Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts

Oct 5, 2018

~Share~ (Five Minute Friday Freewrite)


I’ve  joined the 31 Days of Five Minute Freewrites. Read more about it here.
Today's prompt was a bit of a challenge. It's been a busy day and I haven't had time to sit down for too long! Hopefully it makes sense! ;)

Day 5 Share 


Learning to share is one of the first lessons we want to teach our children. We want them to be socialized and that means they must learn how to let others use or borrow what belongs to them. Recently I overheard a conversation on a podcast regarding sharing. One mom would always ask her young child whether there was one special toy that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing that day and put it out of sight before her friend arrived, so that her visiting playmate wouldn’t be tempted to play with it. As I pondered this, I thought that it was a wise move and respectful of the child. 

 How many of us want to share EVERYTHNG we own with others all the time? How many of us have ever purchased a dark chocolate bar and hidden it behind the pickle jar in the fridge, so that we could enjoy it on our own, because we really didn’t want to share it with anyone? I have! Of course, if this becomes a pattern, there may be other issues at play (chocaholic!)

Seriously, as a rule, the key is to live a lifestyle of generosity. These could be with things, time, money, and even ourselves and our thoughts.  But sometimes our belongings are too special to share with others. We have to respect how we feel. 

Sitting in a circle with others, being asked to go around clockwise and share one after the other, is an example of forced sharing. That really doesn’t work for me, with my personality. Sharing, to come from the heart, must be volunteered, not forced. Give me freedom to respect and be myself and I’ll be happy to share.

What do you think?


Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

Jan 25, 2016

Getting my craft on..

With teaching Gr. K-2 children shape and space concepts every Thursday morning, I've been spending a lot of time researching creative, engaging activities. That leads to the fun part of teaching -- getting to watch the children enjoying the creative process.
Maybe it's due to it being the middle of winter (not getting out enough!), but I have been enjoying some creative endeavours. Besides knitting and a little furniture restoration, today I created a very cool craft which I am pleased to say turned out very well.

Our church is having a 'life group fair' next weekend, and I am promoting a "She Reads Good Books" book club. We were encouraged to add some pizzazz to our table spaces, so I decided to make this:

book fan

I experienced a twinge of regret as I worked on this, because of the necessary sacrifice -- a hardcover book. I was encouraged to think of this as 'repurposing', not ruining. I think I'll go with that. This was one of my  favorite read alouds from days gone by, but I'm pretty sure I have another copy somewhere. And besides, this 'fan book' can be undone in the future. No spine ripping required for this craft.
I actually like the outcome of this folding craft so much, I'm planning to keep it up on my desk shelf for a while.