Good Ideas

I have lots of ideas. Most of them are garbage. The majority of the rest, while sound, never come to fruition. Occasionally, I follow through on an idea or two, and it's glorious. I figure it's worthwhile to document those occurrences. 

* When we were switched into a new ward last November, I knew we'd miss most the friends we'd made in our previous ward. Of course, we still live super close, but without regularly scheduled opportunities to interact, it's trickier to maintain relationships. I couldn't solve that problem with all of our dear friends, but maybe there was a way to start small...

So, we organized a monthly combined FHE group with two of our favorite families. One Monday a month we get together at one family's home, have a lesson and activity, and share a treat. It's a wonderful chance to learn together, have fun, and build our friendships.

Sometimes it means we have activities that are bigger, or more involved than we might otherwise do with just our own little family.

Sometimes it means that we can hardly even hear the lesson because there are up to 14 kids packed in tight spaces.

Every time I leave feeling uplifted and inspired.

* I've acknowledged before that there are some downsides to homeschooling. One of the more obscure drawbacks relates to Mother's Day. Kids in public elementary school always seem to prepare Mother's Day gifts in their classes, and the kids love to present their homemade gifts to their moms on Mother's Day. Clearly, that doesn't happen in a homeschooling setting. 

Or can it?

Last year, my friend Ashlee and I decided to do a Mother's Day swap. I took her kids for an afternoon and helped them prepare special gifts. She took my kids and helped them do the same. It worked so well we decided to continue the tradition. 

This year I helped her darling kids make picture magnets and bead necklaces. Simple, but practical.

She helped my kids make a special bouquet of flowers (Thane is holding them in the picture). That's my kind of garden!

She also had them fill out "All About My Mommy" pages. Thane decided he wanted to be soooo funny. It's so him. Every time he reads when he wrote he cracks up.

* There's been a lot of news about cub scouting lately, but that's the topic of another post. The news that the Church was severing ties with Boy Scouts was relayed to me 10 minutes before our last pack meeting. Yikes!

The topic of that pack meeting was "Treasure Hunters." I thought a Cub Scout themed Escape Room type activity would be really fun and meaningful, but despite significant searching, I couldn't find anything like that already available to be copied or implemented. So, I decided to create our own.

 I split the boys and their siblings into teams of four and gave them 30 minutes to try to successfully complete five challenges. Challenges included: putting the scout law in the correct order (the law was written on popsicle sticks), correctly answering "Superhero or Baden-Powell" quotes, putting together a puzzle of the Scout Oath, completing a team building cup stacking activity, and trying to catch marshmallows shot from a marshmallow balloon shooter (that one was hard!).

 It ended up being a fun evening.