Snakes, Sin, and a Storm

I am finally getting around to posting more about tot school. I decided I would post weekly but didn't actually follow through with that.

About 2 weeks ago we covered Adam and Eve. I made a mini book for the story. Our printer broke that week so I was forced to draw and color it myself. It may not have been the prettiest book, but it served its purpose. I made the book with removable magnetic pieces so we could play with them on a cookie sheet. We also colored a sand paper apple and did apple printing. Neither of the craft projects were that successful. Rachel has not yet developed the ability to apply enough pressure to her crayons to color on sandpaper and the apple pieces were a little to big for her hands. I did try to cut the apples up smaller, but then she thought they were for her to eat. Oh well, at least we still had fun.

From Life with the Bjorks

The following week we learned about Noah's Ark. We read On Noah's Ark by Jan Brett. This book is super cute and tells the story from the perspective from Noah's grandchild. Yes it is not totally biblically correct, but I figure at Rachel's age it is not a big deal. We also did a little indoor water play. We loaded animals into a boat (tupperware) and put them in our old baby tub. Then we made it rain by pouring water into the tub. After this Rachel jumped into the tub to splash around. This was probably her favorite part. For craft time we made a tissue paper rainbow, and colored an ark and glued animals on it. Rachel loves to color so the last craft was right up her alley. She also enjoyed smooshing the glue from the gluestick between her fingers.

From Life with the Bjorks

Up next: God promises Abraham and Sarah a baby

Nautilus Shell Pictures

Brian Here!

I was asked by a friend of mine if I could shoot some high resolution pictures of a Nautilus shell for her. I decided it would be a great project for me and my father in law as well as my friend Ben. We had 2 external flashes in addition to the on camera flash and the external flashes could be fired wirelessly which was pretty cool. We used my light box to get nice even light from the sides and bottom as well. We ended up taking 150 pictures. Here are some of the best ones.

From Life with the Bjorks

From Life with the Bjorks

From Life with the Bjorks

From Life with the Bjorks

From Life with the Bjorks

Once Upon A Time...

Once Upon a time, like this past weekend, we journeyed down the freeway to the magical land of Fairytale Town.

During our adventure we...

From Life with the Bjorks

...slid down the beanstalk and crawled through the giant's foot...

From Life with the Bjorks

...fetched a pail of water, but did not break our crown's falling down the hill...

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...talked to the three billy goats gruff (luckily they had knocked the troll off the bridge before we got there)...

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..drove the red tractor at Farmer Brown's farm...

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...sat in the tepee (I don't know what she is doing, but I love how it looks like my 16 month old has a major attitude problem)...

From Life with the Bjorks

...slid down the shoe before the old woman could spank us both soundly and send us to bed...

From Life with the Bjorks

...watered already drenched plants in Mr. McGregor's garden...

From Life with the Bjorks

...took a romp through Sherwood Forest...

From Life with the Bjorks

...and finally struck our best Robin Hood pose in Robin Hood's very own chair.

Tot School

Rachel and I just completed our first week of tot school and I am planning our second week. Tot school is an opportunity for me to introduce biblical truths in baby size bites. It is never too early or too late to start learning about God and how much he loves us all. In my opinion that is mush more important than other things I could be doing like letters, number, or seasonal themes because learning about God has eternal consequences. Don't get me wrong all those other things are important too, but they can wait until she is older.

Tot school makes me accountable to spend intentional time with Rachel because I plan it into our day. Time when she has my undivided attention - no laundry, no cell phone, no computer, no dishes, well, you get the point. It is all about her. With so much I have to do and all the distractions it is too easy to give Rachel only a potion of my attention and never stop to really focus on her.

From Life with the Bjorks

Our schedule is read our bible story, sing songs related to the story, do a sensory oriented/play activity or craft related to the story, and end with snack. We do the same story for a week because repetition is a key component to learning. The length of time we spend on each lesson is dependent on her interest.

This last week we learned about creation and took things God made out of a bean tub while singing about who made each one. Rachel does a great job of sitting in her chair for story and singing time. She loved playing with the beans and all the little toys in the beans. Next week we are going to talk about Adam and Eve and play with magnets from our story. I think we will also do apple printing and color a sandpaper apple (This is only if I make to Target to buy crayons. Brian laughed at me the other day when he learned I threw out all my crayons from when I quit working because I thought they were dirty. Lots of germy little hands had touched them.)