My most recent article has been published on Positively Balanced Women’s Health Platform and it would be an honor if you’d take a look.
Thank you all for continuing to read my work. I appreciate it greatly.
Utilizing Montessori at Home
Tag: teaching
Pipe Cleaner Snakes
A bit ago, I had my kids do a beading activity. I noticed that my younger child was having a really hard time coordinating the moving string and the bead, to the point he was angrily frustrated and quit. I thought, surely there is a way for him to develop this skill without the frustration.
I’ve discussed the benefits of beading in my earlier post entitled Beading with Children. But any activity your children do should be doable without rage and irritation. Regular beading was a little too difficult for my younger child, so I adjusted the parameters a little bit to better fit their capabilities.
Instead of string, I gave them pipe cleaner to bead. Because pipe cleaners are stiff, they were simpler to coordinate. My child was able to do this craft without too much trouble. I’m fact they enjoyed it so much, they’d pull all the beads off and re-string them.
To add a little structure to this craft, we added little snake faces and positioned the snakes in funny ways. They turned out really cute with their tongues sticking out 😋.
This takes a little observation on the part of the adult. Can the children around you manage a wobbly string while they are beading, or do they need a little aide to work up to it? Another fun stringing activity involves those large wooden beads and shoe laces. Both of these will help a younger child develop their coordination to a point they can string beads, which in turns help develop other skills.
This craft did not cost a whole lot either. The beads I got in a set with some string for $1.99. You do not need that many, unless you have a burning desire to pick up a bunch of stray beads off the floor that rolled away. The pipe cleaners were $1 and I got the package of construction paper for $1 as well. Beading is so incredibly helpful and creative and costs so little. Give it a try with your kids!
Beading with Children
Beading seems overly simple. Just string a round piece of plastic/wood/clay with a hole in the middle onto a string. Easy right? It is, but it is also wildly educational. How is something so simple teaching anything? Well, most of what it teaches is developmental.
Beading aides in developing hand eye coordination, bilateral coordination (using both hands to do different tasks at the same time) and dexterity. They have to focus and carefully place the bead on the string. If they start having trouble, it can become a learning opportunity on patience and perseverance. Beading also gives them a sense of accomplishment at creating something themselves, which fuels imagination. In connection with that it can strengthen their planning and execution skills. Letting them lay out and design a pattern they like and then putting that plan to action to make something.
But beading can also be used in a more traditional teaching sense. Having the child count their beads can teach them numbers and counting in order. It could be used to teach pattern recognition and sequences. You could use beads to teach colors.
There are so many possibilities with beading. Get creative with it. Let them get creative with it.
Use beading as a way to be a light in someone’s life. Make several bracelets to give to friends, grandparents, the kind old lady in the grocery store who always says hi to you.
Beads and string are fairly inexpensive, but the activities they can create and lessons they can teach are immeasurable.
Activities to do in the House
With many of the schools closing, businesses closing, many families are concerned how they will fill the time without going insane.
I went over the the Dollar Tree and found several great activities, and being the Dollar Tree, it was inexpensive. They have a surprisingly large variety of crafts and toys. I got a few craft kits, some sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and a little golf set. Just to have on hand as this virus escalates and its becoming more likely we will be quarantined at some point.
I did not get crayons or play dough there however. Both of these things can be purchased elsewhere for similar or even cheaper prices and better quality. You can get both at Walmart for a decent price.
We have activities I already had that will come in handy. Things like coloring books, puzzles, board games, dress up clothes, etc. These I think will also come in handy.
Many organizations are also putting free materials out for families to use. Scholastic for example is putting an educational program on their website with activities and books for you children to make use of and hopefully help keep their minds sharp. You can find this resource at
http://www.scholastic.com/learnathome
YouTube will of course have videos you can watch with your kids, educational and otherwise.
Keep your heads up. Doctors and scientists are already working overtime to develop a vaccine. By cancelling events, citizens are hoping to slow the spread of the virus, and maybe dissipate its severity. It kind of sucks, I’m going to be honest. I like going places, and can’t because everything had closed. But I understand why this is happening. To make the best of a bad situation, I’ve stocked up on activities and crafts I know the kids and I will enjoy doing together. We can make it through this!
Positive Parenting pt 2 As published on Positively Balanced
The second part of my Positive Parenting article has been published on the Women’s Health platform Positively Balanced.
This platform is a project I am so honored to be working on. There are all kinds if resources already available and we are growing and building the platform every day. Check out my piece, and then read some of the other work on the site!
Have a stupendous day!
What is Positive Parenting pt. 1 as published on Positively Balanced
I am so happy to share with you my very first article published on the Positively Balanced platform. This is part 1 of a two part article I wrote on Positive Parenting. I feel like I’m saying positive a lot!
Go check it out! I hope you enjoy the piece. Give the website a look while you are there. Link is below, and as always, thank you for reading.
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self Love
I recently finished reading Jonathan Van Ness’s auto biography entitled Over The Top. It was a raw, honest telling of his life thus far.
He openly discusses not only his struggles, but how non linear his journey has been. I think this is important and seldom talked about. You won’t always set to overcome an addiction and then beat that addiction on the first try. You won’t always set a goal and meet it. You will fail. You will experience setbacks. There will be some event that sends you spiraling into your emotions and you turn to the very habit you are trying to break. You will or probably have felt like such a failure before. Why don’t we talk about how many times we’ve all tried to move one step forward and gotten shoved two back instead by an uncontrollable force or our own shortcomings. Jonathon doesn’t hide any of this from the reader. Some of it was hard to read. Honestly. My heart was breaking. It was refreshing to see someone be so honest, but also wrenching to see someone struggle so much. I cried.
I would also say this book is encouraging but also discouraging. It is encouraging in that someone could rise up and accomplish so much, and that society is slowly changing. Yet discouraging because it reminded me that I, as a parent, am incapable of protecting my child from all the bad out to harm them. I can be the most loving, supportive mother, but I still can’t force the world around us to also be loving and supportive.
And most importantly! I love Jonathan’s complete adoration of cats. For real, I watch the instastories eagerly hoping it’s another cat post. He tells a story of the bond he had with his very first cat and it melted me. I love cats. Just animals in general can be such loyal, compassionate companions precisely when we need them, but for me, that animal has been cats. I got my first cat when I was 12. I’d begged for one for years but always been met with a firm no as my dad hated cats. Finally, he caved when we found a rescue that had been dumped out in the country by my uncle’s house. She was a long haired orange tabby named Rachel. She was beautiful, however not as regal as my current companion. My cat now, Magnus, is 6 years old. He is a sleek black short hair, and he believes he is the Lord of a large estate. He has always been beside me, and one of my greatest joys is seeing him interact with my children. He will curl up and comfort them when they are sick. He head bops them, and they head bop him back. I would adopt every last black cat on earth if I could.
And the Romanov’s??!! Look. My young life was drastically molded by a select few films. Anastasia was one of them. I Loved it, but my mother did not. She believed it was wicked due to the presence and practice of Rasputin. (Which, to be fair, the story of the REAL Rasputin is…unnerving) I remember going over to friend’s houses to watch it at sleepovers. It still remains a favorite movie of mine. And did trigger a good deal of reading about the actual Romanov family, but that left me far more sad than the movie.
Not to mention how much Jonathon loves figure skating. I, too, dreamed of becoming an Olympic figure skater when I was young. Except unlike his dance routines, I designed all my own costumes. They were detailed. Growing up with a seamstress, I knew what went into crafting an outfit from scratch. I put all the knowledge and a lot of bad math into these costume designs. Most of them were blue, and contained a lot of floral elements.
But truly, what I find most important is learning about a person different than myself. My grandmother would encourage me to read all kinds of books, even books I didn’t think I’d agree with. She was trying to encourage me to think critically from every angle and not be narrow minded. Meeting someone who is different from you and listening to them, learning about them forces you to see from their perspective. It challenges your viewpoints. Diversity is good. Reading can be an easy way to do this. This is why I often look for books that I think I will learn from. Even though I am religious, I find books by athiests enlightening, or written by leaders of other world religions. They might be able to teach me something I’d never considered before. While I think it is good to meet and interact with all kinds of people, maybe you can’t meet these people face to face, that’s why books are so helpful. I can learn about Jonathan Van Ness without meeting him face to face by reading his book.
Which I greatly encourage you to do as well.
I’m Proud to Tell You
Everyone! I am very proud to tell you I have been asked to contribute to a Women’s Health Platform called Positively Balanced.
This is a wonderful resource designed by women for women as we help each other in our various journeys. If you have any questions, interests, curiosities go check out the website.
There are also some comfy tank tops for sale in the store. I have one, and it is luscious. I love it.
Compared to some of the other women working on this project I feel woefully unqualified, but I am so excited for this opportunity as well! I’m thrilled for the challenge to better myself.
Please, take a moment to bop over and give the website a gander. Check us out!
The link to the website is here:
http://www.positivelybalancedllc.com
The Whole Brained Child
Several people had suggested this book to me, but its apparently a pretty popular book as it had a good sized waiting list.
I wanted to read it as I was struggling to find a firm standard to raise my kids that was wholesome and uplifting to them but wasn’t uncontrolled and insane. Growing up the way I did, if a kid made noise or lost control in any way they were not only a bad kid, you were a bad parent. If you didn’t spank your kids, they were bad kids and you were a bad parent.
I didn’t like the way that kind of parenting made me feel, not to mention how it made my kids feel. I was angry all the time, and the strong armed aggressive parenting I’d been taught fueled the anger. I was making my kids into loud angry children and I did not want that for them. I began finding books on childhood development and growth. I wanted to know how best to mold them into good humans. So enters this book. It’s written by neuroscientists, and explains well how the human mind, and specifically the child human man mind is functioning in various scenarios. I think I gleaned as much from this book for myself as for my kids. There is never a point that I felt guilty or ashamed of myself either. You know how sometimes another parent in an attempt to relay what they’ve learned and what methods they use make you feel like such a terrible parent? Like they are so much better and know more and you have nothing figured out? I never felt that reading this book. The authors portray a very gracious tone throughout.
You might even measure yourself against some sort of perfect parent who never struggles to survive, who seemingly spends every waking second helping her children thrive. You know, the PTA president who cooks organic, well balanced meals while reading to her kids in Latin about the importance of helping others, then escorts them to the art museum in the hybrid that plays classical music and mists lavender aroma therapy through the air conditioner vents. None of us can match up to this imaginary super parent.
Haven’t we all done that though? That’s why we feel so much guilt and shame. We look at someone else who seems to have it all together and we don’t measure up. But reality says, none of us measure up. Not even that PTA president we think has it all together. When we all bring ourselves to the same level of understanding, we realize, we are more alike than we are different. It’s important not to look down on another person and its important not to hold another person up on a pedestal either. We all make mistakes.
When we learn what our brains are doing and what needs to be done to change that, we have stronger tools when a challenging situation arrives. We can now view and study the mind like never possible in the past. We can see what neurons fire in specific scenarios. This is incredibly helpful to parents as we can know better what to do to grow and strengthen our child’s mind.
One recurring theme I’ve come across that appeared in this book as well, is that children are capable of far more than we think they are, and in our unknowing, we don’t encoursge them to do more. This instance was about emotions. Being able to understand and express complex emotions, and being able to handle big overwhelming emotions. Some adults have trouble doing that. But if we are able to cultivate that growth, kids are able to manage emotion in a healthy manner. This is not only something kids are capable of, it’s something that needs to be developed so they have a mandatory tool to take with them into adulthood.
One big parental temptation is to make decisions for our kids, so that they consistently do the right thing.but as often as possible we need to give them the practice at making decisions for themselves.
A big thing I see quite a bit are parents that jump in to help their kid with a difficult or scary task. I’ve even been reprimanded by other parents for not doing this. We need to allow our kids to make decisions for themselves and experience mistakes. We need to step back and let them figure out how to solve a problem. If they made a bad choice, we need to let them handle the consequence of it (so long as that consequence isn’t dangerous). The way a child learns how to manage risk is by managing risk. Stay close by but don’t interfere unless they are at serious risk of harm. Let them climb to the top of the jungle gym. Let them balance on the fallen tree trunk. Let them decide what shoes to wear. Children need to be able to make their own choices and learn critical thinking.
Recent studies have found that the best predictor for good sibling relationships later in life is how much fun the kids have together when they’re young. The rate of conflict can even be high, as long as there’s plenty of fun to balance it out. The real danger comes when siblings just ignore each other.
One last big point that jumped out at me was with sibling conflict. I have more than one child and I’ve often worried about this. My older siblings hate each other, and I don’t want that for my kids. But how do I prevent it? According to these doctors, the key is fun. It doesn’t matter if they bicker and fight a lot, so long as they have fun together. This means that the trips we take as a family, the playtimes we have are incredibly important. Playing and having fun is vital to their development and will affect them long term. That’s something I think we all need to remember. If you feel bad that you can’t give your kids the biggest, most expensive, fanciest house and clothes, remember it’s not that important. What is important is that you took your kids to the playground and played with them. What’s important is that you helped your kids make some messy and probably odd looking muffins. Playing with your kids and giving them the space to play together is what stays with them all their lives. The science has even confirmed it.
This is a must read for any parent. It is insightful and enlightening. It explains everything simply and clearly. The Whole Brained Child is an excellent book. I highly highly recommend.
Damnation
This one is a doozy, so before I get started on it, I want everyone to take a deep breath and stay calm. I say that because people are very touchy about their faith, and tend to become reactionary when you talk about it. I’m not out to anger anyone.
However, I am out to talk about hell. The place of damnation in most Judaic and Christian religions. This is a piece of faith I kind of ignored because I just didn’t want to think about it. It made me uncomfortable. But recently pieces on hell kept coming across my various news feeds and it seemed time to just delve into it.
Growing up, I was taught that hell is a place of eternal damnation, continual torment, fire, anguish, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. We are all sinners, and sin must be punished, so we are all destined for this awful place. That Jesus was the only way to escape this torment. If you were to ask for his forgiveness and recieve his mercy, he would wash all your sins away, and spare you eternal punishment. Most Christians believe some variation of this narrative, so to challenge that a part of it was incorrect would be to challenge the entire foundation of their faith. So I understand anyone who may be uneasy or wary of the idea. I certainly was.
There were two things that made me uncomfortable with this idea of eternal torment for non believers.
The first was the question about people who never heard of God during their time on earth. This could be as result of being remote and secluded from civilization, or infant death, or mental disabilities. What if a child died before they were able to understand salvation? Now, for the people I was around, most of them made caveats for the mentally disabled and babies, but used the remote civilizations as a rallying cry for further missions. We have to take the gospel to them or they will go to hell. They received no caveats. This just did not sit well with me. I could not fathom a loving God never giving them a chance of redemption.
Second was how hell has been used to manipulate and control people by terrifying them. You must do as we tell you, or you aren’t truly saved and probably going to hell. People didn’t come to God or to church because God is loving and supportive, a very present help in trouble. They came to God and Church out of absolute fear of burning consciously forever in a lake of fire.
One piece I read put forth that hell was not taught by Jesus, or the ancient Jews, it was an idea that crept into Judaism from the Greeks during the span between the Old and New testaments. This idea piqued my interest.
So I looked it up. Every time hell is mentioned in the Old Testament and what was the Hebrew word that was used. Turns out, the English words vary depending on the translation you are using, but the Hebrews words do not vary. So the same Hebrew word would sometimes be translated to English as “Hell”, other times as “death” or “the pit”.
The most common word is Sheol. This word is used in the Old Testament frequently. According to ancient Judaism, Sheol is the place of the dead. Not a place of punishment or of reward, just a place you went after you died. This is why it is sometimes translated as “the grave” or just as “death”. When I was young I was told Sheol was synonymous with Hell and the words could be used interchangeably. I remember this being associated with the Proverbs passage about the seductive woman who tempts a young man and it being said her footsteps have taken hold in Sheol. This was always taught metaphorically, usually to shame young kids into abstinence. This woman was promiscuous and led to hell, the same fate is in store for teens who have lots of unmarried sex.
But what if this isn’t metaphorical? What if we take this literally? If Sheol is the place of the dead and she was on her way there could that mean this woman was dying? It’s made clear, she tempts lots of young men. Hygeiene was not much back then, STIs had to exist, and antibiotics did not. Even just a virus would be easy to transmit. It’s in Proverbs 5:5 that says “Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol;” And another passage about temptresses in Proverbs 7:27 says “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.” Could this verse mean literally, this woman will kill you? Do you see how that changed the entire meaning of the passage? It still serves as a warning to not succumb to temptation, but instead of eternal damnation as the outcome, death is the outcome.
Next word I came across was Abaddon. This one is a little more tricky. It appears in both testaments, and means destruction, but in the New Testament it is personified as an Angel. So is Abaddon a place of destruction or is it the Angel of Death? I found lots of conflicting info on this. Some believe Abaddon is actually sent by God to hand out his punishment before his return in Revelation. In the verses I found it in the Old Testament it was coupled with Sheol. So it came as death and destructin.
But then I moved on to the New Testament. Not just needing to know what my English translations said, but what the Greek said. So again I looked up the word hell in the New Testament and which word in the orginal language was used. Most references of hell, or specifically, the lake of fire come from Revelations. Entire book series have been dedicated to explaining the end times, so I’m not going to. I am going to let you know what I can dissect from language though.
The first word I came across was Gehennna. I never heard this word growing up, I first heard it in an anime, as an adult. That is because in the KJV, the version I was raised solely reading, it is translated to hell every time. In this case, it may be more appropriate than with Sheol. Gehenna references an actual place. A valley, where people performed child sacrifices. The land was declared cursed and became synonymous with wickedness, understandably. It became the place where the evil were sent, and over time became known as the land of the wicked. Its is simple to see the connection between it and the idea of hell. Only the evil are sent there, cast out and separated from good.
Another word used in the New Testament is Hades. This word is used in the same manner Sheol is used in the Old Testament. This, actually makes a lot of sense to me. Hades is the god of the underworld, and the land of Hades is were the dead are. It’s a station the dead pass through. The idea of a neutral place all the dead go to, aligns with Sheol and even the Greeks idea of Hades’ realm. Now wouldn’t this confirm the piece I read about Greek culture seeping into Judaism? Maybe. But I could also see it as a simple borrow of their language as well. Although in English it may have been changed to hell, I dont think the ancients meant it as a place of punishment.
Then there is the word Tartarus used only once in 2 Peter 2:4. In KJV this verse says, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” In the Complete Jewish Bible, this verse reads as “For God did not spare the angels who sinned; on the contrary, he put them in gloomy dungeons lower than Sh’ol to held for judgement.” And in the Youngs Literal Translation it reads, “For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,” It is usually traslated as hell, like in the KJV though sometimes left as tartarus, as in the YLT. This I do find interesting as Tartarus is the pit Zues trapped the titans in after he defeated them. Where the realm of Hades was the land of the dead, Tartarus was a place deeper, a place only the most wicked were sent to be imprisoned. Even though, this seems to borrow from Greek mythology, it also aligns with the idea that hell is a place reserved only for the most Evil, as with Gehenna, and is a seperate place than Sheol or Hades.
So simply based on the language used in these words we can start to paint a picture. Sheol/Hades is a land where the dead are, neither in happiness or anguish, waiting to be transferred to heaven or hell. And Gehenna/Tartarus is a sereate place reserved only for evil beings.
This brings us to two questions. First being, aren’t believers taken directly from their earthy bodies to heaven when they die? The concept of a realm of the dead kind of contradicts that. And second, is hell then eternal?
For the first, let’s look at the verse so often quoted at funerals and at greiving family members. 2 Corinthians 5:8 “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” KJV It is often summarized with a rub on your shoulder as, “you know as the Bible says, absent from the body, present with the Lord.” To try and comfort you about the deceased relative. But if Sheol exists, we are not imemedietly present in heaven the moment we are absent from our earthly forms. The passage this comes from talks about the eternal bodies we will have and how burdensome our earth bound bodies are, so this connection is not hard to make. However, this passage doesn’t ever say were immediately present with the Lord.
Conversely, I think many of even common Christian’s beliefs support the reality of Sheol. In the end times there will be a resurrection and the dead will rise at the trumpet sound. Its pepperd throughout the NT this resurrection of the dead. John 6:40 reads “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” KJV (Notice that little prepositional phrase “at the last day”?) 1 Corinthians 15 is where we get the trumpet sounding from. Verse 52 says, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” KJV the resurrection is taught, and sung about endlessly. But if all the dead are already with God why are they being resurrected? I’ve heard this explained as their spirits are with God but their bodies aren’t and that’s what raises at the trumpet sound. Although I’m not sure people want their old bodies in heaven and if we are given new perfect bodies, we don’t need the ones we’re riding in now.
Now for the eternal question. Nowhere else in all of the Bible is the Lake of Fire, often described as hell, mentioned outside of Revelation. So much of this book is confusing and complicated. Chapter 20 speaks quite bit about this Lake of Fire. Starting in verse 10, “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” And then in verse 14, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” ESV Before this death and Hades give up all the dead and they are judged according to the book (the Lamb’s Book of Life) and then those not found within were also cast into the Lake. This should undoubtedly settle eternal hell right? It does say the devil, the beast and the false prophet are tormented forever and ever, but does not say that about the others. This tiny phrase “their part” in Rev 21:18 leads some to believe that for even the worst of us, the Lake of Fire is temporary “But as for the cowards and unbelieving and abominable [who are devoid of character and personal integrity and practice or tolerate immorality], and murderers, and sorcerers [with intoxicating drugs], and idolaters and occultists [who practice and teach false religions], and all the liars [who knowingly deceive and twist truth], THEIR PART will be in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” AMP Even others draw from the previous chapter that the saints were resurrected before this, and so the dead rising in Revelation 20 would be the non believers who are then judged and punished for their deeds according to the books. “And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades (the realm of the dead) surrendered the dead who were in them; and they were judged and sentenced, every one according to their deeds.” Revelation 20:13 AMP So does this mean only the worst could not be reconciled and had to be sentenced to the Lake of Fire? Several other verses refer to those in torment and state they still refused to repent. Which gives the idea that they had the opportunity to do so.
None of us have been dead, and the end times have not come yet, so all of this is ultimately unknown. But from what we know of God, and what we can learn from the Bible, we can get a pretty solid idea. When we die we kind of hang out in suspension until the ressurection at the end of time, at which point we are judged. The righteous are spared punishment, the other’s sentences are handed down, and some may be punished in the lake of fire, but no one is denied repentance. So according Revelation the lake of fire is real, but I believe it is not a permanent punishment. Only Satan, the beast, and false prophet are tormented forever.
Feel free to share you knowledge and thoughts on this, but again I demand kindness and tact.
Dose of Sunshine 