In an attmept to Teach

As mentioned in an earlier post, one of my new goals is to take more advantage of teaching moments for my children. Here are 3 stories for this week.

1. Nathan has been riding his walking bike for over a year now, and the Germans say that these bikes are supposed to help kids learn to ride real bikes faster because they know how to balance. (If you don't know what I am talking about, they have bikes in Germany for kids as little as 2 that have no pedals and the kids just sit on the seat and run with the bike. Emily it sounds like Ren would love these bikes.) So, Nathan is 4.5 years old, and I kept thinking I wonder if he could learn to ride a pedal bike, but I just never went out and taught him because I figured 5 was the magical age of learning to ride a bike so I will wait until then. Well, since I have changed my ways and don't want to be lazy anymore, I went out to teach Nathan and he was riding like a champ within 10 minutes of us going outside. Including starting on his own which can be tricky. Now I just need to get out and buy him a bike, since Steven would like to use his bike still.

2. The next attempt at teaching was with Steven the other day. He was grounded from screens(no TV, or Xbox) for the day and so I invited him to come in the kitchen and help me cook dinner. We were making manicotti and he was cooking the spinach. So I had him put it in a saucepan that was sitting on the counter. Then when I was ready for him to bring it to the stove I told him to "put it there", and pointed to the burner. He proceeded to pour the spinach out of the saucepan directly on to the burner. Luckily I have a flat stovetop and I was standing right there to catch it before too much came out. But it made me laugh to think about what is so obvious to me could be so misunderstood by him. :-)

3. We had FHE again tonight and it went great! I taught a lesson on Family Responsibilities. We put a house puzzle together and I said we need all the pieces to make the house complete just like we need everyones help to make our home run smoothly. Then I put different chores that we do on rocks and put them all in a bucket and asked the boys to carry the bucket across the room. It was heavy to carry all the rocks. Then I seperated the rocks and we each took one and put them in to a paper sack. That was much easier to carry across the room. So, if we all pitch in, no one has to carry the load by themselves.
{Ginger is still with us}


Our new arrangement with the boys is:
They all have to pick up the family room every night. (Ashley Hawkins taught me this one. When she was here 2 years ago she picked up my family room every night before she went to bed and it was so nice to have a clean room in the morning. I had never thought about doing that before believe it or not.)
Jacob sets the table for dinner.
Steven and Nathan clear the table.
On Saturday they have to clean and vacuum their room and Brandon's room including under the beds
And do one extra chore of my choosing around the house.

If these all get done they get one Euro a week. 10% will go to tithing and 10% will be put in savings. I am excited to implement this as long as I can stay organized with it and keep it going. We will see.