See other blogs

I have a lot to say. For this and others reasons, I am separating my blogs. For topics relating to The Great Shalom Broadcast (www.greatshalom.org), I now have a new blog at www.greatshalomblog.wordpress.com. For local congregation issues, there is now another: www.JesusNameAustin.wordpress.com. You know, I have a website for training and consulting for professional educators, mostly in early childhood, and that site is www.orgstrat.net. There will soon be blogging on that one too. Please participate. Please share.

And therefore, this one will be more focussed on home education, homeschooling, unschooling -- you know what I mean, parents providing education for their children.

Love, and Merry Christmas, Sharon Sarles

Important Christmas Tradition Idea

Children can each contribute a small performance for the Christmas eve celebration.

In my book, Learn at Home for Great Shalom, I talk about how important memory work is. A recitation or a music contribution will spur the children to achievment and provide a way to celebrate them and their work, as well as that of our Savior!

Merry Christmas to all!

Last Minute Crafts for Christmas Season

My mother always had a Christmas craft planned for my sister and I every Christmas season, while we were off school. Many of these were very memorable and useful. I can clearly remember some that became Christmas ornaments. However, many moms today, struggling with full-time employment and without my mother's training education, may find themselves at a loss. Thanks to Twitter, I have found a number of great ideas. Here are some:
Teach_Preschool Toilet Paper Roll Snowman http://bit.ly/ecWSfk
#ece #preschool #teachpreschool


KCAAPreschools Holiday Painting for Toddlers http://bit.ly/
h2EiNZ #ece #preschool #teachpreschool RT @Teach_Preschool

kennyconley Getting ready to setup the nativity... Or as Sara said
"pulling Jesus out of the box." Just about anything with Nativity Scenes can be educational and spiritual formation. I made a set from toilet paper rolls and wrapping paper with my daugther. I made a set with styrofoam, an old tablecloth and lots of copper paint with my mother. Dad made a decopage set that was life-sized and with yard stakes and spotlights became our major outside decoration.
Sometimes the trick with a larger homeschool family is to find one activity that can be engaged in at different ages. Any of these might work, if the work is divided up thoughtfully, and with an eye to safety.

For the youngest of children, I like Fischer-Price's nativity scene. Not an advertisement for the company, but I do think nativity scenes - and Noah's ark can be good play things for tots. And their's is safe, while some traditional sets break or might have paint that was unsafe for little mouths.

Greenmoms Simple Holiday Entertaining Tips (Easy and Kid-
Friendly): (This is an interview with author and chef Lulu Power... http://bit.ly/f7KOLV

Teach_Preschool Holiday Painting for Toddlers http://bit.ly/h2EiNZ
#ece #preschool #teachpreschool



Please share your ideas, too.

Time for rain barrels

The evangelist, when coming to a town where a prayer meeting for rain was called, asked why no one had brought an umbrella.

We have been asking for the rain of heaven, an outpouring. It is high time to get some rain barrels. The skies are dark. Lowering, and have been.

Time to take your home for God. Time to take your classroom for God. Time to take your country for God.

How? only the same way we enter and keep the kingdom: love, joy, and peace. This is how we act. How we take though, is in faith-filled prayer. Read the Scripture, order it up (sending the angels out to bring in what is necessary), and thank God the Father for it. And then keep thanking God. Don't waver in faith. Period. Amen.

Christmas as a time of giving service

I commented that teachers in the public, putatively secular, system, can likewise initiate service learning projects. We need to teach altruism again.

Wisdom : What does it look like?

Wisdom: What does it look like?
It looks like being a doer of the Word.
It looks like being a good mother, worker, child -- depending on one's role.
What do you think are some foremost visions of wisdom that people in general need to have set before them? What are the issues where we most need to consider acting more wisely? Please comment.

Craziness of Junk Food Industry

organicconnect The Times exposes the craziness of the junk-
food industry/USDA alliance http://bit.ly/9wijfe #Junk #Food #USDA #Times #Health #Organic

Please indulge the link. This came on Twitter and I just finished next Monday's broadcast on God Wants Health, so I'm thinking about the obvious wisdom of adopting good eating -- and not being led down the road to destruction that our whole culture has taken.

For sure the junk food industry is crazy. Worse crazy is people who have been willing to trade health for convenience. Not very convenient when you get the results.

Did people really not know that fake fat and lots of sugar and no vegetables was a bad road? Adamant ignorance sounds like a cover for bad choices to me.

I realize sometimes we really don't know. So, let's do what we can to share with our friends.

It is a duty, as least for moms, to research what a healthy menu is. It would be better, too, if we ALL assumed our duties as altruistic citizens, consider the common good before our own convenience, too, so we share.