. Lillian read the number on the snowman hat and then placed that many cotton balls on the snowman's stomach. We also worked on putting the snowmen in order. Fun and easy center to complete!

"School" on Valentine's Day

 We started today by reading this adorable book! In the book the main character collects "raining" hearts one day and then uses them to make each of her friends a perfect card.

 After the story Lillian made clouds out of cotton balls.

 Next she put her hearts under the clouds as if it rained hearts. She insisted her "rain" had to be in rows.

 Our main center for today was a post office. Lillian dressed as a post woman with her mailbag and all. Didn't you know Vera Bradley is now outfitting our postmen and women?

I bought these cute mailboxes at target and used magnetic numbers to label each one. (All materials purchased in the dollar aisle at Target!)

 She then pulled the" mail" out of her bag and matched each letter with the correct mailbox.

 After she put the mail in the box she put the flag up to let me know she was done putting in the mail. Looking back now I guess it would have been better to put all the flags up and then have her put them down when she placed the mail inside.

 

                                      Smiles from the post woman!

                                           Hard at work!

                                              She did her job well.

We finished the day with our favorite center playdoh, cookie cutters, and plastic silverware. I have started collecting cookie cutters everywhere I go in order to have them for each theme so we had hearts of all sizes. Fun end to the day!