Week 3 First Grade and Kindergarten

Bible

Proverbs 21:23   He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.

The first questions the girls asked was:  What does calamity mean?  I looked up the verse on Blue Letter Bible   Calamity in Hebrew is Tsarah meaning straits, distress, trouble.

Well, yikes!  The girls looked worried.  We talked about how God wants us to be careful what we say because our words have the power to hurt others and to hurt ourselves.  What a wonderful lesson for two sisters to learn!

Sophia working on her play dough letters

The girls learned that the Bible is comprised of 66 separate books.  We gathered 66 skinning books and stacked them up.  Then we separated them into an Old Testament stack of 39 books and a New Testament stack of 27 books.  The girls counted and compared the stack with how tall our Bible is:-)

The also learned what a Table of Contents is and how to use it.  In a couple of weeks we will begin memorizing the books of the Bible!

Science and Nature

We started our week with a nature walk hunting for pretty flowers with brightly colored leaves to press.  We also collected flower petals to make ink out of.

The pressing and the ink making turned out ok.  We will be checking our pressed flowers in a couple of weeks.  The ink really just ended up looking more like dirty water, but they sure had fun destroying the pretty petals!

We also did a bean experiment this week to learn about the components of a seed.  We used pinto beans.  Early in the week they observed and drew pictures of the dry pinto beans.

We discussed what they are made of:  The outer covering or Seed Coat and the two halves or the cotyledons (they struggled with pronouncing that one!) and then the tiny plant inside. 

We then soaked our beans and placed them between two wet paper towels and wrapped the whole bundle up in tin foil.  Then we set our packet on the window sill to wait, and wait and wait!

After 2 days we checked the beans.  They were wet, a little larger (swollen from the water) and the outer shell was separating from the bean.  All of this was interesting, but not terribly dramatic.

Then we waited a few more days...or rather,  mom forgot all about checking that little tinfoil packet on the window sill for 4 more days:-)

I took a peek at it yesterday and was thrilled to see that big changes had occurred!  I got the girls and we sat at the kitchen table for the big reveal.   I reminded the girls what the beans looked like six days before by showing them a dry bean.  Small, hard, oval, brown.  

Then we opened the foil and voila!  We had bean sprouts!!!  They gasped and squealed enthusiastically to see the change that had taken place.  So cool!

Here are their science journal papers:

Ava's

 Sophia's

Their work area

Other activities

We rode our bikes into town to Jamba Juice.  The ride was a great opportunity to practice road safety and get some outside exercise on a nice sunny day while we still have them!  

The girls chose Skittles smoothies and I tried the new Pumpkin Smash.  We all really liked the Pumpkin Smash smoothie, although Ava's favorite was the Skittle smoothie:-)

 Soccer games started this week!  Both girls are playing this year so Rob and I are running back and forth between games.  We all had a lot of fun!  Sadly, I didn't take very many soccer pictures this week.  Hopefully I will be more on the ball next week!

Tumbling and swimming happened as well, but no pictures to post.  I will try to remember to take some this week.  Ava is becoming quite accomplished at gymnastics doing her first round off this week and completing both forward and backward walkovers, among other things.  Sophia just started her swim lessons up again and is loving every minute in the water!

I hope you all are enjoying this late summer weather! 

Love,

Kim

Cambodia Here I come!

Hi everyone!

   I am so excited to share with you all a new adventure I am going on.  I have a tremendous opportunity in front of me.  Horizon Community Church (my home church)  is sending a medical team to Cambodia.  Cambodia is a desperately poor country where access to medical help is out of reach for most of the people.  The team will be going to serve these wonderful people with medical and dental help and the love of Jesus Christ.  I will be going with the team in January 2012. 


   According to Ken Huff, the missionary we will be working with in Cambodia, one of the leading causes of child slavery is the inability to pay medical bills or the selling of children to raise the money for needed treatment.  Providing this type of help does more than any other single method to help eradicate this atrocity.

   Many illnesses that are very treatable, like diarrhea, are fatal in a country like Cambodia. Simple infections are life threatening because of a lack of proper care. We will be able to bring some relief in the name of Jesus. 

    The team will be leaving January 6th 2012 and returning the 15th 2012. The flight is 23 hours there and about 25 hours back.  Our destination and home base will be in a province outside of Phenom Penh. We will be serving five different villages in the field.  In each village there is a church that we will be working with. Every believer will be prayed for and every non-believer (most of those we will see) will receive the gospel message from our Cambodian partners.  Once we leave, the church then will have a connection with the patients we have seen.

   Our focus will be simple, to bring the healing power of Jesus Christ through hands on medical treatment, prayer and the truth of the gospel.  

   Not everyone can go but all are called to help.    Please pray for the missions team, their families, and the people of Cambodia.  The deadline is fast approaching when the first portion of funds will be due to cover the costs of airline tickets. If you are feeling led to give financially to the mission team's efforts, please do so.  My goal is to raise $2000 to cover the cost of my trip, with $1300 being due by October 20, 2011.  Thus far $675.00 has been sponsored!  That is so awesome!  Missions trips like these are not possible without prayer and financial support from friends and family like you and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your sponsorships!

    I am so excited to see what the Lord is going to do for the people of Cambodia!  Thank you for partnering with me along this journey.

               Thank you and God Bless!

                           Kim Spalding