Category: Family Stories

Thanksgiving Week 2022

Much to be thankful for!!

December 6, 2022

Thanksgiving Week 2022

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house for those who could come.  It lasted from November 22 (our 20th anniversary) to November 27 (Sunday).  This was our “vacation” from gym/work.  It included lots of traveling (for me, Becky, Christina, Jaquline, Lucas, and Thea), lots of fun, and lots of food!

For my anniversary, we still had to work (thank you, Hurricane Whatever in September – I don’t commit names to memory) because we had school and a make-up day at gymnastics.  This started our Thanksgiving Break because I started out just before midnight on 11/22 with Christina to go pick Becky up from college.  

This car trip was super fun!  Christina and I drove.  Lucas and Thea went with us as Kimberly had early practice (Xcel Platinum) on the 23rd (a friend played taxi), Louis still had work like regular, and Jaquline & Jillian were cleaning and cooking with Grandma Tina.  

We got home to take naps, help finish cooking, cleaning, and such.   The table was set so pretty! (Yes, that is a marble chessboard that we use as a hot plate to set the turkey on! – Louis had it when we were dating and after some “accidents” happened to the pieces over the years, it was just too pretty to toss so was repurposed.)

Uncle Buddy came.  Anastasia came.  Gavin came.  Aunt Becca sent yummy desserts! We had so much fun!  Louis brought in new chairs.  (our table was used when we bought it and was missing chairs – we originally used the piano bench, but since the piano & bench are in storage for lack of room…) We played games.  Okay, yes, most were group video games or Frogger Challenge (two players, winner takes on next player…), but there were a few Boggle games and it seems we can’t have Thanksgiving fun without a campfire!

Uncle Buddy wanted to play Age of Empires with Lucas & Becky; even Louis and I joined in on a 5-person hot-seat Heroes 3 game that lasted all day (and we didn’t finish).  The kiddos (will leave anonymous which adults joined in as well) did a super-multi-player Minecraft / Imposter with phones and computers.  The shouted directions in the living and dining room had everyone else laughing! 

My Angel Eggs were a different story.  I made two platters.  I love making food look beautiful but most of the time we are short on time so I can’t.  (I used to even make everyone’s birthday cakes from scratch & even made two wedding cakes!)  Today I made beautiful piped eggs. 

One platter was gone in T-5 minutes!  Jaquline did warn us she was going to eat more than the eggs she shelled!  I love making food people enjoy.  

Being around my family when we aren’t rushed always reminds me to be thankful for them!  Uncle Buddy had prepped his head for military service (more on that next time) and Lucas thoroughly enjoyed playing video games with and snuggling with his uncle.  I am super thankful for this life God has given me and I pray my home becomes the gathering point for family and friends always on any Sunday we have family day or any holiday.  Food and good company is always a reason to gather together!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Turtles In The Kitchen

December 3, 2022

Turtles in the Kitchen


It had been one of those days.  You know, when you begin to question everything, your brain shouts accusing bits at you and highlights every choice you’ve made since infancy, and your biggest challenge is to find something joyful to think on or something to be grateful for.  

Jillian, Lucas, and Thea to the rescue!

“Mom! Where is Jillian?” cries Thea with a giggle.

“I’m a green turtle!” days Jillian’s muffled voice from under the green bin.  

A simple little rubbermaid bin.  It started life in our house about 14 or 15 years ago as a toy-bin because someone gave it to us with junk in it, a broken handle, and no top.  We sanded the broken plastic and put big toys in it.  At this location (smaller house, so smaller toy room and no space for it), it is our pantry dump bin; usually it contains baggies, extras that need a box like soaps, random cables, an occasional box that’s too big for the shelf, etc.  Since Halloween, it had been used to set everyone’s separate candy/treat buckets inside and had been atop the refrigerator.  This morning I had moved it to the floor with the intention of wiping it out and putting it back in the pantry. 

Instead, it ended up being a turtle shell over Jillian!  

Lucas and Thea were laughing so hard, “look, you can’t see her toes!”  and “Mom!  Jillian’s a turtle with a hard shell!”  And Lucas banged drums on the shell. 

Grandma has a red plastic bin she had just emptied that normally has decorations in it.  

“Mom!” I hear a scream-yell from the kitchen.  

“Look!” Yells Thea as she pulls the red bin over her head, “two turtles!” 

“Two turtles!” Yells Lucas from the other, (Jillian is guiding Thea Turtle around so she doesn’t hit anything as she race-crawls around the kitchen)

Where are they?
Red is Thea
Green is Lucas

I smile at so much fun from imagination and two silly plastic bins.  Thank you God, for imagination!  Thank you God, that you know my heart and send these little angels to make me remember that I just need simplicity to smile.  My mood shifted from fighting my accusing brain to enjoying my children’s joy.  He uses the simple to confound the wise.  In the still small voice.  All of Creation shouts His praise.  A child shall lead them.  All these sayings pound in my brain to drown out the accusations.  

And now the turtles are a “turtle sandwich” to which one of my teenagers said, “mom, that’s something else” and giggled. (Someone has been reading their Biology book.)

Three turtles to the rescue!

Sometimes it’s a pretend turtle in the kitchen that can bring you joy!  Thank you, God, for the blessings you have given us!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions

November 15, 2022

Shifting Time, Adapting Traditions


Yesterday a notification from my calendar app popped up on my phone.  It read, “Pearson Family Thanksgiving at Mom & Daddy’s.”  It was an old recurring appointment I’d just never deleted.  I guess I hoped we’d restart it someday.  The recurring day was always the 15th of November and time was set as 4pm to 7pm just because my app in 2010 with my first smartphone didn’t allow “all day” appointments to give me day-before notifications.

Why would our family Thanksgiving be on the 15th instead of the fourth Thursday of each November?

Good question: here’s the historical answer…

It started after the first year Louis and I got married.  We had just tried to do Thanksgiving at his family’s (Grandma Jeanette’s house) and then Thanksgiving at my family’s – and were exhausted and Louis complained he was too full from one place to eat half of what he wanted to taste at my parent’s house.  Same happened at Christmas!  At least the food part wasn’t a big issue at Christmas.  His family always did presents and stuff at the crack of dawn (not really, but early) and my family usually had a big breakfast, tried all the kids’ patience, setup everything, made sure all the service workers had gotten a good nights’ sleep so it was later and lasted longer.  Christmas was easy.  Morning with his family, afternoon with mine.  

Plus, as the second year holidays approached, we realized that three of us (Louis, Katy, and Becca) worked service industry and didn’t have the actual Thanksgiving Day off.  Hmm… That made the decision even easier!  I approached my Daddy with an idea: what if, we celebrated Thanksgiving on Mom’s birthday each year instead of actual Thanksgiving Day – of course, they could still do the actual Thanksgiving, but the Travel Thanksgiving Day celebration when we all got together would be Mom’s birthday.  Daddy said, “two feast days for Thanksgiving?  Great idea.”  (or something very similar to that, I don’t remember the exact words)

We started celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on November 15th, my Mother’s birthday!  It was perfect, service industry workers could easily ask and get a random day a week and a half before the start of the holiday rush (pre-Nights-of-Lights for us Saint Augustinians), and we’d always make or buy a cake for Mom!  It was perfect!  (Then we could go to our own thing or for us, go to Louis’ family celebration on Thanksgiving Day, if we were off – Louis usually tried to make an appearance; even it is was briefly.)

Lots of stuff has happened to my birth family and we’ve tried to keep that tradition alive, but it isn’t happening this year.  Instead, we are hosting Thanksgiving for anyone able from 11/23 to 11/27.  A few of our family will be in town and able to visit.  Maybe some friends might pop in over those off-days (we are off work and the girls on break from college, Louis is on call, but he’s always on call) – family and friends make for fun days full of memories!  

I smiled at the notification because it today would mark four full years since we’d gone over to Mom and Daddy’s for “Pearson Thanksgiving on Mom’s Birthday” and all my older girls remember “two Thanksgiving parties” every year!  Lucas attended some, but doesn’t remember them.  Thea hadn’t ever been.  

So many things shifted in our family that now, getting days off before Thanksgiving, when most of us are on vacation is like “really?” and two of our children are grown (okay, Becky’s not legally an adult yet, but I consider her one) so I want our home to be the gathering place.  I want to be like Grandma Jeanette, the “glue” that holds the family together.  I want everyone to feel welcome and this year we’ve officially started opening our home to anyone during holidays (it feels like we have more space even though we don’t).  Not that we didn’t say it before “oh, you can just come by” no, this year we sent out timelines to family and have offered verbal invitations to friends of our kids and their families.  I want to be the fun memory-making place – and it won’t matter that we won’t be in this house next year for any of the fall holidays, our new place will be the new gathering place.  I want to build memories so my younglings keep coming back – even if one day they show up and say, “Dad, Mom, can we do Thanksgiving at your house on your anniversary instead of actual Thanksgiving Day?” – and yes, we’ll shift with the time to accommodate what our youngsters and their growing families need… but that’s WAY in the future, right?  

(Who am I kidding?  It seems like yesterday I proposed the question to my Daddy…)

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Dressing the Part

#DressingThePart #ChristinaCanDressUp #DressUpDays #Halloween2022 #Halloween #SillyMemories #Silliness #BeSilly #BeFun #Family #Memories #LetsMakeMemoriesTogether #CreateSillyMemories #DontLetYourFunStop #WGVGymnastics #ParentsNightOut #ChristinaHasWayTooMuchFunDressingUp

November 12, 2022

Dressing the Part


Christina likes to dress up.  She turns into “Christy the Elf” after Thanksgiving and loves dressing up to our themes at work.  This Halloween is the first we’ve lived in a community where people actually trick-or-treat!  This made her super excited!  She had Jaquline’s big speaker outside playing creepy and fun Halloween songs (some were soundtracks to different movies, others were funny like “the Monster Mash”).  She had invited a bunch of friends but most had other plans and attending a friend’s Halloween “party on my driveway giving away candy” is not a valid excuse to play hooky from work.  

One of her best friends showed up – in a totally amazing costume my nerdy girls loved! – and these two college girls goofed off and enjoyed giving away candy to all the trick-or-treaters.  A table of glowing fun candles and cute props, two smiling young ladies handing out candy, and a bunch of spare candy bags hiding just inside the door made for hours of fun. 

Christina worked our October Parents’ Night Out where the coaches are encouraged to dress up. 

Before she left, she was crawling around the house “getting into the dog character” just to make all the little ones laugh.  Christina knows how to make little ones laugh.  Maybe that’s why she excels as a preschool coach.  

The Doggy
Jillian isn’t sure yet
A Snack!
Begging Doggy
Thea took Doggy’s phone
Jillian’s costume
Lucas and Jillian’s costumes
Thea all decked out

Louis looked at me, “what in the Earth?” because, you know, she is nineteen.  Or is she?  

I love that they have the freedom to dress up and play pretend and goof off – one has to feel very confident in their own skin in order to act silly in front of others.  It is amazing how my girls’ first jobs give them options to be silly.  We dress up (okay, not me, but the other coaches do), we goof off with each other and our kids (yes, I goof off with the preschoolers and tots), and yet all of us are very professional about our job.  We love our kiddos!  We want the best for them!  

I always take time to do fun kid things with my children.  Thea wants to play legos (we set up the lego base boards and each gets a spot to build).  Lucas wants to play boggle with Thea (yes, they both get words now, it’s almost scary – Thea won one round because she had a 3-letter that beat Lucas’ two-letter and she’s told everyone!).  We spend family day(Sunday) with at least one board game like Monopoly or Risk.  We do silly dance parties or sing karaoke.  Sometimes we have been known to spend hours watching parakeets or guinea pigs or lizards or chickens while narrating (speaking for the poor animals).  

Sometimes when you are being silly, you totally dress the part – like Christina. 

Sometimes it helps to make you join in all the silliness and pretend you are a part of a world where imagination reigns.  Crawling around like whatever animal you are pretending to be, making the littles squeal with joy and run from you, or pretend they are “protecting” and wrestle you; always make time for “silly” memories.  When I think back, some of the most heart-warming memories with elder members of my family were the silly ones (i.e. my granny at eighty-something throwing cartwheels to teach a group of us kids how to do it, running through the sprinklers with my Daddy, “braving” the rain from a Sams Club with my mom) and then the ones I remember making with my siblings and children… twirling in the middle of a flower garden, singing silly songs on bike rides, people-watching on the bayfront, tickle wars, covering kiddos with sheets and “smashing them” while I try to fold sheets or make beds, reading stories that will never be published as they shred them apart with kid-questions, letting them “cook” stuff in Star Ocean while we fold clothes, etc.  Silly stuff we remember as so much fun.  

Enjoy your silly memory-making moments and don’t be scared to “dress your part” if the mood hits to be silly!

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

God Knows You

This week in Sunday School, our children are focusing on “God Speaks.” One of the wonder truths in our curriculum is basically that God knows you! God knows every person, He knit them together (No one is an accident!), He knows everything about their hearts, minds, and souls (Every single hair is numbered!), and He loves each of us just as we are (All of God’s Creation is beautiful!). …and enter a favorite story that taught me about that truth…

November 7, 2022

God Knows You


This week in Sunday School, our children are focusing on “God Speaks.”  One of the wonder truths in our curriculum is basically that God knows you!  God knows every person, He knit them together (No one is an accident!), He knows everything about their hearts, minds, and souls (Every single hair is numbered!), and He loves each of us just as we are (All of God’s Creation is beautiful!).  

This love is perfect and unconditional.  

One of the stories that hit my heart as a child was that of a little Irish girl who prayed every day for blue eyes.  Her family had blue eyes and she wanted lovely blue eyes!  She considered her brown eyes dull and plain.  This story caught my 5-year-old heart because I had blue eyes and loved the way God made me, but I thought the most beautiful eyes in the world were those that looked like warm chocolate drops – honey brown.  Though I’d never prayed for different eyes, hair, or other features, I understood thinking that a feature of my body was plain and thinking someone else had the most beautiful.

Every night she would pray for blue eyes and when she looked in the mirror she would be sad because she still had brown eyes.  Her mother told her that God had a plan for her lovely brown eyes.  One day the girl grew up.  She decided to be a missionary and was sent to India.  

The people of India distrusted the white-skinned, blue-and-green eyed people who spoke of only one God who loved.  The unknowns often scare people.  The young woman’s missionary group wanted to enter a temple in India to find out if the horrible stories of little girls being sold to the temples was true.  But they were never allowed in; even when they tried to disguise themselves – always their bright blue or green eyes gave them away as strangers.  

But this young missionary had brown eyes!  She dyed her skin with coffee, dyed her hair to be dark brown, and dressed as the local people.  They let her into the temple!  Her brown eyes did the trick!  There she prayed “thank you, God, for making my beautiful brown eyes!” 

This young woman was Amy Carmichael, later known by the temple slave girls as “Amma” or Mother.  Her lifelong ministry, the rescue of thousands of young girls, would never have been possible had she had blue eyes!  God knew what plans he had for her.  

Just as God knew Amy and the plans He had for her, He knows the plans He has for you, for me.  

I am a planner; I always have a range of plans for the day, the week, the year, twenty years, etc, but I’ve learned that God knows me better than I know myself and though I may make and try to follow my plans, I always have to leave room for God to change them!  

Just a wonderful thought to think upon this week ~ God knows you.  God loves you!  What does it take from you?  You just have to choose to follow Him.  (My Daddy used to say, “and that’s the simple to confound the wise.”) 

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Yammer

In case you didn’t know, I’m fascinated with words. The English language is amazing as the myriad of possible adjectives are beyond enumeration. (Exaggeration? Likely, I’ll bet someone, somewhere, has a count on how many adjectives are proper in our English.)
#WritersBrain #Write #Author #AuthorBrain #ILoveWriting #TheEnglishLanguageIsBeautiful #HowManyWordsMeanLove #OldMovie #Adjective #Noun #ILoveWords #WordsAreWonderful #PerfectWord #Yammer #IGetTooExcitedReadingTheDictionary

November 4, 2022

Yammer


In case you didn’t know, I’m fascinated with words.  The English language is amazing as the myriad of possible adjectives are beyond enumeration.  (Exaggeration? Likely, I’ll bet someone, somewhere, has a count on how many adjectives are proper in our English.) 

Nevertheless: Let’s dive into this rather funny anecdote.  

I’ve finished a project I’ve been working on for over ten years.  I started it with a cool dream and just wrote the outline in my head and fleshed out my main characters.  I let it sit for a while until my dad asked one day if I was working on any long projects.  Yes!  Always – I have this one and about fifteen others I choose to pick at depending on what mood.  Two more are close to completion now.  But at that time, for whatever reason, I highlighted this one.  

He kept asking how work was doing in it.  He wanted to know what this or that character was doing.  When was I going to introduce this or that concept.  Because of his research that parallelled mine, I kept working on this project.  I paused for almost three years after Daddy died because I’d cry just thinking about this project.  A few months ago, though, I started on what I call a “stint” – my brain just ran with connecting each of the parts and filling in all the gaps.  I ended up finishing a few days ago and proofing and finalizing.  

So, my craziness?  I was looking for a chapter name – in this project, all the chapter names are alliterative.  I needed a “y” word that meant something like dismay, cry of pain, whining, etc.  So I opened my old creaky dictionary and started reading the “y” section.  

Yammering jumped out at me! 

I was so stinking excited!  I asked myself, “how in the Earth am I so excited over finding one word?” 

Seriously!  But “yammer” means to whine or complain, to make an outcry or clamor, to talk loudly and persistently.  It was perfect!  I love the complexity and beauty of the English language!  I love how I can find just the right word for exactly what I need.  It’s like in “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) movie I watched over and over as a child; this guy writing a dictionary says, “how is it your language has so many words that mean love?” 

I used to answer with, “and English doesn’t?” (of course, the Byam couldn’t hear me). 

And that is why I love writing!  I love words, I love painting pictures with words, I love finding things that are super cool to say and mean simple things but make people give you the “huh?” face… Like ameliorate – it means “to make better.” 

My brother repeated it in sentences so often that my daughters at 2 and 4 years old used it! 

Anyway, I’m getting back to finding more perfect adjectives to match my nouns in all 40 of my chapter titles!  

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

The Many Faces of Thea

#Theadora #TheManyFacesOfPreschoolers #PreschoolerMoods #Preschool #GymNLearn #WGVGymnastics #CanMyThreenagerListen #IndependentThreeYearOld #OnlyMineForASeason #ICanDOItMyself #Faces #Pictures #MomSometimesIsntReady #TheyAreReadyBeforeMe #ILoveBeingAMother

The Many Faces of Thea

November 1, 2022


This is Theadora. 

I said “let me get a picture of your cute hair!” 

Seriously?  This child cracks me up with her faces!

They are: “I’m Thea” (top left), “I’m Coach Heather” (top middle), “I’m sad” (top right), “I’m sassy” (bottom left), “I’m Becky” (bottom 2nd from left), “I’m really mad” (bottom 2nd from left, “I’m a listening baby” (bottom right).

She loves everything her way and her biggest challenge right now is learning that she must listen to the teacher, coach, big sister, grandmother, or parent who is doing the teaching!  

She absolutely loves gymnastics (she does only Fridays at Gym-N-Learn this season).  Supposedly, her coach says she’s doing better at listening.  I hope so.  The reason it’s Fridays only? So I can bribe her with open gym participation if she listens!  (Seriously, our open gym is immediately following Preschool Program – and that seems to work.) 

Thea is a very independent three.  I think “going on thirty” but then maybe she’s just “chasing Becky and Jillian” in the attitude department – and their determination has started to serve them well in practice and life.  Thea wants to do everything herself – always has.  That appears to be a huge thing for my children though, they always want to do whatever it is by themselves.  It leads to them doing tasks and jobs before I think they are ready.  (Taking the PERT or driving a motorized “big wheeler” at two or jumping into CAP leadership or raising animals or cutting potatoes.)  

I always have to remind myself that Thea is only mine for a season.  She is really Jesus’ daughter and I have the honor and blessing of being her mother.  I enjoy each of her various faces and moods.  I love to watch them grow.  I love to guide them toward the truth.  

That’s all what went through my brain while she posed with silly faces telling me what emotion or what person she was being.  

Thank you for reading, 

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Pumpkins

Pumpkin Memories

October 29, 2022

Pumpkins


We love pumpkins.  You cut off the bottom, scoop out everything inside and scrape all the yummy meat out (save it for roasted seeds and pumpkin pie!), decorate it with a silly face, and put a candle inside – now it’s an amazing nightlight that smells oh-so-good!

The first pumpkin I opened up with Grandma Jeanette; she was teaching me how to make her pumpkin pie.  My Daddy had told us long ago that the reason for the perfect pale color in most commercial pumpkin pies was due to the company using a hard squash instead of pumpkin.  Pumpkin cooks darker than winter squash.  Grandma Jeanette used everything.  I loved learning things from her because I can’t stand waste.  She came from the generation and grew up using everything!  Nothing was ever thrown away.  I loved that.  

Anyway, back to the pumpkin.  She opened it from the top with a big knife.  I was expecting puree like when you open a “pumpkin pack” tin can.  Nope.  Stringy spongy looking guts with spots of seeds reminded me of thick orange spiderwebs.  Grandma Jeanette took all that stuff and scraped with her big metal spoon until the wall was very thin.  Stringy stuff and tiny shavings that looked like slivers went into a big pot with a little bacon grease in the bottom.  She had a really cool method of basically pulling on the strings and all the seeds practically fell onto a pan on the counter.  She picked a few out.  (I have never been able to duplicate that easy seed removal and wondered later if she picked a specific type of pumpkin!) Seeds got tossed around in an oil and spice mixture and roasted in the oven.  The big chunks of hard pumpkin wall (not the actual skin, just the “wall” scrapings from inside) got chopped into smaller hunks and tossed in the pot with the strings and shavings.  Water added to the pot.  It was covered and cooked in a pressure cooker for however long we were sitting and chatting on the couch while the seeds roasted.  

When the lid came off, the strings and hunks had blended into a watery orange soup.  Grandma churned that around with her blender (it got handed down to me years later and had been manufactured in the 40s!) until it was smooth and now it looked like a darker cousin of the canned pumpkin I was so used to seeing.  

Now that was pumpkin pack!  

When Grandma Jeanette did it with me that year, she made all of it into pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas as family and friends always gathered at her house.  She froze the ones to save for Christmas.  I loved the heavenly smell!  She taught me some tricks about the pastry dough.  She sometimes short-cutted by buying premade dough, which she would prick with a fork, paint with butter and sprinkle with a bit of sugar on the edges to give it a “homemade” taste.  For my scratch recipe, she showed me how to layer and roll so it would be flakey.  Cold butter shaved into the mix.  Don’t overmix.  Don’t over roll.  NEVER freeze your scratch pastry.  Always bake the whole pie and then freeze – but it’s always best fresh.  It’s super fast and easy to make anyway, so I LOVE making pastry dough from scratch.

This is why I am transported into happy memories when I see a pumpkin.  I remember bumping around the kitchen with little Christina, Becky, and assorted cousins in and out of the house as we laughed and I listened to Grandma Jeanette’s stories.  

When I cut a pumpkin, I make pumpkin pack, but I don’t bake 12 to 16 pies the same day.  I use the canning pot and tools (all hand-me-downs from Grandma Jeannette, we still reuse some of her jars as well) to can the pumpkin pack for later pies.  1 pint makes one deep-dish pumpkin pie.  1 quart makes 2 deep dishes or 3 flat pies.  I love the whole process!  My plan each holiday season always includes a pumpkin and pumpkin pack and from-scratch pastry to make pumpkin pies.  I tell the stories of Grandma Jeanette and Christina, Becky, and the cousins bringing critters (lizards, toads, etc) into the kitchen and being told how cool they were before being shooed “back where they belong” to “take them home to their families,” yes, that’s why I say that about insects and critters my children capture.  I tell stories of our family because it feels so natural to do that while I’m canning.  Grandma Jeanette taught me to can.  She gave me our tiny library of books and pamphlets about canning, storing Florida produce, and food safety (old publications that came from St Johns County, University of Florida, and Ball, Inc with dates ranging from 1928 to 1965).  

Louis carves the pumpkin shell with the girls.  They love it!  If you open from the bottom, you can replace the candle easier and you can sprinkle cinnamon on the top (while the pumpkin is upside down and let it sit to sink in) and it will stick and make the house smell so good!

Pumpkins make me think of family.  Pumpkins make me smile because of the memories I have and the memories I hope I create for my family.  What food makes you think of happy memories?

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Science Add-Ons To Curriculum

Science Add-Ons To Curriculum

October 22, 2022

One of the advantages to homeschooling is being able to pick curricula.  Most of us would agree that our children can recite movie lines – sometimes even if they’ve just seen the movie twice. 

We used BBC Nature with David Attenborough for science for as long as we had access to it.  It showed nature in its entire splendor.  Of course, as with Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Series, we had to reflect on their errors in timeline and regarding the theory of macro-evolution.  We would say things like, “look at how amazing God’s creation is!” and as they got older, invite them to ask and investigate the question, “why do these scientists believe in millions of years instead of thousands?”   

In depth studies of animal adaptations and human interference in our food (animal and plant husbandry) have led to the understanding that “kinds” of animals adapt by losing a recessive trait rather than by adding a completely new trait.  This led to my kids saying “oh yes, I believe evolution happens, do you understand the true meaning of the word evolution?” (Spoiler: it simply means change) But have you ever been able to add anything to a creature or plant?  We have bred plants, raised animals (Becky bred chickens to get specific traits or colors), watched and observed the genetic traits pass in Guinea Pigs, chickens, and parakeets.  

Imagine their surprise and excitement when we discovered a video series that discussed the same adaptation and genetic issues they had seen in life!

We discovered The Ark Encounter website along with Creation Museum and their affiliated YouTube channel called “Answers In Genesis!”  Wow!  They are not afraid to take on difficult subjects and ask and investigate so many fascinating things about our biology, animal adaptation, DNA structures, explanations of the how and why behind so many scientific theories.  It is a wealth of information. 

The first single episode we watched (it was almost an hour long) on dinosaurs in the Bible had my youngest five captivated the entire time.  Even Theadora, who interprets every video in terms of “Paw Patrol” at the moment, sat on the couch with her snuggly blanket the entire rainy Sunday afternoon as we watched the long dinosaur episode and three others!  The podcast episodes are more for those with longer attention spans.  The lectures and Ark Encounter and Ark Exploration videos are fascinating. 

Well-done science videos help my younglings to remember the subject matter better than simply reading it in a textbook.  Apologia science (our core science) textbooks are amazing because they are bright and have experiments that bring the science to life for the students.  Adding videos as supplements to our coursework aids in bringing the words off the page and into “real life;” we are a visual people.  We like to touch, taste, see, and feel the world around us.  If you can’t physically see the Grand Canyon with your own eyes, it certainly helps to be able to watch a video showing it.  The tools available to my children far exceed those I had access to 35 years ago.  I still default on books, but I am totally willing to include new tools to help them answer tough questions in any subject. 

Check out the Ark Encounter website or look up “Answers in Genesis” on YouTube.  You will be amazed at the wealth of scholastic information in their videos.  Second best to sitting in the actual lecture hall (actually, Louis thinks it’s better because we can pause it, pull out books, and do our own discussion and additional research as they talk). 

I’ll type later about our super history supplements (also free from YouTube!) we’ve discovered.

Thank you for reading and I hope this helps you explore some cool new teaching tools!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

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