Tag: teaching

A Family Journal

June 2, 2019

A Family Journal

I’ve been working on two projects for each of my children.  One was a crocheted blanket for each – king size, crafted from their favorites in a pattern they chose.  I’ve only completed one.  The second is about 15 rows from completion, but I haven’t worked on it since Thea was born.  It took me 17 months for the first half of Christina’s, but during one superbowl at Louis’ dad’s house, I completed the other half!  So I’m fast, but it will likely be the next week I have off – and then I’ll start on the third of seven.

The second was started in December 2016.  It looks like a simple book, right?

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Actually, I started a journal for Christina.

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It tells family stories, I write my Bible study notes, discuss issues, and write my prayers.  I tell “her story” from my perspective starting from the last page moving forward.  I saved the fourteen pages in between this story and my “journal” for family.  I am going to ask women in our family to write encouragement and blessing to her in their own hand in the journal before I pass it on to her.

I’ve got a central core of stories I will have in each journal – all will be slightly different because I never write the same exact words each time.

I want to write all the wisdom I’ve heard in stories from my grandmothers, mothers, fathers, and mentors in a way my children can read them when they choose.  Maybe they will be encouraged, challenged, or just smile realizing that they are not alone in a struggle they feel slightly too proud or too embarrassed to ask for help about.  I try to relay life and our journey in these bits.  I manage to write at least once a week and direct most of my writing as if I’m talking to her.  This also helps me to process my thoughts.  I also have a required study day if I forget. (Which, yes, sometimes I read without studying, but at least once a week I remember to write my study!)

Such a simple little book.  It holds our family memories, stories, and encouragement for a young woman.  (I need to get busy on Becky’s as they are growing up too quickly for me!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Little Cuties

Some of my odd deep thoughts on animals, their importance in children’s lives, and the responsibility and love they teach.

February 16, 2019

Little Cuties

Becky is in love (again)!  Every time there’s a new baby animal around our little farm, Becky falls in love with it.

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This time, it’s our little Guinea Piglets.  This one, named “Grizzly,” is a female who we get to keep (she gets to stay on our little farm)!

So Becky has been making cute little pictures, drawings, and plans for this cute little piglet.  She is a mottled brown color all over with a sweet disposition. (I’m waiting for a video haha!)

All of our piglets and baby animals end up with sweet, loving, friendly dispositions because they are raised by loving caretakers!  The girls make this a solid priority!  No one can mistreat any of the animals in their care, not even by accident.  Lucas wants to play with the babies as soon as they are born, but because he doesn’t know his own strength, he has to wait until they are old enough to not get squished!  (Or has Christina, Mom, or Dad with him.)

Their little piglets are never nippers.  They love to cuddle instead of bite.  What usually causes piglets to be biters is that they have been scared as babies.  If they think fingers are poking tools, they will bite them.  If they know fingers as gentle places to snuggle and get petted, they snuggle instead.  The girls make sure to teach their piglets that fingers are gentle!

Just like in our lives, our experiences shape who we are!  Often, if we feel scared or hurt, we draw ourselves into isolation and distrust others.  If we feel love and affection, we feel safe enough to be ourselves and trust others.

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Where a snuggly, loving animal is, there is a loving caretaker.

In life, we are expected to shower those we are responsible for with affection and keep them safe.  The same as when we are caretaking animals.

I think raising animals is a vital part of growing up; it teaches children responsibility.  It also teaches them a basic understanding of how their influence on others reflects back.  Goodness returns goodness.  Gentleness breeds gentleness.  Love reflects love.  God gave us the animals to tend and love – just as some of us will eventually lead and influence people (parents, teachers, leaders, co-workers, etc.).  Early life lessons from these cute, furry little creatures who are so dependent on their caretakers help to mold a caring tender heart from whom compassion grows.

(Okay, maybe that’s a little too deep of a thought from watching children tend animals, but it’s what I see.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

 

Movie Thoughts: Happy Feet

When you look for the good… you will find it! One point of view (review) of a movie we discussed.

December 5, 2018

Movie Thoughts: “Happy Feet”

We were watching a movie the girls got from the library.  In this movie, the hero is searching for why his people are starving, the elders don’t like his “different ways” and command him to stop so that their “God” will restore the food supply, and the hero refuses so is “kicked out” by the elders.  On his quest, he discovers another predator is taking their food and appeals to them to bring back the food using his “different ways” and since this is so uncharacteristic of his people, the other predators try to fix the problem (and they end up fixing it).

I’d heard mixed review about this movie.  Some said it was a “cute little movie” and had some adult humor, yes (I will say; the use of older classic songs and caricatures of famous singers from the previous generations’ era is neat).

One of the most common negatives I heard was that it was sacrilegious and projects a negative view of authority.  Check and check from one point of view.

But there’s the other point of view.  The one my kids came up with.  (I’m a homeschool mom who loves to find teaching moments in everything… so we usually discuss movies after watching them.  I choose to use these discussions to teach literature basics – analyze, review, react.  Everyone is involved and gets to support or debate the others’ summary.  We “review” songs, movies, stories, and even cartoons.)

This is what they got from “Happy Feet:”

  • Mumble was born with the difference because God (represented in the movie by “the Great Guin”) knew that the humans were taking too much fish and that something different would be the only way for the humans to take notice of one animal.
  • The reason Mumble has the encounter with the birds is to cause his curiosity to spike and him to believe that the “aliens” have a “better nature” and want to fix things.
  • This is why he is not discouraged by discovering that the humans are taking all the fish and left a sea of trash (even though one of his buddies is almost strangled by said trash) – rather he is determined to ask them to stop. He believes they are good-natured.
  • Rather than Mumble’s “fancy feet” being something against the “Great Guin,” it was the plan of the “Great Guin” for Mumble to be different, catch the human’s eye, and cause them to fix the problem they caused.
  • My girls believe this movie shows how God prepares unexpected people to do great things in often unexpected ways. It champions determination, the beauty of our differences, honesty, and love.

That is what I like to see when I watch it too.  Overly simplistic?  Maybe, but then simplicity is often the outlook of most children and sometimes the simple is used to confound the wise.  I pray my children will always “look for the good” in people, movies, songs, stories, and life so that they will find it.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Plans Change

Sometimes plans change; some life encouragement 🙂

November 3, 2018

Plans Change

Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you want it to go.

You have to let it go.

Tonight I wanted to go to a get-together.  I’d been planning for about a week

Everything seemed to be working out okay; the washing machine showed up early (Amen!), Anastasia got dropped off before 4, Christina had packed up her “civies” (I still mentally laugh hearing her call regular clothes that.) in her bag when I dropped her at the Cyber Patriot qualification in the morning, and we just had to get the house clean and get everyone ready before 3:40, pick up Christina at 4, and head to the get-together – we’d be late, but there.

Then there was a reservation for 5:15pm.  No one else was working and I can’t cancel on them because it’s morally wrong to promise someone something and cancel an hour and a half before you have to pick them up.  My word matters.  And, I’m really thankful for my jobs!  I know God gives us the jobs we get and we are expected to do our best. (I look at it as “God wants them in my car for some reason!”)

Honesty.

I had an obligation to them.

Adjust plan: girls clean up and get ready by 6:15, when I was expected back, and we’d be late, but would still be able to hang out for a little bit.

Well, the plan got seriously adjusted!  I ended up having to cover starting at 3pm.  Picked Christina up at 4, then as I’m on the way there, another ride for 4:30 (yikes! I can’t teleport through traffic!) rolls in… long story short – it’s almost 7pm when I get home because I was late to both rides after Christina.  No one was ready.  And I can’t (legally) pack all 8 of us into the 4-Runner.  We are a 30 minute drive (usually 40 minutes with me driving because every traffic light in Saint Augustine always turns red when I’m three carlengths from it!) and it would take me about 15 minutes to get everyone ready.  Plus, to use the 4-Runner, we’d have to have left at least 2 people behind.  Nope.  So, we end up spending the night at home.  This was “cool” (per Jaquline) because we have awesome toys (per Anastasia), Christina can cook something good, and we’ll turn the front room into a dance party!

Sometimes a monkey wrench gets tossed into your plans, but if you learn to roll with it, you can turn it into a “look for the positive” teaching moment.  I love finding teaching moments in life!

Plan changed.

I have to let my plans go.

Accept that plans change and I have little control over it.  All I can control is my attitude toward it.  (I’m super thankful for my jobs!)  The last ride was a guy who had spent almost 40 years in the military (he chatted with Christina about the pros and cons) and a lady who had been a teacher and principal in St John’s County for 34 years (at one job her whole life)!  So just maybe, God wanted us to pick them up and encourage each other.  Only God knows!  (That’s me, looking for the positive!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Number Seven

Yes, ambiguious title and puzzle til the end of a long post…

October 24, 2018

Number Seven

Ambiguous title?  Yes.

Am I being cryptic on purpose?  Yes.

You are supposed to figure out the puzzle from the clues in this story.

(WARNING!  LONG STORY! – and it’s pretty deep because there’s a lot of feelings and thoughts smashed in here.)

Anyway, in April and May, I was in and out of clinics and the hospital because of a severe reaction to black mold.  (I know, crazy, right?)  I researched the medication I was to finish and every side effect possible happened to me (they always do, it’s just my weird, unique biology) so my hair fell out, hormone levels changed, pimples exploded over my face, and various other physical changes happened, I wasn’t watching for anything else.  It was a low period for me because it seemed my favorite parts of my body (long hair, my figure, health) was disappearing.  (Crazy reason to be depressed, isn’t it? After all, I was still alive!)  Although I kept telling myself this would work itself out, and I kept praying and believing God had control of this situation too (He has everything in His hands.), it was sometimes hard to face it without feeling sad.  Especially for me when I brushed my hair and it seemed there was more hair in the brush than stayed on my head.  (Of course, shedding hair means length disappears, so I went from semi-thick long hair that was below my waist to thin few-strands-to-the-middle-of-my-back.)  My hair was something that even as a child I was really proud of.  I’ve never cut it.  I always wanted to have long hair like Lady Godiva (ever seen the version where Maureen O’Hara plays Lady Godiva? I loved that movie because she was a strong, bold woman who loved her people.) and loved the Bible verse that says our “long hair is our covering.”  Plus, Louis likes my hair long. (Yes, after getting married, I thought it would take too much time to have to style short, plain hair so it was cool that my husband liked it long and straight.)

Being that I’m allergic to almost everything chemical (latex, cleaning fluids, pills, antibiotics, the inhaler I was prescribed!, etc.), we pretty much rely on natural family planning and some non-latex help.  Usually, I know my body well.  Part of the side-effects to one of the drugs was hormone imbalance which threw my body off where I wasn’t sure what it was doing.  Not considering it a good time for pregnancy, we decided to hold off on any potential baby-making.  Period.

Oh well, God laughed at that.

Certain things began to reverse during July.  My hair began to grow back (I have one-inch-long sticking-ups all over my head), my figure returned to normal, and other small things in my body seemed to reset.  I was very curious because although I’d been off the huge assortment of “we-don’t-know-what-this-is-but-treat-everything” drugs in the hospital for two months, everything I’d read about the steroid they’d given me was that it took twelve to eighteen months for the hormone imbalance to correct itself and I was still taking one occasionally to prevent asthma attacks.  What was turning my imbalance around?

Yep, God decided to reset my body himself; with a baby.

I love being pregnant, but worried that the drugs I’d been on had effected the child – then relaxed about as soon as I thought about it because if we were trying to keep it from happening (Starting in mid-April with the only 100% sure way), yet God said “haha, you thought you knew this stuff,” He obviously was in charge of baby’s health.

For the first time in my reproductive life, the only “date” I have can’t be.  I keep calendars that are honestly way too detailed, but those dates don’t match with the dates counting backwards.  (Every other time in my life I knew the day/night we came together to start our little blessing!)  Based on these “diary facts” as my girls call them, I can’t figure the time.  (What happened?  The little swimmers had to get through sheepskin & sit around inside of me for eight to ten days?  Really?  If I use the LMP date, that’s what had to happen because after that was nothing. Period.  I didn’t know hanging around inside was medically possible.)

Now, I’m totally enthusiastic about being pregnant (I am one of those crazy women who LOVE carrying life – every part of it); I just am amazed at the mystery of this baby.  I figured you know, I know what protection is, we use planning, and yeah, I get it, I’ve seen women on the pill, using protection, and even two who had their tubes tied get pregnant, so I know anything is possible.

I mean, philosophically we trust all to God’s hands, including family size and timing.  (Or say so, we were technically trying not to get pregnant with the whole breathing and health thing “at least until we moved to a mold-free house”)  But can you say surprised?  Yes.

So, “number seven” is this little precious life growing inside of me!  (Yes, I know most people, including many member of my family, think we are completely nuts, and maybe we are – but we are loving this adventure!)

New job, new baby, surprise!  God says!  Now I have an awesome job I can’t believe I really get to do and seriously get paid for (I love teaching children!) and a new little life growing inside that Lucas can’t wait to wrestle with (he comes and mashes on my belly, talks to “his baby,” and the baby responds by racing around, kicking, punching, whatever inside me).  I’m so excited… what does God have next?  A plot of land we can call our own and a trailer to stick on it or some plot with an old house that needs work – maybe?  Or are Kimberly’s dreams of building our own “movable house” accurate?  Okay, I’m totally open to the next step in this adventure!  (And, yes, I’m fine if that means, “rest, sit tight, you’re in pause mode right now.”)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Awesome Job

God’s Timing is Perfect!

October 22, 2018

Awesome Job!

Louis and I operate a small business that pretty much shrunk from seventeen co-workers to one in the span of four months starting about two years ago.

Since just before then (I’m an analyst, I did see that we would shrink due to changing marketplace), I’ve been applying for various jobs all over in any industry I have experience for or my degree fits with.  I’ve been turning in applications for almost two and a half years.  Nothing.  That’s rather tough for my ego, but hey, I had a three-inch binder with book and article rejection letters that kept coming for fourteen years before my first book was traditionally published.  So I can say I’m used to rejection!  (Honestly, when it came every other job I walked into the business and three of the four was hired on the spot, the fourth I was called back that week – so it was a bit frustrating being well-qualified but not getting any offers.)

I answered an ad that I almost didn’t.  I knew the lady who owned the business, so I knew I would like working for her.  Although the ad was for a gymnastics school, it did say “no gym experience,” and when I arrived, I was asked if I liked working with children.  I LOVE teaching and working with children; I’ve taught and worked with children all my life – literally oldest sibling of 7, volunteered at schools, churches, and groups since they would let me (10), student taught, tutored, and I have 6 children.

The idea of teaching children a sport and getting paid for it is totally amazing!  I consider myself active, so a job where I’m working out a bit while teaching is perfect.

It’s really cool when God’s timing ends you at a place you know you’ll love being, a boss you know you’ll enjoy working for, and the schedule you’ll have really doesn’t mess with anything you already do!  (The girls’ college classes are during morning or early afternoon, we can still pick up Anastasia, it doesn’t change my ability to work early AM shuttle rides, it doesn’t interfere with the farm or schooling, and we can still  do weekend craft sale events and church!)

Bonus was that I didn’t have any workout pants, but the weekend before I started training, my brother and sister brought us bags of clothing and in them were three workout pants and socks!  So I didn’t need to spend money to start!

God’s timing is always perfect and sometimes what plops on your radar isn’t what you thought you would get, but it’s just perfect for you!  This job is almost too good to be true for me.  I’m going to get paid to teach children a fun  sport on a schedule that works with my family’s lifestory… Amazing!

I’m feeling so blessed and a bit awestruck.  Thank you, Jesus!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Understanding and Choosing Forgiveness

April 23, 2018

Understanding and Choosing Forgiveness

Sometimes things make us irritated.  Loss, waste, and destruction of life are hot spots for me.

We have livestock.

Honestly, I can shrug off an owl or hawk picking off a young chicken.  I can understand the predators are getting food and my unguarded (or less than perfectly guarded) animals become easy prey.  We learn how to build a better pen or protect our animals better for the environment we have.  But I hate waste.

I had never faced a human killing animals indiscriminately.   Until yesterday, neither had the girls.  They love to show off their animals and share their experiences: from soft, fluffy biddies to newly laying vibrantly colored pullets to nuzzling Guinea Pigs.  The girls love animals and wouldn’t think of hurting them just because.  Even the “mean” cockerels (young chickens we will eat or sell, sometimes a rooster just has a mean disposition and they stay locked in the pen for protection!) are treated with respect.  They will be grilled chicken dinner or traded for feed money, anyway, so they serve a purpose.

Once, we had a child swipe a biddie because it was  “so cute  and I wanted  it,”  but her brother returned it the next day because it “looked sick.” (Unfeathered baby chicks have to stay under a heat lamp at about 100o and yes, without that heat, they get sick.)  We could understand that but the girls kept explaining to this little child that if she wanted to hold them and play with them, she could come to our yard and ask, but the biddie needed to stay with her “sisters.” (The other chicks.)

Recently, a child came to the house, systematically killed several hens, stole most of the young chickens to bait a dog, and took eggs.  We didn’t want to believe it was true.  His family returned the two live ones that managed to make it and graciously paid money to replace the lost animals.   One of the accomplices was one of the girls’ friends.  The girls went through many emotions: devastation, betrayal, anger, sadness, joy (when discovering the one rescued young chicken was the last female Buff!), compassion (when they decided they needed to pray for him), and forgiveness.

It took a while to process.  We discussed trust, honesty, betrayal, sin in the world, fallen man, how we shouldn’t be bitter, how Jesus calls us to love regardless of how people hurt us, and eventually the anger and sadness turned to compassion and forgiveness.

For me, I went through the same emotions.  It was hard to swallow and move on because of how hurt the girls were.  I wanted to protect my children from these emotions.  I didn’t want them to feel betrayal – they had allowed “friends” over and shared their animals with them and at least one of these children were part of the attack and theft.

Instead, I chose to help coach them through the emotions.  It was right to feel betrayal, anger, and sadness.  Those emotions are normal.  They had to understand how sometimes good people choose to follow evil and are sad about what they did.  (Case with their friends.)  The girls had to forgive.

And by the end of the next day, they were laughing and playing in the yard with their reconciled friends.  True forgiveness means forgetting and moving on.  That, despite the loss and hurt of the morning, made my heart happy.  Of course, I hope they never feel betrayal, but – reality check! – in this fallen world, it is likely that someone else later in life will hurt their hearts – and they will have to forgive to keep their heart from bitterness.

Yes, I found that if I allow God to move on my children’s hearts, He can turn their hurts into joy.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

“War Room” Thoughts

March 24, 2018

“War Room” Thoughts

Have you seen “War Room?”  If not, please do so!  It’s a wonderful movie that my children watch at least once every week or so.  Miss Clara is their favorite character.

Just in case you haven’t seen it, I’ll give you a tiny run down without spoiling the story: Miss Clara, a prayer warrior, wants to teach a young wife who is having marital issues, how to “fight” well with the right weapons (prayer) and against the real enemy.

This movie has opened much dialogue between my preteens, teenager, and me about marriage and relationships in general.  I love anything that opens the teaching door, so this is excellent.

Pray.  Miss Clara prays in her closet every day, she writes prayers for each area of her life, copies scripture to think on, and thanks Jesus for everything in her life.  Prayer is discussion; opening your heart to Jesus and letting Him know you need Him.  I don’t have a closet that is my prayer space; I tend to just pray wherever.  Honestly, for me it’s like with any other relationship: I talk when I think about it.  I know He’s always there, so I can openly talk to Jesus whenever.  I love that.  I feel closest to Him in nature.  Outside, hanging clothes, checking on the chickens, working in the garden, mowing, or walking in some part of Real Florida; these open my heart to feel close.  (And usually I end up talking and my girls smile – visitor children often think I’m nuts, which may just be right.)

Love.  Jesus loved each of us so much that He died for us while we were sinners (meaning we didn’t love Him yet, we were part of the “crucify him” crowd!) so if we can be loved unconditionally, we should return that love to others.  Especially our family.  (Husband, wife, children, parents, siblings, etc.) I try to see others through “love glasses” and this means to me that I see their positive qualities.  This seriously helps when I’m around someone who seems antagonistic toward me; I look for the positive and remember that Jesus loves this person just as they are and wants me to love them as well.  I will probably never agree with every family member on everything, but I can love them anyway.  (Granted, this is not someone hurting me, just someone I may have differences of opinions with… which some people get defensive and irritable when they know someone doesn’t agree with them.)

Trust.  When it comes to family and building relationships, trust is paramount.  You have to keep your word, respect others, and never lie.  It’s hard to trust those who lie (sometimes you can’t).  There was a child who was always asked “want to go fishing?” by a family member and a date picked, but then something always broke the date.  This child ended up saying to his parents of this person, “they don’t mean it,” because he had learned not to trust.  It’s so sad to see trust broken.

Submission.  This one line in the movie started a three hour conversation with one of my preteens… “my momma always said submission meant duck so God can smack your husband.”  It actually sounds sad to me, but often are we protecting those we love from the consequences of their actions?  Moms do it to our children if we aren’t careful.  Do we warn them about putting their bike away but then at dusk we are putting it away for them?  Do we tell them to finish a project for school but at the last minute it’s become our project?  As far as husbands and wives go, neither should be “fixing” the other.  God is the only one who can change a person’s heart.  We can pray for our mate, but if God thinks they need to change it will be between God and our mate – probably without our nagging.

I try to expand the principles of what we see to match not only the illustration seen in the movie, book, or example.  I can expound further on these four highlights and apply them to every area of our relationships and our own lives, (which, yes, I do with my girls 😉 ) but for now I’ve got to finish supper.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Investigating

July 25, 2017

Investigating

One of the things I love about writing anything factual, like the Home Edge Readers, is the research and investigation I get to do.  I love to learn about something new.  I enjoy compressing it into a compact form yet still managing to include most of the important facts and unique terminology.  (Like “rift” or “Plinian explosion” in volcanology.)

As a Mom, passing on the love of learning is my passion.  Children are normally curious.  I don’t want to squash that.  I want to build on it.  I want them to always look at the world with wonder and ask questions about whatever they want to know.  If they want to know about something, I want them to investigate: read, touch, listen, explore, and learn.  By definition, this is true science: the observation of the world around us.

Early scientists from all cultures (even if they were still called by some title other than “Scientist”) observed and wrote or drew about the world around them.

When I watch children learn, they observe, draw, write about, build models of, manipulate, and ask questions.  Our natural curiosity needs to be fed so we always want to learn!

Consider this beach day:

The water was cold so only the older girls were in the water deeper than their ankles.  Lucas seemed to smell the November cold.  (That’s Florida cold, though, as you can see they were in bathing suits!)  He didn’t even try the water.  He started off by chasing gulls.  Seagulls in Florida have learned the art of evasion.  I think they laugh at these funny miniature humans racing toward them making odd animal-like shrieks.  They watch until just the last moment, and hop-fly about 50 yards away.  Their bright black eyes challenge said little human as if they are saying “you can’t catch me!”  Of course, without adult intervention, Lucas would chase a single seagull until he dropped from exhaustion. (Maybe this is a seagull’s crab hunting technique?)

But as Lucas starts chasing, he steps in a squishy, odd thing he hasn’t touched before.  Two crabs race out of the seaweed and waddle into the water.  Lucas jumps off of it and dances around it, laughing.  Jillian joins him and pokes it with a small piece of driftwood she’s picked up from somewhere.

“What is this, Mom?” Jillian asks.  So I explain its seaweed washed ashore after the storm.  They spend about ten minutes poking, prodding, lifting, and observing that one clump until Lucas is sure it isn’t dangerous.  Now he uses his new knowledge and seaweed clumps become toys!

Jillian and Lucas built a seaweed mountain that stood as tall as Lucas, but they weren’t faster than the tide.  They also watched the ocean “eat” the seaweed a few strings at a time and carry them off.

At home, for many days later, Jillian drew her impressions of seaweed.  Whenever we watched ocean documentaries, she would spy seaweed and yelp, “that’s seaweed, I know that!”

She “knows” seaweed because she explored it and played with it.  I want my children to know anything they want to learn about that completely.  To have touched, tasted, researched, and immersed themselves in it.  It doesn’t matter if the subject is baking, gardening, crocheting, fractions, nouns, writing letters, raising chickens, equations, times tables, letter sounds, zoology, biology, or whatever they want to learn.  I want them to dive into it and “know” it.  I figure the best way to teach this is to show them that I learn this way too.  I let them see me looking things up, studying various recipes before I attempt a dish, reading their algebra books ahead of them to “relearn” it, searching with them when they have a question I can’t answer, and researching for my books.

I want learning to be a passion for them.  Because once you discover a love of learning, you will always be investigating new things!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

The Chicken Castle

May 25, 2017

The Chicken Castle

   It was one of those days when I felt productive.  I’d managed to get the house cleaned, was hanging my third load of laundry, had finished catching up financial reports after our move, and everyone was still breathing.

Then there was a squeal that makes any mother immediately drop anything.  It was followed by “stay in that castle!”  (Okay, no one is hurt, probably.)  With my adrenaline pumping like a bass drum in my ears, I try to breathe and respond without screaming “WHAT HAPPENED?”

Jaquline and Jillian had built a castle with the outside blocks and had corralled the 23 one-week-old chicks into it.  Platinum, Chicka, and Sherlock (yes, they named the chicks!) decided the grass outside of the castle was better than the feed inside.  While the girls squealed and attempted to catch the chicks (Mix prong-horn antelope speed with mongoose evasion & you have a young chicken) 19 of the remaining biddie flock fled the castle.

“Mom!” Jillian wailed, (I was back hanging clothes) “Only Kerjack obeyed.”

“How can we keep hawks away from you if you don’t listen?” Jaquline said to the chicks as they gathered in one spot under a billowing sheet.  (Hawks only have a chance because they have super stealth.)

I spied a teaching moment! Perfect!  So I left the clothes and helped them gather the chicks to the safe spot where hawks usually don’t spot them and the girls could attempt to watch them again.  I told the girls: that is what we (parents) feel like when we give warnings (like the latest for Lucas, “don’t try to grab the goose at the park!”) but children choose not to listen.  We know what the danger is; like they know the danger for the chicks.

Jillian looked at her shorts.  “Like when you say wear pants but I have shorts and mosquitoes can bite me easier.”  Jaquline pulled up her pants and checked her legs for bites, then announced, “but I have long pants so I listened and I have no mosquito bites!”

Bingo!  This day now feels super productive!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

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