Hello, this is Brother Denny.
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This is real to all of us.
I'm a mother of seven children.
The oldest is 15, the youngest is 10
months old.
So I'm right in the middle of organizing
a house, and I don't feel like I
always know how to do it any better
than any of the rest of you.
I have the topic, but that doesn't mean
that I know how.
I'm working at it just like everybody else
is.
What we want to do is not give
you a lot of schedules, because my schedule
might not work for you.
Your schedule might not work for me.
I just want to give you some guidelines
of how to get things.
Is it louder?
I should put it up higher.
Is this better?
Okay.
I want to just give you some guidelines
of things that work in our household, and
that I've observed other mothers that it works
for others to get things done in others.
I want to stop a moment to have
a word of prayer first, because our Father,
You are the God of order, the God
of discipline, and You're the one who has
planned our lives and given us our families.
I just ask You, Father, today to speak
Your words, and I pray, Father, for wisdom,
for understanding, and for clearness of mind.
Bless each sister here as she struggles to
fulfill her job.
I pray, Father, that You would just, for
You're the God that wisdom comes from.
We thank You for this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
All right.
Time is a gift from God.
He is the one who is the author
of all time, and we are to be
stewards of our time.
1 Corinthians 4.12, 1 and 2 says,
Let a man so account of us as
the ministers of Christ and stewards of the
mystery of God.
Moreover, it is required of men and stewards
that a man be found faithful.
We are responsible for how we use God's
time.
I was impressed by the Psalm 90, verse
12.
So teach us to number our days that
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
When we misuse our time, we misuse God's
time, and it's a spiritual problem.
It's not only our problem.
I find that the first way to get
organized is to seek the Lord.
He will help you to find the priorities
that you need to work out each day.
Your priorities might not be mine.
Maybe you have a special calling.
Maybe you have more little ones.
Maybe you have a handicapped child.
Each of us has our own needs.
Seek the Lord.
Allow God to show you your needs and
pray about your goals and your ambitions.
James 1.5 says, If any of you
lack wisdom, let him ask of God, which
giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.
I find that God gives me more than
I ever expected.
Some days when I'm struggling, if I just
stop and go and ask him for it,
he just pours it out.
And some days I struggle through and forget
to ask him.
And it doesn't go very well.
Psalm 32, 8 and 9.
I will instruct thee and teach thee in
the way that thou shalt go.
I will guide thee with mine eye.
And then one more.
Matthew 11, 28 to 30.
Come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.
God will help us organize our schedules so
we can get through our days in a
restful way.
Nothing is too small to speak to him
about.
He cares about every little one.
Every little activity.
Okay.
The first one is to speak to God.
The second one is to set our priorities.
We're going to allow God to show us
what is important.
And one of the first things that is
important is quiet time with him.
And that is a major problem for most
of us.
We have babies.
Sometimes they get us up at night.
Sometimes they do every night.
And we're tired.
But somehow we need to find time to
spend with him.
Because if we don't, we don't have a
cup that's full.
And a cup that's not full doesn't run
over.
And I find the early morning what's best
for me.
But sometimes I don't get it done.
Maybe I was up half the night with
the baby.
So what do I do?
Well, I cannot say that I don't have
any time.
And so I stop maybe at 10 o
'clock when my children are all occupied doing
their math, my baby's in bed sleeping.
Maybe that's my quiet time.
But God does expect us to speak to
him.
And we need to hear from him to
make our days all right.
Another thing that I think is important and
a priority is an unusual one.
It's a time for rest.
I think most mothers with babies and toddlers
and homespun children need naps in the afternoon.
Now, I know I'm a radical.
But I was raised with a mother who
took a nap, with a mother-in-law
who took a nap.
And I find that if I take a
nap, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, a half an
hour, whatever I need, I last much better
till evening.
I'm much clearer.
Their little squabbles and needs and the interruptions,
the phone calls don't irritate me half as
bad.
So some of you say, well, I don't
have time to take a nap.
I can't do it.
But you don't really have time not to
if you're weary.
Now, if you're full of energy, bless your
heart.
You just got to keep on going.
But most of us really do need to
stop and have a quiet time.
How do you do it?
Well, we put our babies to bed.
We put our toddlers to bed.
We put our young children to bed.
And we get our older children occupied quietly.
It's like an hour of quiet time from
1 to 2 or whatever at our house.
Maybe the older ones are studying sign language
or language courses they're doing themselves.
Maybe they're reading or writing letters.
Everybody has to be quiet in our house.
If they are not quiet, then the next
day they have to take a nap.
And that pretty well settles the struggle for
the 8s and the 9s who don't need
to always take a nap.
They sit quietly and read a book or
go outside and do something so that the
house is quiet.
And I really find that it refreshes my
day.
Okay.
My third point is an organization that we
need to be disciplined.
We need to learn discipline in our own
lives first or we cannot teach it to
our children.
Discipline brings order to a hectic life.
It makes a structure and a framework for
you to work with.
If you don't have any discipline, if you
don't have any mealtimes, if you don't have
any bedtimes, if you don't have any order
to your life, things don't go very well.
And so, although discipline is hard, it is
important.
Hebrews 12, 11 says, And I like Deuteronomy
28, 1 and 2.
It says, And the blessing that God says
is the increase of your house, the increase
of your barn, the increase of your goods,
the increase of your family.
And if we talked to God and be
disciplined and be orderly, He would just open
His windows and pour out a blessing.
Now, I think it's important to have an
orderly rising time.
We sort of have a set schedule that
we rise at a certain time.
Our time doesn't need to be your time
and I'm not even going to mention when
it is.
For us, it's reasonably early, except for Wednesday
night, Thursday morning, it's late, so we set
it back an hour and Sunday night when
we have a service.
And if we don't do that, well, we
don't function.
So, we can do.
If you have an orderly rising time, everybody
knows when to get up.
There's no complaining and no grouching.
It is the way it is.
You get up when you're called.
We have orderly mealtimes.
We, at our house, eat breakfast at 7
o'clock, lunch at 12, supper at 5,
give or take a little bit.
Some days, breakfast is at 7.30 because
something unforeseen happened.
The phone rang.
Oh, somebody came.
But breakfast is at 7, lunch is at
12, and supper is at 5 for us.
It doesn't matter if your supper is at
7.
But have it in an orderly fashion so
that everybody knows what is expected.
Your husband will come home, he will know
that there will be a warm meal waiting
for him, or if he's at home, he
still knows it.
Have an orderly school time.
It doesn't have to be always on the
dot, but have a semblance.
And have an orderly bedtime.
You can't get up at an orderly fashion
if you don't go to bed in an
orderly fashion.
If you don't go to bed until 11
or 12, you certainly can't hop up at
5 and 6.
So have an orderly bedtime so you can
get up orderly.
How do we do it all?
And my answer is, we do not.
We can't keep better homes than gardens, houses,
cook gourmet meals, homeschool our children, and do
all our own sewing, train them to be
godly, and be involved in lots of ministry
and creative activities all at one time.
We cannot do it.
We are human.
And we are limited.
And that is why we need to set
priorities.
And I want to stress that God has
given each of us gifts.
Maybe your gift is not sewing.
Maybe your gift is not creatively decorating your
house.
Don't go to other people's houses and look
around and say, I don't know how to
do this.
Learn to find what your calling is and
get good at that.
And then God will lead you into other
areas.
We dare not compare ourselves with each other.
And that is one of our biggest problems
that we face as mothers.
We think we have to do it all.
And we can't.
First, you're a wife.
And second, you're a mother.
And that is one of the things you
need to remember.
When you set your priorities and goals down,
it's not about your husband.
Because if your husband is like mine, he
often sees holes, pitfalls, dangers that I didn't
see.
He gives me counsel.
And sometimes he shows me that what I
thought was really, really important isn't, after all,
nearly as important as something else.
And he's more objective.
So when you get your priorities, run them
by your husband.
That went back under the priorities.
I'm sorry, I jumped it back.
In my priority list, with organized living, I
suggest that you serve simple meals.
We can't do everything.
And simple, nourishing meals are fine.
Actually, they're better than fancy meals.
I don't know if you get the general
spirit.
But if any of you do, take a
little moment to see what Cheryl says about
simple cooking.
Now, we don't have oatmeal for breakfast every
day.
Cheryl does.
Or she did for a while.
I think now she serves whole grains sometimes.
But, you know, simplicity is the key to
her having the ability to have, what, 10
children, 11?
And run a business, too.
And then one of the next things is
planning and organization.
And here we come to what our planning
ahead is, my point.
Okay?
We only remember about 10% of what
we hear.
So we need to write down the things
we hear and the things we read and
keep them for ideas.
We need to take notes.
The Chinese say the palest ink is stronger
than the strongest memory.
And for me, that's true.
This, the children call my brain.
And if I leave it or lose it,
I have a real problem because it's my,
it's just simply my weekly appointment journal, and
I'm just going to open it up here
in just a minute, with a column for
each day of the week.
And what I do is I write down
anything that's pressing, any appointments that I have,
any phone calls I need to make.
I write down chores that are important, errands,
special occasions, cards that I need to send.
And then I try to look at this
every morning before I start my day.
I often write my menus in here.
Sometimes I don't.
But besides that, I have a sparrow notebook
or a ring binder that has pages in
it, and I have a to-do list.
And what I do is I list the
things that I want to accomplish, either in
the week or in the day.
You have to break it up according to
your needs.
Some people have really fancy, neat ideas of
organizing, but I do not have enough time
to go into lots and lots of detail.
So I simply make a list, and we
check off the jobs as we do them.
I work out.
I set aside about 15 minutes to half
an hour every evening before I go to
bed.
If I don't manage to get it done
in the evening because of a fussy baby
or something that I need to discuss with
my husband, in the morning I get up
15 minutes to half an hour early, depending
on how fast or how slow you are,
how detailed you do it.
Maybe you need an hour, when the house
is quiet so I can think.
I don't answer the phone then.
I let somebody else do that, and I
plan my day sort of.
My days are rubber band days.
I plan lots of things that I don't
get done, but it helps still to keep
me on track.
I work out a simple schedule for my
family for the day, from rising to setting.
I plan my menus in a greater or
lesser fashion.
Sometimes it gets trashed and something else takes
its place because of time or failure or
something.
I plan my lessons, either a day ahead
or a week ahead, depending on how much
time I have.
I plan special times with the children and
my husband.
I plan daily chores.
Those things all go down on my to
-do book.
That is not this book.
This book gets major things that I don't
want to miss.
This book gets anything I have to do.
It's not fancy.
It's just written out so that I have
a thing to go back to.
Oh, I have to do this yet.
Then I can give the next child the
next job.
Some mothers make a list, a copy or
a master list of the chores they want
that child to do, and they give it
to the child, and they change it by
the week, some use little index cards and
pockets, and they change it.
We find various things.
But for me, the easiest way is to
do this.
Find a way to teach you and do
it.
It doesn't really matter what the way is.
Just have a plan that helps you.
Schedules are helpers, not rulers.
Some of you get very frustrated because you
make a schedule and it doesn't work.
Then you go to pieces because you feel
like a failure.
It isn't that way.
God gives us interruptions every day, and I
find that when I learn to look at
interruptions as divine appointments, I can handle my
day a whole lot better.
Sometimes it's child training that needs to happen.
Sometimes it's sharing with my daughters that needs
to happen.
Sometimes my husband comes up from the basement,
and he just wants the honey.
We sit down and talk a little.
I didn't have that plan due that hour.
If we can be flexible, sweetly, we will
teach our children something very, very valuable.
When my husband came home from teaching school
to our house to work as a home
business, there were many people that envied me.
They said, wow, yeah.
You don't understand.
I want him to be there.
But my life just fell apart because he
had started a new business, and he needed
my help.
And he said, honey, could you run an
errand?
And before, from 7 in the morning when
he went off to work to 5 in
the evening when he came home, I was
master of mind.
And so to be organized, when you're flexible,
don't allow too much time on the phone.
I find that people do have no idea
how much time they spend on the phone.
It's a really interesting thing that I read
in a book somewhere.
Someday or some week, put a pad by
the phone.
Every time the phone rings, mark down the
time that you answer the phone.
And when you're done talking, mark down the
time that you quit.
At the end of the day, add up
how many minutes you spent on the phone,
and you will be surprised.
And so some of us have gotten answering
machines.
Some of us have trained our children to
answer the phone and sort of say that
we're not available, and that is not a
lie.
We are there, but we are not available
until school is over.
Phones are a blessing.
We need them so that we don't have
to travel as many miles, so that we
can get in touch with somebody that's hurting.
But they can be a real pain in
the neck.
They really can.
And they can be even an evil, I
think, because we talk on the phone to
the hurt of our husband because we should
be spending time with him.
Instead, we're gabbing with some sister.
We should be spending time with our children.
I've seen mothers take their child and say,
go in that room and be quiet.
I'm talking on the phone.
And they do need to be quiet when
you're talking on the phone.
They must respect you, but you can't always
shove them in another room because you're talking
on the phone.
You need to remember that you're training your
children, and that is first.
Talking on the phone is second.
In organizing the day smoothly, I find
that
if you can learn to do more than
one thing at a time, it will help
you.
My husband calls it multitasking.
That's computer language.
Some computers can only do one thing.
Some computers can do many jobs.
And he thinks that we mothers need to
be multitasking.
We need to be able to stir the
soup, talk to our children, and work things
out.
We can't be one track because if we're
totally one track, most of our husbands you
will find are one track.
They get to talking, and they are one
track.
God gave them an objectivity and a one
mind so they can keep on going and
they're not distracted from something.
But we mothers can't do it.
Our children, our babies would fall off the
couch.
Our soup would burn.
If we would get talking to our husbands
and not be able to think about other
things, they would have a disaster in our
house.
And so we need to be multitasking.
We need to be able to do more
than one thing at a time.
Get a phone with a long cord, or
get a radio phone like I have that
you can walk around the house with.
And if somebody does call you, pick up
the toys, or fold the diapers, or stir
the soup, or set the table, or comb
your daughter's hair.
I get a kink in my neck talking
on the fence.
I hold it like this while I do
things this way.
But try to learn to do as many
things at one time as you can.
Nurse the baby, and read that book you
need to read.
There's just a number of things that you
can do.
Okay, a couple other things right here.
Now let's get into teaching your children to
help you real quickly.
I think that organizing requires that you get
your children to help you.
They are your servants, not in a bad
way, but in a good way.
And you have to start very, very early.
And I think a lot of us underestimate
how much our children can really do.
Your 2 and 3 year olds can pick
up every toy they take out.
They are very capable of it.
They can do it sweetly.
You need to teach them as soon as
they're 18 or 19 months old.
When they get a toy, they must put
it back when they're done.
Now, there are times when they don't.
But make it a point that if they
make a mess, to help them pick that
toy up and throw it away.
They will, by the time they're 3, be
able to sweetly pick up every toy that
baby brother left out.
And that really saves a lot of time
for you.
Have the little ones put the spoons on
the table.
Put away the baby's dirty diapers.
If you include your children while you're working,
it takes longer.
Sure, you can whisk around the house in
10 minutes and have it all done.
But when your child is 8, 9, 10,
12, 14, and you have not spent time
getting him to help you when he was
little, he will not want to help you
then.
And if you have, by the time they're
12 and 14, they can run the house
almost without you.
And it is a real blessing.
It frees you up.
I made it a point to teach one
of our daughters to sew when she was
somewhere between 10 and 12.
By the time she was 12, she was
making her own clothing.
It took me a while.
She did not learn to sew on her
own.
I did not say, go sit down and
sew your dress.
We spent time every afternoon, or a couple
of afternoons a week, sewing simple projects.
We graduated to bigger ones.
And now, I don't have to sew most
of the time.
I can say, do it, and it gets
done.
And people that thought I was unrealistic at
10 when I was teaching her to sew
her own slips and nightgowns would be glad
to have the same blessing now.
And it didn't happen by accident.
It's on purpose.
When you teach your children to work, it
takes time.
Some of my mother friends say, I don't
have time to do it.
I don't have the patience to do it.
Well, you better start getting it, because they
can be such a blessing to you.
If you teach them this, order and discipline,
they will help bring order and discipline to
your house.
In fact, I find that my children surpass
me in areas where I am weak.
They help to get me into shape.
Mother, don't you think that area needs a
little attention?
And it really does.
And I was bypassing it.
One older mother said, teach a child to
do the job when he wants to do
it, that is probably at 2 or 3
when he wants to wash the dishes, then
he will know how to do it by
the time he would really rather not.
Always by 7 or 8 or 9, there
is a space where they just don't really
feel like it, and you have to make
them do it anyway.
And if you help them when they are
little to learn to like to do it,
it goes so much better later.
School quickly.
School is a daily blessing, a daily battle,
and a commitment.
And our commitment is to train godly children.
And all the things we have discussed so
far leads up to this.
Discipline, good work habits, we have to do
that first before they can learn any school
at all.
And if you want to have school, you
have got to train them to obey you
first.
That is the first thing.
And then you have to train them to
work well.
Stick at it.
And if they don't know how to obey
and stick at their work, you may as
well forget school until you teach them that.
It really doesn't work to have school with
disobedient children.
A lot of us have struggles with our
little ones in school because we have 3
or 4 little ones and 3 or 4
in school.
How do we do it?
Well, Gwen is going to tell us a
little bit about the toddler part, occupying them.
But I think we need not to expect
too much of ourselves.
We need to find a thing that works
for us.
The government tells us what we must accomplish.
So we need to give them honor and
respect.
But we can find creative ways to do
it.
Maybe you can do most of the heavy
schooling when the babies are napping in the
morning and in the afternoon.
The things that really need drill and one
-on-one attention.
And then maybe the reading that they do
for themselves and the social studies and science
that you can discuss and talk casually about
can be done when the little ones are
awake.
So work on getting those things stacked up.
But most of all, don't worry about the
fingerprints and the corners when you have mostly
little ones.
I promise you that they will go away.
I'm finally starting to come out of the
woods.
Back when everybody was 10 and under, I
thought I would never, ever have seen wind.
I mean, we did sometimes, but it was
a hard job.
Now I can go to bed and I
can get up and the floors are sparkling
and the windows can shine and the children
can be happy and even the first grader
can have his reading lesson taught to him
by one of the older ones.
And so you that are struggling, hang in
there.
Your older daughters, older sons will someday rise
up and bless you if you teach them
diligence and good work habits.
It's a blessing.
And I could probably say lots more, but
I'm going to let Gwen talk now.
And we have, write your questions down.
We're going to have a question and answer
period where you can ask any questions you
want to.
We won't print out the answers.
My topic is our responsibility to toddlers and
preschoolers.
And as you probably already know, toddlers and
preschoolers have a habit of disrupting homeschool faster
than you can say get out your log
sheet.
So we're going to try and talk about
some ways that you can keep them from
disrupting your house.
During the last 13 years that we have
homeschooled, I've always had two or three preschoolers
underfoot, and that's the way I felt about
them for many, many years.
They're underfoot.
Why don't you go do something else?
Why don't you be happy?
We're just not getting anything done because your
children are just too naughty.
You know, that was the way I felt
about them.
But I think it was probably from the
fact that I had taught in Christian schools
for over four years, and it's so serene,
you know, and lovely in the schoolroom, and
you can walk out of the room and
all the children are just, you know, sitting
at their desks doing their work.
And that's the picture I had taken along
into my home, and it wasn't working out
that way.
So in order to gain some perspective, I
had to first understand that the toddlers and
preschoolers in my home are my students too.
And when I began to feel that way
about them, my attitudes toward them changed.
I started looking at their needs as possibilities
and not as liabilities anymore.
If I started to think about it, that
I was given the opportunity to mold and
shape these children in order to make further
training a delight, then it became a challenge
to do something with the children that would
be interesting and fun.
And that's what got me started thinking about
this whole thing.
I found that if I could plan at
least one project for the little children before
I got the daily dogs out, you might
say, get them started doing something, something that
interests them.
They'll play more happily for longer periods of
time with much more creativity than if you
just say, come on, children, let's go in
the schoolroom, and you just sort of hope
the little ones trail along on behind.
That doesn't work at my house.
You'll find that children can be taught to
play quietly.
Not always do you have older brothers and
sisters that have time or whatever to play
with them.
And if you take a little bit of
time and a lot of energy, you can
teach your children to play quietly, especially if
you have lots of things around for them
to do, and I'll talk about that in
a little bit.
Often deciding what to do is half the
battle.
I found that over and over again, that
if I just have one little thing in
my head that I can suggest to the
littler children, our day starts out so much
better.
So I started including the little ones in
my teacher plan book just to make myself
accountable.
And I don't write everything in, you know,
but at least their names are there, and
it helps me remember that they are my
students too.
So like Rachel said, scheduling is an important
part of toddler and preschooler's life, and it's
an important part of mother's lives too.
Even a small baby can be guided into
a structured life, a somewhat structured life.
At first the baby will sleep, and then
it will wake, and then it will sleep
again.
Oh, you feed it in there.
I forgot that part.
You sleep, he sleeps, he wakes, he feeds,
he sleeps, he wakes, he feeds.
That's the way a tiny baby is, and
tiny babies don't make much trouble in a
home school.
They work out pretty well.
But after your baby starts waking up longer
times, I've found that if you feed them
when they wake up, let them stay awake
for as long as they're happy, then when
they get grouchy, rock them or sing them
to sleep without feeding them.
There's something about that pattern that establishes a
pattern in their bodies or wherever babies establish
patterns, that in several months you have a
baby that has put themselves on a schedule.
Now, I must confess, I never had a
colic baby, so I don't know if that
would work for a colic baby or not,
but I'm surmising that there is something to
it about giving them a pattern, and eventually
they take that pattern for themselves.
Our nine-month-old baby almost always is
ready to go to sleep at 10 o
'clock in the morning and almost always at
2 o'clock, so we can all look
forward to...
She's not a bad baby, but you know
that you're going to have one less underfoot
at 10 and at 2, more or less.
Another thing I've found that when babies are
old enough to fiffen up and scream, they're
ready for a little discipline in their life.
And the sooner you start that, the sooner
they respond to you.
My little...
This is the first baby.
I must confess that I believed that.
My husband believed it, and I didn't.
I didn't believe you could do that with
a tiny baby, teach them to obey you,
but you can, and I believe that she's
my best baby.
I only need to do a little bit
of discipline with her, and she fusses just
a little bit longer, and then she cuddles
up, and, you know, it's really sweet, and
I appreciate that, learning that.
You're never too old to learn.
Try to get the whole family up at
the same time in the morning, maybe not
up at the same time, but together for
breakfast at the same time, because this will
ensure you that your littler ones are going
to take a nap in the afternoon.
They're ready to go to bed after dinner.
If you get them up for breakfast, that's
almost a guarantee that they're going to be
ready to take a nap.
So I plan a story time for the
little ones right after dinner while the older
ones are cleaning up the lunch.
I lay down on the floor with the
little ones, and they each can pick a
book, and we lie there, and I read
to them, and sometimes they're asleep before I
get to the end of the books that
they've picked out.
So that's part of the schedule that I
have for the toddlers.
Another time is to go outside and play.
I don't do this religiously, but I think
it's good for children to get outside.
So it's good to plan a time, maybe
after they get up from their nap, to
just let them go outside and run in
the fresh air.
Another thing I've found is that our little
children benefit a lot from their own Bible
story time.
At our home, we have family worship with
the whole family in the morning, and they
don't think about the things that the bigger
children are thinking about.
They don't even understand them.
It's good for them to hear it, but
it's not really their time.
So before they go to bed, I usually
try to read them a Bible story, and
we started this year prayer diaries with all
the school children started prayer diaries.
So I started a prayer diary for the
little ones too, and I was rewarded with
all kinds of insights and confidences that I
never realized, you know, that were in there.
So that's been a real blessing for this
year.
Now we'll talk about having lots of things
on hand for children to do.
During school, it's important to have lots of
raw materials around for your little children to
play with.
If you want them to be happy, you're
going to have to have things for them
to do, especially if you can't spend time
with them the whole morning.
So you should have things like blocks and
beads and masking tape, balls, balloons, boxes, dress
-up clothes, beanbags, and don't try to write
it all down.
You can't.
I did put them together in a little
book like this, so if you're interested, I
have them with me.
Ropes, magnets, toys.
You can sort your toys in categories, put
them in different baskets, and pull out a
different basket for each day.
They like things like that.
Wash lines, hammers and nails, and empty grocery
boxes and cartons and cups and all that
kind of stuff.
Our children started collecting them this year, and
they have a magnificent store in the basement,
and they play and play and play in
that store.
Sue told me of several raw materials she
uses, and she might want to talk about
this more in the question and answer time.
She has what she calls a felt farm,
and she has a rice tub.
So you can ask her more about that
later.
You should have lots of things to create
with.
You could have art curriculum, colors, pencils, markers,
scissors, glue sticks, chalk, not rubber cement.
That one's for you, Bridget.
Play-doh, paint, stamps, pencils, stickers, and the
pre-addressed envelopes that come in junk mail.
Don't throw them away.
Your little children love them.
My little children know that there's a drawer
with envelopes for them, and when they write
their letters and draw their pictures for their
friends, those are their envelopes, and they can
have as many as they want.
It doesn't matter.
I also have picture drawers where I collect
and throw pictures into, calendars, magazines, mail.
There's lots of great pictures come in junk
mail.
Story papers like Wee Lambs and Story Friends,
things like that.
Those are very good things to have lying
around for children to play with.
Not lying around, organized, but, you know, somewhere
for children to play with.
Equipment to learn with, things like magnifying glasses,
puzzles, measuring spoons and cups, threading beads, games,
workbooks, dot-to-dot books.
That teaches them to count almost without, I
don't know, they just learn to count really
well by using dot-to-dots.
Kindergarten curriculum, I'm going to talk about that
in a little bit, and word search puzzles.
She sits and does word search puzzles with
her grandma, and she got herself to the
place that she could recognize the small letter
and find the large letter.
Nobody taught her how to do that, just
working with grandma.
She became aware that there's a large A
and a small A, and that's been really
helpful to her.
She learned all the ABCs just by doing
word search puzzles and probably listening to what
goes on, too.
Toddlers love to do projects right along with
you and the other children.
They love to do dishes.
My first grader and four-year-old often
do the breakfast dishes because the rest of
us are getting started with other projects.
Another thing that you can do that's really
good for them is to have them brush
their teeth after every meal.
They love to brush their teeth, and that's
going to be so good for them in
years to come that they got that habit
established when they were tiny.
You can let them have little pieces of
dough, and they can make little mini pizzas,
or they can make sticky buns or pretzels,
and that will keep them occupied for a
long time.
They can dust.
No reason why a four-year-old can't
dust.
They can do exercises.
They can fold wash, put wash away.
They can dictate stories to somebody.
They love that, having their own storybook that
they write the stories.
They can do memory work right along with
your first grader.
There's no reason why the four-year-old
and the two-year-old and the six
-year-old can't all be learning the same
memory work, especially if you use big pictures
and motions and sing with them.
They really love that.
Simple science and social studies projects, I'll show
you some help for that in just a
little.
They like to put away groceries.
They can help you make snacks if you
have a simple recipe, and they love to
do that.
They can put away their own toys, as
Rachel said, and their own clothes.
If you have their drawers organized, there's no
reason why they can't put each different kind
of article of clothes on the right pile.
It might take a while, but they can
do it.
They love to go on field trips, and
they love to talk to you.
So those are some things that they like
to do right along with you.
Most of all, we need to teach character.
Rachel talked about this too.
If they won't sit still and listen during
family worship or at mealtime, they're not going
to sit still and listen to you when
you want to teach them something either.
So, attendedness is a character quality we can
teach our toddlers.
Obedience is a character quality we can teach.
If they don't obey us promptly, then that's
the first lesson we need to teach.
It seems like they need that lesson over
and over and over again.
Unselfishness.
Teach your toddlers that they can be unselfish
instead of arguing and tattling on the others.
And I already talked about orderliness.
And many character qualities you can pull from
your Sunday church service.
Review them through the week.
Put a display on your bulletin board.
Make that be your theme of the week.
You can use a memory verse at every
mealtime that came from the Sunday morning sermon.
Or you can use it as a word
of counsel at an opportune time.
If your preschooler is ready, you can start
teaching bits and pieces of kindergarten and get
an edge on first grade.
And I've been looking for a long time
for a really simple kindergarten curriculum, one that
you can just pick from.
And I think I've found it.
This is a very simple, simply laid out
book.
It's called Early Education at Home.
I found it at a curriculum fair in
a used book section.
I thought something told me that's a book
I want, but I thought I didn't have
the money for it.
And so I didn't come home with it.
And this thing just stirred in my mind
and stirred in my mind.
And I finally called the lady and said,
Can you send me a stack of books?
And I'd like to look at them.
Well, actually it turned out that she sent
me a stack of books.
So I have them along.
And I'm going to tell you what she
does with her children.
I have about 15 of them along.
So if any of you are really serious
about a real simple kindergarten program that you
can pick and choose from, I do have
some with me and I also have order
blanks for more.
So what she does is she teaches you
that children can be taught as you rise
and sit and walk and stand at home.
First of all, she lists skills that the
children, preschoolers, need to learn before they can
start, before they are ready to start first
grade.
They need motor skills, they need social skills,
they need language skills, cognitive skills, and mathematic
skills before they're ready to teach first grade.
And most of us just assume the children
are going to learn all this stuff, and
they do.
I mean, you know, I had how many
children start first grade so far?
Six or so.
And, you know, they do.
They learn all this stuff by osmosis.
But if you can put it in there
before first grade, just as you live your
day, you'll find that you really do have
a jump on the work that you have
to do in first grade.
She talks about scheduling.
She lists specific ideas for teaching them, letters
and numbers and shapes and colors if you
need it.
If you don't need it, you know, you
just fly over those pages.
But I had our oldest son didn't learn
colors until he got to first grade.
Colors didn't make sense to him.
He didn't care about it.
And so it would have been nice if
I would have taken some time and taught
him the colors before he embarrassed himself at
school and didn't know the difference between yellow
and green.
Anyway, what she does after she tells you
all these things that the children can learn
colors and shapes and those different things, then
she has a two-page spread for a
week's time.
It's all the more you have to do
for a whole week.
And she takes a letter of the alphabet
starting with A, and she also sticks colors
in and numbers and social studies, little social
studies things you can do with them and
science things you can do with them.
And she has books listed that you can
get from the library, but we found out
that it's just as much fun for the
little children to go to the library and
look for books with those numbers, those letters
in the titles.
And I make sure that they always pick
it as a first letter.
They can't, you know, if we're in Week
G, which we just were in, they can't
just have a G from again.
It has to be a G from the
beginning of the word, like grain or game
or something like that.
And we start a display on Monday.
That gives her something to do right away
Monday morning.
We start a display of all the books
in the library that are her size.
And she comes with Gulliver's Travels and something
like that.
I say, no, that's not your age.
Just get the small ones.
And then we make a display and anything
around the house that the other children see
that starts with whatever letter you're working on,
ask for flashlights.
And then they put those on the display
shelf.
And slowly through the week, you're building an
awareness in this child that G is the
letter of the week.
The lady that put this book together suggests
Bible stories that go with the letters.
She shows you how to teach character qualities,
and we're already doing character qualities as a
family, so I don't use those.
But she teaches you how to do that.
She also correlates the snacks for the children
with the letter of the alphabet.
So I got the idea to correlate activities.
So when we were doing A, we did
applesauce.
When we were doing E, we did exercises.
When we were doing G, we stressed games.
And I thought about it that this preschool
primer is really good for that because all
the activities are listed in alphabetical order.
So in week G, I turned to G
and thought, now what do you do that
starts with G?
So I looked.
There's not much in here with G.
But I thought, well, grooming, brushing teeth.
I'm trying to get them to brush their
teeth after meals.
So I taught grooming for G this week,
and that was her main activity of the
week.
And those of you that have this book
already, I would really be interested in hearing
what you've put in the empty pages because
with the next printing, I'd like to make
it larger.
And so if you have ideas, which I'm
sure you do, that aren't in the book,
I'd like to hear from you because I'd
like to make the book bigger if we
can.
The lady who wrote this book, Mrs. Stoecki,
encourages and suggests that you take them on
a field trip each week.
Now, you know, maybe you can, maybe you
can't.
But it was a good idea, and it's
worth thinking about.
I love the simplicity of her strategy, that
you just teach this while you're coming and
while you're going.
And so many times during the day, I'll
say to Charity, she's the one I'm working
with, I'll say something like, G says, what
as in girl?
And then she'll think around and she'll say,
good.
G says, what as in games?
And the answer is good.
On and on.
G says, what as in grapes?
Anything that you're working with, anything that you
see, ask the child, what does it say?
And in a week's time, it's no problem
to teach them a sound in a week's
time.
Verses can be memorized with that week's letter.
Like, be sure your sin will find you
out for week B.
Songs can be taught, like count your many
blessings for week C.
And the week that we, one of the
weeks that we were studying digging into dinosaurs
happened to be week D for Charity.
I think that was the week we had
you over for supper.
So her activity was, for that week, was
helping us get ready to dig into dinosaurs
for Andy.
And a thing that she came up with
on her own, and like I said before,
when you give your children just a little
bit of something to do, it makes them
more creative.
Well, one of the projects that she started
on her own was to write down the
words that she found around the house that
start with the letter.
So she's writing grape nuts and she's writing
graphic.
And one of them said, that's over your
head.
And it didn't matter.
She didn't care if it was over her
head or not.
She wrote graphic anyway.
And then all the ones that she could,
she drew pictures for.
And it got to be a family project.
People would come and draw her a picture
and then they would tell her how to
spell the word.
And so that was a real exciting step
to see her do that.
Another responsibility we have to our toddlers and
preschoolers is to honor the wishes of their
father.
Young children are very sensitive to broken relationships
or even fragile relationships.
Our two-year-old developed the startling habit
of screaming and crying out many times during
the night after we moved him into his
own room.
And we tried everything we could think of
to get him to stop this.
We prayed with him specifically about the problem.
I would lie on the floor in his
bedroom so he would be secure enough to
go to sleep.
And we would discipline him and nothing seemed
to help.
And I started hitting him and thinking he
has a real problem or something.
And my husband held out for being stern
and I held out for being stubborn.
And so this went back and forth for
weeks.
And eventually it started to get a little
better.
But the problem wasn't exactly solved.
And I was listening to a set of
tapes called Preparation for Parenting.
And on one of these, oh, I forgot
to tell you that in that time I
did end up punishing him too for survival.
I was running out of sleep and I
saw that the only thing I was going
to be able to do to get him
to listen to me was to punish him.
And so then Dave said, I was listening
to these tapes and there was a story
about a little girl that was a terror
during the day.
And she had always been a sweet little
girl before this.
But when she was about two, she became
a terror during the day.
And at night she couldn't sleep.
She just kept going into her parents' room,
going into her parents' room.
And they could not figure out what was
wrong.
And so the man that they counseled with
said, I think that you're going at this
thing the wrong way.
I think that when you come home from
work, instead of showering attention on this little
girl, shower attention on your wife.
And the man just kind of looked at
her and he said, try it.
So the next night when he came home
from work, he sat down with his wife
and talked with her.
And this old child came bouncing over.
You going to sit with him?
And he said, no, this is our time.
And, you know, like success stories are, in
a month the baby was sound asleep in
their bed all night.
Well, I don't know if that always works
for everybody, but I think the principle is
there that if the husband and wife do
not agree that babies and children are going
to play on that, I think he knew
that I was holding out for him.
And he still sometimes comes into our room
at night, but he's not distressed like he
was.
And the man who was speaking on the
tape said, he believes that children need assurance
that you're still together.
And so they come to your room at
night to see if you're together.
And if you can show them during the
day that you're together, they won't need to
travel at night to see if you're still
together.
We have a responsibility to pray for our
toddlers and preschoolers.
If any man lack wisdom, as Rachel already
said, let him ask of God who gives
to all men liberally and upbraideth not.
You have not because you ask not.
I believe that God gave us children to
help us see our need of him and
his grace every day.
So in closing, taking the time to include
your toddlers and preschoolers in your homeschool will
result in your being able to say instead
of, what do I do with these little
ones?
How can I ever do without them?
Because indeed these toddlers will grow up, and
if you have allowed them to work and
play and learn beside you and not push
them aside, they will be equipped by God's
grace to fulfill any calling he would put
on their lives.
And God bless you all.
What do we have?
Anybody have one right off for a starter?
I'll fill in wherever you don't because I'm
popping full of questions, but I want to
give you a chance.
Good.
The question
is this.
Is there a stage between tiny baby who
sleeps peacefully and nurses nicely and two-year
-old who can string beads and play with
Sue's rice tub or my oatmeal box, fan
box?
Is there a middle ground?
When do you think there is?
Ideally, no.
I would agree with that from my own
experience.
I would agree with that there sometimes is,
but if you get real creative.
But I think discipline is probably more the
key to it than anything else.
And I think that if you have your
hands tied, you're up against it.
But stern.
I mean, really, really, what's the word I
want to use?
It means all the time the same way.
Consistent.
Consistent discipline.
Loving but firm is the answer to that
problem.
I don't, there's just, you know, my Carol
is 10 months old and she's right now
at the place where she's learning to go.
But there are already things that she knows
that she may not have or she gets
her hand smacked.
And she'll go and she'll sit up there
and she'll look and she'll reach.
Mom, mom, reach.
Mom, mom.
And that means she's not allowed.
It's mama.
She can't have it.
And I will smack her hands if she
does it.
We will take her away.
But if she goes and gets it, we
smack her hands.
And it's amazing how fast they learn.
A hot serve.
What do you do about your hot serve?
Do you let them burn themselves?
No.
They either burn themselves once or else you
spank them so they don't.
And you see to it that they don't
run on the road.
But the toilets are kind of in between.
All this cupboard stuff, you know.
If you make guidelines and stick to it,
it gives you.
Correct thy son and he will give thee
rest.
The proverb writer says and that is true.
That's where we are.
But that is, you allow them.
She says pots and pans at her house
are okay.
But the toilet is not.
If you want to allow them pots and
pans, that's fine.
You know, I don't allow my pots and
pans because I can't handle that.
But she does and so that's great.
But no, it doesn't really matter as long
as it's okay every day.
He knows what his guidelines are.
But the toilet is never okay.
Jackie.
That's true.
The yellow one.
The child left himself.
Little one gets bored.
It's true.
Jackie's diversity there again.
And with older ones, it's easy for us.
The 13-year-old takes them out and
swings them.
Then about an hour later, the 10-year
-old reads them a story.
And we just keep doing that.
But what do you do if you're a
mom and you have little ones?
What do you do?
The 8-year-old still can help tremendously.
They can go and play blocks with him
for half an hour while you teach reading
to the 6-year-old.
It works.
Somebody else.
Okay.
For those of you who can't hear, she
kept his morning nap as long as she
could.
Did you get him up early?
Yes.
Of course.
She got him up early.
Then he went to sleep when you wanted
him to.
Okay.
I have some questions.
Go ahead.
And we do that, too.
And we just make our old ones get
up that much earlier.
And we get stuff done before the little
ones wake up at 6.30 or whenever.
So, you know, it works the same way.
It calls out the same.
Somebody else.
Okay.
I have a question.
I'd like to talk about something with older
children.
We talked about toddlers and babies.
I'd like to ask Joanne a question here
about teenagers.
How do you direct the way your teenagers
look at authority and the young people and
the activities that the 14s and the 13s
are thinking about doing?
What's your family ñ I mean, how do
you see parental guidance and other families interacting
with your family?
There's probably other older brothers.
I just don't know them all here.
Yeah.
Okay.
Our children want to do things with other
people's children.
And we have a certain way we respond
to that.
But I think it's good for us to
share with each other.
How do we establish guidelines in our family?
You know, that's
fine.
We'll get there.
Absolutely.
Well, I mean, this is great.
I'm satisfied.
People are however dependable.
I think that's right.
I think so.