What Makes Me Scared?

Honestly, when I read the title for this days topic, I wasn't quite sure what to think.  After all, we don't want to dwell on scary things.  But really, I think it was a good conversation to have with my little guys.  Mother Goose Time did a good job of discussing it delicately.

The first question of the day was, what makes you feel scared?  Lachlan said Monsters.  Really I think it's the dark because sometimes when the lights are off in the hallway at night and he is heading that way to use the restroom, he will say "ah, monsters!"  Then he flips on the light and runs back to the living room waiting until the coast is clear to go back.  We try to explain to him that there are no monsters, but I think this is just kind of a kid thing isn't it?  Has there ever been a kid with out fear of monsters?

The Opening Song worked beautifully with what Lachlan named as his fear.  It was sung to the tune of "Frere Jaccques."

I am scared.  I am scared
(Make a scared face.)

Of the dark, of the dark.
(Put hands on cheeks.)

My family makes me feel safe.
My family makes me feel safe.
(Hug self and twist.)

Now, I'm not scared. I'm not scared!
(Hands on hips.)

We sang this a few times through.

Next was a brand new matching game.  My boys love matching games.  This set had faces showing different emotions on them.  I love when we learn about and name emotions.  I think a lot of the frustration and fits kids get into are from lack of understanding what they are feeling.

See, they couldn't keep there little hands off of them.

I now have these rubber-banded together and in my purse.  They are so great to have when sitting at a restaurant waiting for food.  You can choose a few pairs only, to make small game, or if you have room use them all for a big game.  Since Peter loves this game, even at 2.5 years old, he will sit still and play.  Yay!

MGT sent us a Participation Story for today about A Scary Giant.  First we asked, who helps you when you feel scared? This starts the process.  Then we read the story.  This story came with little cut outs of a bird, cat and turtle.  I gave each child one of the animals.  When we read through the story each child had instructions based on which animal they had.  So this poor Giant was trying to make friends, but he kept scaring them away.  Two children came upon him when he was crying they asked what they could do to help.  First he asked them to help him be a turtle, he asked them to build him a turtle shell so he could hide inside.  Then he asked them to help him be a cat by helping him build a tail.  Lastly he asked them to help him be a bird by building him a nest.  We had our bucket of Lego Duplos out and each child was to get to work building.  Even though they each had different animals all of them wanted to build the nest.  I was okay with that.  

These are their nests. :)  Maybe it's a tree, with a little nest at the top.  I was not about to point out that they look nothing like a nest.  They were so proud.

At the end of the story the Giant is sad that none of his ideas worked.  Then the children pointed out to him, that all along while they were helping him build these things they were playing with him and they were not scared of him.  So what the Giant wanted, friends to play with, had come true. 

Part 2 of Day 7 was done the next day.  We started with a science experiment that needed white flowers.  We happened to have some out front but I wasn't able to get out there the first day to cut some.  So I snuck out in the early morning and cut three flowers.  One for each of the kids.  For this experiment we were to talk about clean water verses dirty water and start the conversation with, would you be scared to drink dirty water?

I talked to them about what clean water looks like.  It's clear, you can see through it.  Then we talked about what dirty water looks like.  Muddy. 

I got all the flowers set up in their own glass with the three food coloring colors set out.

I let them each choose a color.  Lachlan chose green, Peter chose yellow and Lucy chose red.  We put the drops in and watched as the water turned "dirty" and changed colors.  I asked them what they thought might happen to the flowers when they drink dirty water.  They weren't quite sure.  So we put them up on the mantel, safe and out of reach and went about our day.  A few hours later when we returned to check the green color was really absorbing and the edges of all the peddles were turning green.  I picked Lachlan upped and showed him.  It drank up the green water and turned the peddles green, I told him.  The yellow showed up some too but the red didn't as much, which is interesting.  I left them there for another day or so but they began to shrivel up.  They really didn't get anymore color than they had in these pictures. 

At breakfast on this day I wanted to complete the last lesson from our month on Noah.  It was a lesson on how God provides.  We were instructed to pack up a suitcase and place odds and ends in there.  Have the kids pull out something and talk about whether or not Noah would have needed to have it on the Ark. 

I have had this little suitcase since I was a little girl.  Perfect for this lesson.  I filled it with all sorts of odds and ends.  Turns out most of the items we could think of something Noah could use them for.

For instance, of course Noah would need a toothbrush.  Not sure if they used them back then.  But I wasn't going to tell Lachlan that I didn't think Noah brushed his teeth.  That probably would be the only think he would remember about Noah if I did. I threw a hand towel in there and Lachlan was so excited to say Noah could use the towel to wipe up all the rain.  I put in toilet paper, a musical instrument, a sling shot and a banana.  Those are a few I can remember.  Noah would probably want some music while living on the Ark for that long, toilet paper of course he would need and I told Lachlan they used sling shots a long time ago for protection.  I should have come up with something more obscure like Buzz Lightyear, of course Noah would have wanted toys while in the Ark for so long, wouldn't he? 

The idea of course is to talk about how God provided everything Noah needed and that God provides for us all we need.  Pretty fun way to start our day. 

Lastly we did the Scared Silly craft.  But I didn't get any pictures.  It was a cute silly face with tall hair.  We flipped it upside down and cut his hair fringe cutting to give him hair sticking straight up.  A good idea I think could be easy recreated.  You could just draw a silly face on a piece of paper and let your little one cut away to give him funny hair.  We might have to do this again.