Cloudy With a Chance of Manna

The kids discovered a new favorite movie last week - Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I've heard mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed it, possibly because I have never read the book on which it is based. They enjoyed it so much when we rented it that we took them to see it at our local dollar theater that Saturday.

Then, Saturday evening, we sat down together for our nightly Bible reading before bed. I opened my Bible to Exodus 16, where we left off, and began to read about the Israelites crying out for food in the desert. God caused manna to come down from heaven each night with the dew and cover the ground each morning. In a way, a special kind of bread rained down from heaven for them. I laughed and told them, "Hey! It was cloudy with a chance of manna!" Flint's invention in the movie was fantastic but dangerous. However, God's provision was perfect. The food came down gently, with the dew, and the leftovers melted away in the heat of the sun. The kids loved the story.

Tonight, I decided to deviate from our normal reading and jump ahead to John 6:30-59. I especially focused on verses 47-51:

"I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

I explained to the kids that, while wonderful, the manna in the desert was still just food. People who ate it still died. However, the manna served as a picture of Jesus, the true Bread from Heaven, the Bread of Life. I told them that Jesus did not really mean that people had to eat him in order to live. Instead, He meant that He had to die and that following Him would satisfy our greatest need - the need for salvation from our sins. If we follow Jesus and accept his sacrifice, then we can have everlasting life - not that we will never die, but that we can live in heaven with Him forever after we die.

At first, I worried that the comparison might confuse the kids, but Hannah and Ben seemed to understand it. Hannah's eyes sparkled with excitement as she connected the ideas in her mind, and, though Ben appeared less focused, he correctly answered a few questions I asked him about the Bible story.

I intended to return to Exodus tomorrow night, but I stumbled across one more lesson centered around manna - Psalm 78. It explains the many signs and miracles God performed throughout Israel's history and details their rebellion and lack of trust in him. The writer of the Psalm encourages the reader to listen carefully and learn from the story, trusting in God and following Him instead of rebelling. Now that I think about it, I believe we will have one more night in our "Cloudy With a Chance of Manna" Bible series after all.

My New Favorite Author

Hannah came down from her room the other day, excited to show me her newest creation. She had written and illustrated a book about "Puppy," her favorite stuffed animal. Here is her book. I included the text of each page after it, with some corrected spelling and punctuation, to make it a little easier to read.

"The book about Puppy my stuffed animal."

"Once upon a time there was a puppy that lived in Ohio. Hannah her owner said she was cute. She had toys."

"One day puppy wandered off and got lost. Hannah was sad."

"One day Hannah went out to find Puppy."

"Then she heard a barking - arf arf. Then she ran into something. It was Puppy. We got popcorn and hot chocolate."

"I love Puppy. She is cute."

"The end. Hannah"

On Thursday, she brought the book into her kindergarten class, and her teacher allowed her to sit in the "author chair" and read her book to the class. Hannah was so excited! Now, she tells everyone that she wants to be an author and illustrator when she grows up. Should I tell her that is what I want to be someday, too?

Ladybugs and Litterbugs

Though I am a global warming skeptic, I believe very strongly in keeping the environment clean, reducing pollution, and leaving the earth beautiful for the next generation. Whether or not global warming exists, I do not like the idea of pumping the planet full of energy bi-products and waste. I like to do whatever I can to reduce the amount of waste our family produces. However, adding recycling to our garbage service costs significantly extra per month, so I felt thrilled this year when I discovered something called "SCRAP" in our community.

Each elementary school has a day assigned to it - for example, the second Tuesday of each month. On that day, a recycling trailer visits the school in the afternoon for a couple of hours to collect recycling, and the school gets any proceeds from the materials collected that day. So, once a month, I load plastic bins full of cans, newspapers, and plastics into the back of my van when I go to pick up Hannah. Before I get her, I go through the recycling lane, and the workers unload all of my recycling for me. It only takes a few minutes, and I do not even have to get out of my car. Could recycling be any more convenient?

In order to organize the recyclables, Josh purchased a set of large plastic drawers/removable bins to keep on our back porch. I can separate out the various items and save them for the monthly drop-off without having them take over my house or garage. Often, as I cook, I rinse out empty cans, remove the labels, and then ask one of the kids to put them in the bin on the porch. Though I viewed this as a "chore" initially, the kids actually fight over the job.

Ben especially enjoys recycling and often comes into the kitchen to ask if I have anything for him to put outside. Because of this interest, I decided to do a small unit on waste and recycling with him.

One day, as I was looking up the SCRAP schedule, I stumbled across this educational page on Richland County's Solid Waste Management Authority website. The elementary unit, "Windows on Waste," seems like an exceptional educational tool. The pdf file consists of 335 pages of lesson plans, worksheets, information, and resources to teach a very involved unit on waste, trash disposal, recycling, and the environment. I think the unit is slightly above Ben's level right now, but I plan to teach it sometime in the future.

This time, however, I chose the preschool/kindergarten level activity book called "Lucky the Ladybug." This book contains fun activities and games and tells the story of Lucky the Ladybug as she tried to save Bugville from becoming Litterville. With a small amount of extra teaching and guidance, Ben learned quite a bit of basic information about recycling and keeping the community clean. I printed the pdf, punched holes in it, and put it in a folder to make a little book.

I intend to add more activities as we explore recycling in more depth. Perhaps we will weigh our trash and our recycling and figure out what fraction of our trash we recycle. Or, maybe we will just count the bags we put out and see how many more bags we would use if we didn't recycle. We can also visit the worm bin again and see how we recycle our food waste as well.

Regardless of how we study this, I am glad that my kids are actively involved in helping me recycle. Hopefully, as they grow older, this will help them develop the habits and attitudes necessary for them to care for the earth as well. I do not want to raise "litterbugs," who think nothing of their waste and view it as someone else's problem. Instead, just like Lucky the Ladybug, I want them to care about their community and about the planet God gave them, and to focus on using its resources carefully and wisely, so they can leave a healthy, thriving planet to their own children. Maybe the small steps today will start them down the path to living carefully and sustainably for the rest of their lives.

Craft Time

Although Hannah spends more time "crafting," Ben also enjoys cutting and gluing and making fun creations. For Christmas this year, my parents bought him a wonderful craft set, perfect for a little boy who loves cars and trucks. It contains supplies and instructions for making colorful cardboard models of an ice cream truck, a school bus, and a race car.

For his first project, Ben happily chose the ice cream truck, which did not surprise me at all. For quite a while last year, he told me that he wanted to be an ice cream truck driver when he grew up, and the three kids played "ice cream truck" together all summer long. Ben usually pretended to be the ice cream truck, walking around humming the truck's distinctive song and doling out pretend ice cream to his sisters in exchange for imaginary dollars. So, I knew he would love this craft!

After I assembled the cardboard pieces, Ben followed my instructions, gluing the various materials in the correct places.

Becca enjoyed watching the process, though she was a bit sad that she could not "help." She alternated between hovering over Ben and popping a piece of bubble wrap that I gave her to keep her little hands busy.

Ben did his best to be patient with Becca and even explained some of what he was doing.

For the finishing touch, he put round stickers all over the truck to add to its colorful, whimsical design.


He was so proud of the finished project! He excitedly showed Hannah and Josh when they returned home after school and work.

Because all of the kids are now interested in crafts, we knew we needed a better place to do them. Josh had a wonderful idea for this, once we took down our Christmas tree. Instead of returning the furniture to its previous location, we set up a folding table with a vinyl tablecloth in the living room. Now the kids can cut, glue, and color to their hearts' content without taking over the entire house! However, we soon will need an entire room dedicated to storing hundreds of paper snowflakes, heart chains, paper scraps, handmade cards, and toilet paper roll creations...