Noah

So this story starts in Genesis 6 and goes through Genesis 9. For your kids though, I might shorten the scriptures read.
The following are scriptures I would consider reading or at least going over in the story of Noah. I would encourage you to read at least one scripture with your kids. Exposing them to the actual language in the Bible I feel will help them learn more. But for attention span purposes you may need to adjust how much you share. So I wrote the verses and what they cover and you can pick and choose what would work best for your kids. Ideally, you would read the whole thing when they are old enough to pay attention to it all.

Genesis 6:5- God sees the wickedness on Earth
Genesis 6:15-16 talks about the design of the ark (for any kids who are interested in making their own ark)
Genesis 6:17-22- a flood will come and destroy everything except Noah
Genesis 7:2-3- for older children I might read this because it talks about how to bring 7 of every clean beast and every fowl and two of every unclean beast. But it's much simpler to say he brought 2 of everything.
Genesis 7:17- it rained for 40 days [and 40 nights see verse 12]
Genesis 7:20- for any children who might be interested in how much flooding there was- it was 15 cubits deep and covered the mountains.
Genesis 8:8-12- Noah sends out the dove to see if the waters had abated. (verse 7 mentions that he also sent out a raven). If the floods covered the mountains then it would have covered the trees, so the dove would have nowhere to live either until the waters had subsided enough. I wonder (and I'll try to remember to do more research on it) if he sent out a dove because they make their nests in the lower branches of trees? Verses a hawk that will perch in the tallest of trees. This way a dove would find a home when the floods had lowered enough to expose the lowest branches of trees and would indicate that the ground would be exposed shortly after.
Genesis 8:20- says Noah built an altar and made an offering- the importance of this scripture is that he gave thanks to the Lord.
Genesis 9:11-16- God makes a promise to never completely flood the Earth again and gives the rainbow as a sign/reminder of this promise.

Activity Suggestions:

1. Draw a favorite animal.

2. Build an "ark" and see if it floats. For Boat Ideas Click Here.

3. Play in the water and look for rainbows (run through sprinklers but look for the rainbows, play with bubbles which have an iridescent/rainbow quality to them. or just draw some water, an ark, an animal and a rainbow).

The Creation

Always read the actual scriptures with your child. Even if it seems like it's above their level, it will increase their understanding and can bring up opportunities for you to teach more words.

I will be using the King James Version and The Creation correlates with Genesis 1 (Also similar is Moses 2 from the Pearl of Great Price- a book of scripture recognized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But in the following I used the Genesis account).

Day 1: Light and Darkness; Day and Night
Activity Suggestion: Take a bath with glow water. Shows something being light without a sun or stars or the moon.


Day 2: separated waters from the firmament. Firmament is called Heaven.(I don't know if I can accurately explain this one. I don't remember watching the Creation, so I believe in it, but I'm not afraid to admit that because of that, I'm not an expert the way God is.)

Day 3: Dry land (Earth and Seas), grass, herbs, fruits
Activity Suggestion: Make Sand

Day 4: Sun, Moon, stars and seasons
Activity Suggestion: look at a star chart and star gaze

Day 5: fowls, whales (birds and things in the sea)
Activity: Draw your favorite bird or sea creature

Day 6: cattle and beasts and creeping things and mankind
Activity: I would say draw your favorite animal but it was also the day mankind was created. I would read the following scripture without simplifying it and allow your kids to ask questions if they don't understand something.

Genesis 1:27-28, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

I feel this is a very important scripture. Maybe sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and help them understand that since we are made in the image of God, God also has eyes, ears, mouth and nose and what-not.

Day 7: Day of Rest
The End! Bedtime! Or you can relate this to the Sabbath Day.

Best Books

I will update this list from time to time. I will list my favorite books so far and some good things about it.

Transportation:
"Zoom, Zoom, Baby!" by Karen Katz- This book has flaps where you are trying to find the baby. It has a boat, a bus, a plane, a train, a truck and a car.

Colors:
"Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton- cute animals that wear different items in different colors. The first page reads, "Blue hat [elephant wearing a blue hat], green hat [moose wearing a green hat], red hat [bear wearing a red hat], oops [a turkey standing in a yellow hat]." It's fun with my 7 month old but I saw another Mom reading it to an older boy and he understood what "oops" meant and he would laugh and laugh.

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Eric Carle. I have a normal board book for this one but I've also seen a cute version where there are little windows that you can slide open on each page to see the next animal. It's kind of like a flap but likely much more durable. Make animal noises- it adds to the book.

Animals:
"Moo, Baa, La La La!" by Sandra Boynton- This goes over just a few animal noises. (I think you'll see that I'm a fan of a lot of Sandra Boynton books. I feel all of them have a small twist- like the oops or pigs saying 'la la la' instead of 'oink'.)

"Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman. I do animal sounds for each animal and my son loves it!

Eric Carle's "Animal Babies" with sound board. I love reading through this book. I read the page and then press the animal button and then try to mimic the sound. Once I got some plastic animals, I will usually also bring out a plastic animal that corresponds to the page (except we don't have animals for two of the pages).

Body Parts:
"Where is Baby's Belly Button?" by Karen Katz. A lift the flap book asking, where are baby's feet? Or hands? Or eyes? I make sure to point them out in the book and then on my child, and then sometimes I'll turn him around to face me and show him my eyes, or feet, or hands.

"Horns to Toes and In Between" by Sandra Boynton. Uses monsters to go over body parts with a cute rhyme. There are a few added body parts- like the monsters have horns and a tail, but mostly it's fun to go over the different body parts.

Bedtime:
First off, there's always fairy tales and a good favorite book is always good, but I'm going to mention a few of my favorites that are not only cute but also about going to bed.

"The Going to Bed Book" by Sandra Boynton- the animals are on a boat and go through a bedtime routine. This one, like her others, has a small twist as well.

"Twinkle, Twinkle, I Love You"- by Steve Metzger and Estelle Corke. This book is a compilation of short rhymes starting with "Twinkle, twinkle...." one page has "Twinkle twinkle precious dear" another "Twinkle, twinkle, little one" and has cute little pictures to go with it. At the end of the book there is a double page with just stars and I sing, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and my DS loves it.

ABC 's:
1. Mr. Doodle: C is for City- s pencil stock man takes you through the alphabet. Most of it is in black and white except for things that start with the featured letter. For A it is: A is for art. But the art is of an apple. On every page there is one thing mentioned and pictured in color and one thing not mentioned, but in color that also starts with that letter. They get points for their 'x' as well. It's not xylophone or x-ray or x-ray fish. The last page helps you recognize the other things on the page.

Other ABC books:
A Sandra Boynton one.
Zoo born Babies: I liked this one. There's a short sentence or two on each animal (and photo credits from various zoos at the end). I was only disappointed in 'z is for zooborns". Hello? Zebra is a zoo animal that starts with z. They do have a photo of a zebra on the last page though, so slightly better.

Counting:
Poptronic Old Macdonald Had a Farm. This one I love. I sing the song, we count the animals and is interactive in that you "pop" each animal when you count it (no counting anything twice). My son is 7 months old and starting to catch on. He can't pop the buttons on each animal without help yet though.

Teach your baby to swim

"How to teach your baby to swim: from birth to age 6" by Douglas doman. I read this book and really liked many of the points and suggestions. So as not to invalidate the book, I'm not going to comment on every aspect of it but more my general thoughts and how I have started to apply the concepts.

First off, babies have been floating in your (assuming you're the biological mom, if not then floating in someone else's) belly for 9 months, therefore the concept of floating in water is not new to them but the need to keep airways open is new. Your baby is not going to be swimming as soon as he/she is born but there are things you can do.

1. Priority number one is to make sure your baby enjoys being in the water. Make sure your baby is fed before taking a bath. I would suggest taking a bath with your child at least some of the time, this allows for snuggling in the water, which makes then feel loved and secure. The book offers suggestions for games you can play and things to help your baby enjoy the water.

2. The second point I care about has to do with development. There are studies that tell us adults that exercising in water is easier on our joints. We also feel lighter in water and can "defy" gravity when we float (once we learn how). For the same reasons this is an ideal place to help baby exercise and strengthen his muscles. When my first son was born we would take him in the bath (after the umbilical cited fell off). We taught him to float by holding one hand begins his head and neck and the other under his back. Gradually (over weeks), we no longer had to hold him under his back. He had learned to strengthen his abs and keep his body up. However, he liked to push back on his head so that hands had to stay and still does. But over time we were able to hold him with just a few fingers. He loved when we would move him around in the water and he loved wiggling his head from side to side (not a yes or a no movement).

We also would have him "kick". We'd put his legs against the wall of the tub and say, "one, two, three kick". The book says to always use the same language so it's easier to learn what's coming. We had to use our hands on his legs and help then push against the wall the first few times. But then we would reward him by floating him around the tub, slowly or quickly depending on how strong his kick was. This strengthened his legs.

We practiced sitting in the tub. We practice standing and walking. Unfortunately crawling would mean he would be face down towards the water, so we DO NOT practice crawling in the tub.

The Doman book gives other ideas, as far as how to use certain natural responses to teach things. Like at a certain age they automatically close their hand when something is pressed into the palm. It tells how to teach your child to use this instinct to eventually transfer into holding onto the edge of a pool. It teaches exercises to teach your child to hold their breath and a lot more.

It emphasizes routine so your baby knows what to expect and making sure your baby loves the water. It is always easier to learn something you enjoy rather than something you hate.

Our son is big for his age. There are some things that he is advanced at and others just average. The doctor was surprised when I told him he was already rolling. (Granted it was an average time, but I guess bigger babies that have to move more weight usually are behind. ) My son is 6 months and unfortunately not crawling (though that may happen soon) but he is awesome at sitting and can almost pull himself up to a standing position and loves walking while holding my hands. As far as sitting and rolling goes, I thought he was just average, but I guess for his size and age he is advanced. As for pulling himself up (or almost pulling himself up) and walking with help I feel he is advanced and both of these I attribute to our bath time.

We don't float as much, since he wants to sit or stand so I don't know if he'll actually learn how to swim early but this book has definitely helped us in other ways.

Teaching Animals

Glenn Doman has a book called "How to Give Your Child Encyclopedic Knowledge". While I have not read this book I think I understand the general concept. Since Doman believes our children are inherently smart, he believes we can start teaching them things that are "beyond their level" according to normal standards. With this in mind, I'm going to relate an experiment I have started with my Son.

Things you might need:
A book of animals- I really like, and would suggest "National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Animals".
A set of toy animals- I suggest Fisher-price animals because they have round, smooth edges and they're big enough that they don't cause a choking hazard for my son.
Youtube

A baby's attention span isn't always very long so I usually only did one or two animals a day. I loved the pictures in the National Geographic book and my son seemed to really like them as well. One caution with this book- it is not a board book. This means that you should always be there with him and doing your best to protect the pages until he learns how to treat books nicely and without eating them or ripping them. Anyways, I didn't read all the statistics for the animal but I would read most of what was on the page. Then I would find a youtube video to watch. This should be a short clip and should be watched with your child, pointing out the animals and trying to mimic the sounds (just do the best you can- even if it's awful, your child will find it amusing and will start to learn which of your animal sounds belongs with each animal). There were sometimes when I couldn't find one for the specific frog (or something else) in the book, so I just did frogs in general. Videos where it shows the animal making sounds or babies playing seemed to be a hit. My son really liked a polar bear clip I found and a lion clip I found. (I will attach a link for what I've found later). Then with the set of plastic animals- I bring them out when I can. I don't have a toy animal for every animal we encounter but when I do, I bring it out and let my son feel it, touch it, look at it and eat it.

As I read other books like "Where's Spot?" or "Animal Babies" (by Eric Carle- get the one with sound), I try to use as many plastic animals as I have with it. "Animal Babies" has become a favorite. I'll read the page and press the sound button. It will make a noise and then I try to mimic it and I play with the toy animal when available.

Eventually add in a field trip to a local zoo. I took my son for the first time before he was 6 months old. He liked the zoo, but he seemed equally in awe of the fences, the wooden railings, the local birds (not in the zoo) as the animals themselves. I would suggest not paying to go to the zoo until your child knows how to follow your finger when you point to something- it will lead to better interaction with your child. Before then, just go to a park and tell him what any animals you see are.

We have a giraffe that has taggies on it as well as a wooden ring, then we have the Sophie giraffe toy, and a plastic Fisher-price giraffe. Needless to say, I think we have more giraffe toys than any other animal. But it was fun for me to see my son interact with a book. I started reading "Rumble in the Jungle" and when I turned to the giraffe page my son excitedly lifted up his hands and leaned forward and brought them down on the giraffe- kind of like, "I found it!" (He's now 6 months old).

Anyways, try to use different mediums to teach and show the same thing: I'm always a fan of books, something physical you can touch and I like video clips. Get out in real life when you can too. We had a book that had Canadian geese in it. I happened to have the book with me and the pond near our house happened to have some Canadian geese. So we took a walk to see the geese. I pointed to the book, saying 'geese' and then pointed to the real birds and we got to watch them for a short while.

Intentional Parenting

I'm the oldest of six kids. I have babysat and I have been a nanny. I'm now a new mother and I want to be the best Mom I can. I am a stay at home mom (SAHM) and hope to stay that way. Staying at home is not for everyone, there are various reasons to not stay at home. Some of my ideas may not work well for those who are not in the home full time, but I will try to adapt my ideas for everyone. I recently heard the following quote and loved it!  "No other work transcends that of righteous, intentional patenting." (Elder Russell M Nelson, one of the 12 apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sunday afternoon session of General Conference, April 2015) It does not say how much time that patenting takes and for any who may not be religious, the point is, there is nothing more important than intentional patenting. However much time you have- a few minutes, an hour or all day with your kid(s), what matters is the moments where you are actively being a parent.

With this comes a need to show our children that we love them-no matter what. We need to teach them, and listen to them so we can help them through anything they may be struggling with.

This brings me to what inspired this blog. I have been reading books about teaching your baby math or how to swim or activities to do with your baby. It has made me feel like there are two main approaches to teaching our kids. The first is to treat them like they don't know anything- which they don't really know that much- that's why we teach them; the second assumes that they are very intelligent. Now, today I feel more people assume their children are very smart- which they are, and just because an approach is simple, doesn't mean it assumes your child doesn't know anything. Take for example, the Baby Einstein videos- they usually have a solid background and one toy to focus on. This isn't because babies are dumb but because their eyes are still developing and it's helping them learn to focus. I've been reading a lot from Glen Doman and I agree with a lot of what he has to say. But even he (when talking about teaching your baby math) suggests starting with large white cards and simple red dots- because it's easier for baby to see and focus on. The contrast is what a baby sees best at first.

Glen Doman brings up how intelligent children are. The average child learns both how to make sounds, form specific sounds and speak a foreign language(any language is foreign to an infant) by the time they're two. They learn to roll, scoot, crawl and walk. They learn to mimic us and do many things and they start from scratch. Babies and children are truly amazing! But we can guide them. One of the purposes of this blog is to document my experiments. I have experimented with my siblings and when babysitting and nannying, but I am still trying new things with my son. I will share some of the things I do as I continue to train. I plan on being a Mom who teaches my child (I don't think I'll homeschool but I'll supplement my child's learning). But since I have no degree in Teaching or Early Childhood Education I will write about my attempts to be a teaching Mom.