Monday Activity, Boxes

Every kid loves boxes! and we have more than our share of them considering most of the things we have in our home, including our food came directly to us in the mail. Here are some of the fun activities that we have done with our boxes:

Jumbo Building Blocks

I took all of our recent diaper boxes, emptied them and taped them shut. They made great building blocks. We made towers, stairs, forts, and choo-choo trains. They are light weight and even Ellora enjoyed carrying them around and stacking them. They were a little tipsy when the girls began to climb on them, though. You may consider using them to store stuff in and then letting the kids play with them.  That way you could save on space and make them sturdier for climbing. I like my sisters idea of storing baby clothes in diaper boxes because then you can find them easily and you can store each size in a different box.

(Just so you know, this is not an endorsement for a particular type of diapers. We actually ordered a different brand but they sent us these by mistake.)

 

Play House:

 This is our play house that we made from a large box. I taped the top flaps up together to make it taller. I cut differently shaped windows, and some with shudders, a mail box and a door. In the door and cut a circle with one side still connected for a door knob.

After the girls began to grow tired of it I gave Chalyse a marker and let her decorate it. She loved being able to color on the walls and ceiling.
Doesn't every kid love to color on the walls? It's like a dream come true!

We also have done some fun things to recycle packing paper. Stay tuned...

Epants, Nosurnoses, and Jaffs

Here are some photos from our trip to the zoo this past summer.

Noah's...Raft?

I previously posted the Inupiaq legend of the first disaster and how it's suspiciously similar to a story found in 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon. The second disaster, in Inupiaq legend, is an age-old classic that can be found in virtually every culture on earth, it seems.

A certain man had a dream one night that he was standing on the top of a tall mountain surrounded by water. He couldn't see anything or anyone else but water. He called for help, and he heard a voice call to him. He saw himself come across the water to where he was. The apparition of himself told him that there was going to be a great flood and that he needed to warn everyone and to build a great raft.

When he woke up, he began to do just that. Everyone laughed at him and called him crazy, except for four men. They helped him to build the raft. When the rains started to come down, they put their tents on the raft, and the waters rose. Eventually the waters covered everything. After the flood began to subside, the people saw a rainbow, which they had never seen before. They took it as a sign that the flood was over.

The man later saw another vision in which he heard a great Voice call to him and tell him that all people would descend from him and that they would think great things of him.

Unfortunately, this story doesn't end happily. While pondering where a man's spirit goes when you die, or what a spirit is, he ends up gaining two familiar spirits and becomes the first sorcerer. He becomes evil and has many people killed. He is later outdone, however, by another sorcerer.

Wednesday book review: Mom Says I Can

The book I have decided to talk about this week is "Mom Say's I Can," written and illustrated by Judy Cooley. This book made me think of my nephews and is a great mother-son book. In this book, Judy depicts a young boy who believes he can do or be anything because his Mom believes in him. Judy does a great job of bringing imagination to life with her beautiful paintings.



I would say that this book may be more appealing to mom than child, though. The main focus of the book is more on sentiment than an entertaining or gripping story, although the playful illustrations do keep small children engaged for a little while.

Monday Activity-Alphebet Soup

Hi every one. Guess what, I am taking a blogging class at Ilisgvik. I am really excited about it. We are learning how to make our blog appeal to more people and get more readers. One thing I have decided to do to accomplish this goal is to have weekly post for people to look for. My first one is on Mondays. I will post an activity for you to try with your kids to help keep them entertained, engaged in learning, and also to learn how to focus.


I read in the article: Children can be taught how to cut through the culture of distraction.
July 29, 2008 - by Maggie Jackso


"Two-thirds of children under six live in homes that keep the TV on half or more of the time, an environment linked to attentional difficulties. Mothers multitask an average of 80 hours a week, up from 40 hours in 1975. Racing from activity to activity, families have little time to sit down to eat, to converse, or to be in the same room. They have no time to be together in the deepest sense of the word."

Jackso goes on to quote Ellen Galinky, president of the Families and Work Institute who said,
“We all live in an overwhelming, overstimulating, information-overloaded world,” says Galinsky. “And unless you can pay attention, you can’t think, you can’t problem-solve, you can’t learn. It’s an underlying skill that is to me front and center to success at work, and at home.”

In an article entitled "How to teach your child the importance of concentration"
by Nan Keltie she says:

"Since toddlers are often distracted and on the go, this stage is probably the most important of all in the training process. Your child's natural curiosity is a valuable tool, so use it. Toddlers love to play, and you can train them while doing something fun."

By doing focused activities with your young children even once or twice a day you can help improve their ability to focus which will later help them do well in school, be more successful at work and have more meaningful relationships.


Here is my first Monday activity. This is a silly little game but Chalyse really enjoys it and she is really starting to recognize her letters.

You will need each of the letters of the alphabet that are easy to handle and see from any side as they will be tossed around. We bought some big foam letters at Target. They can be found by the bath toys in the baby section. When we moved to Utah for the summer we left our letters in Alaska so we took 26 of the clear rectangular lids that come on Gerber baby food and wrote on them with permanent marker. Both worked well.

We then put all the letters into a big mixing bowl. Usually we talk about each letter as we put it in the bowl. We may line them up in order first.
Then comes the fun part. We mix all the letters up, using our hands or a big spoon. We sing, "Alphabet soup, alphabet soup, we love alphabet soup." or something like that.

We are not careful to keep all the letters in the bowl :). As the letters fly out of the bowl we name them and talk about them.
Chalyse enjoys being able to make a mess and I love that she is starting to recognize most of her letters. As she gets older we will begin to talk more about the sounds each letter make and start to make words with them.

Mommy Wow!

Chalyse has been so excited to learn to go potty. We told her she had to wait till we got home to Point Hope because we were doing too much running around this summer to devote that much time to the bathroom. Oh! Are we ever spending time in there! I have decided that Chalyse spends at least %20 of her day in there.

Over all I am extremely pleased with how well she is doing. She has been able to get up there on her own, wipe and even wash her hands by herself; although, she can't turn the water on. She can also take her pants on and off, but sometimes she gets her underwear on upside down. Yes upside down, don't ask me how.

It's just that she gets a little distracted with things like brushing her teeth...or flossing...the best part is that she is so genuine about what she is doing. Yesterday, I went in there are she had ripped off several squares of toilet paper and lined them up along the sink. "This one is for Meese, this one's for Mommy, this one;s for Daddy, this is for Ellora..." So, many of you who may be reading this, Chalyse is saving a square of TP for you, too.

Also, because she has been so excited to start using the potty, she somehow needs to go every 5 minutes unless she is truly busy doing something else. Then, as I was surprised to find out, she can go an hour or two without even having an accident. I have started to have to tell her, "you just went potty, see if you can hold it for just a little while." Today, I was so sick of her using the potty so often that I put a child-proof handle on the doorknob.

All in all, she is doing very well and is very pleased with her self. We are also quite pleased with how with what a big girl she is.



In other news, Ellora decided today that markers make a nice snack. We found her sucking on one. Her mouth was completely black which made Chalyse start screaming and freaking out. I couldn't blame her. The sight was quite grotesque. Luckily the markers were none toxic and hopefully Chalyse has learned not to leave markers laying around.

Later Chalyse was chasing Ellora around with the camera telling her to say "Ahhh." and trying to pry her moth open to take a picture of it. Ellora didn't think is was quite as funny as we did.

Coincidences from the Book of Mormon

I'm currently taking a class to finish getting my professional teaching license. It's entitled, "North Slope Inupiaq History, Language and Culture." We are studying some of their creation stories and other legends. One of them is particularly interesting.

Over the course of their oral history, they have legends of four major disasters. The first of these occurred at the end of a paradisaical period. The climate was much warmer and people didn't have to work for what they had. There was one boy who grew up and was the perfect child. He was helpful, kind, and thoughtful. Everyone loved him.

One day, as he was thinking near a pond, he heard a voice calling him. He looked around, but didn't see anything. The voice called again, but again there wasn't anyone. After a third time, he saw a man unlike anyone he had seen before with a long, white beard and hair. He was afraid because he had never seen anyone like that before, although people lived to see the 5th and 6th generations of their descendants. The man told him he was a prophet who had chosen this boy for his goodness to warn his people of a destruction to come.

He told him that to begin with, there would be great earthquakes. People wouldn't die from these. However, they would warn of things to come. Soon after, the sun would be eclipsed by the moon for three days and a nearby mountain would erupt. After that, all but very few people would be dead and the climate would change so that the people would have to wear warm clothes, deal with winter hardships, and be industrious.

The boy warned the people and they were responsive, but even so most of the surrounding populations of people were wiped out.

This story, and others of interest, can be found in the book, "People of Kawerak."

Be you

Yesterday Chalyse said to me "Mommy I really like you."

I said "I'm glad. I really like you too."

She then said, "Mommy I want to be you." I was so delighted and tickled that she would like me so much she would want to be me.

After I walked out of the room she said "I can't be Mommy, I'm too young to be Mommy."