Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone!  I have not one lick of Irish in me, but green is my favorite color, and I love the story of the real Saint Patrick, so let’s celebrate!

First of all, you need to know the story of the real Saint Patrick.  I’m sad to say I did not know a thing until I watched Lutfi’s Fanciful Flannelgraph from the VeggieTales – Sumo Of The Opera DVD.  I love Lufti and his little flannelgraph – you need to see this!  It gives you a nice synopsis of Saint Patrick’s story in about 5 entertaining minutes that you and your kids will love!

Once you see it, go grab some paint and some potatoes, because we’re going to make shamrock potato stamps that will help illustrate the Trinity for our children – the same way Saint Patrick used shamrocks to illustrate the Trinity to the Irish.

Using a pencil, outline a shamrock shape (3 leaves only for the illustration!  a 4 leaf clover won’t do!) onto half of a cut potato.  Then use a paring knife to carefully carve away the outline – I only cut about a quarter of an inch away below the design, and it was plenty.  Give the kids some paper, some paint, and let them stamp away.

Did you know that Saint Patrick used to be associated with the color blue?  Since blue’s a favorite in our house, we used it as well as the traditional green.

As the boys stamped, I sang a simple little song that I remember from way back – sung to the tune of “Are You Sleeping”/”Frere Jacques”:

By the time we finished stamping, Elias was singing along with me.  I used the shamrock to show him how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three different things, like the leaves on the shamrock, but they are all a part of the one God, like the whole shamrock.

What a wonderful example Saint Patrick has given us – not only the illustration of the shamrock for the Trinity, but also of his heart for those who do not know the Lord!  I pray that we all might follow his example.

How about you – are you and your kids doing anything fun this Saint Patrick’s Day?

Disclaimer:  I am a part of Amazon.com’s affiliate program, so if you purchase items from Amazon.comthrough the links in this post, I will receive a small affiliate payment at no additional cost to you.

Submitted to We are THAT Family’s Work For Me Wednesday!

Did you enjoy this post? We'd love for you to receive our blog as email updates. Or if you use a feed reader, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. Then you won't miss a post. Thanks for visiting!

God wants us to be Nature Lovers, enjoying His creation. Genesis 1:25 is in the middle of the creation story, and it says, “God made all kinds of wild animals and livestock.  He made all kinds of animals that move along the ground.  And God saw that it was good.”

Of course He wants us to love nature!  And who wouldn’t be a nature lover?  His creation is amazing – full of beauty and splendor, power and mystery.  When I saw this on the Christian Characteristic Traits list that we’re working through, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Except… I have a hard time loving nature at times (late summer comes to mind).  And spring is actually my least favorite time in nature right now.  Isn’t that backwards?  The entire world is bursting forth with new life and beauty, and I prefer to drive through it with my windows up tight.  Because spring in our house = asthma.  All of that yellow pollen swirling around and… pollenating… things causes allergic reactions in my son and brings on weeks of asthma-related breathing problems.

So even setting aside my aversion to all things buggy and my intense dislike of heat, I still want to hole up in my house during the most glorious time of the year to be out in nature.  We are working on some different things that could help change that for us this year, but how do I instill a love of nature in my children when we can’t be outside?

We bring the outside in.  Meet Winnie.

A little duck-thingie purchased on rock-bottom sale in the middle of deep winter – is bringing some of the outside in… cultivating a love of growing things (I hope!)… getting us excited for a spring we may or may not be able to spend a lot of time enjoying outside.  But even if we learn about God’s creation from the “safety” of our pollen-free home, we are still learning to love it and take care of it.

You can make a little grass-seed-head yourself with some potting soil, grass seeds, and some old pantyhose.  Beak and googly eyes are optional.  Place seeds in a portion of pantyhose and cover with soil, tying the  pantyhose shut with a knot.  Leave a length of the pantyhose attached under the knot, to help wick water up into your grass-head-thingy.  The place where the seeds are will become the top of the head of your… creature. Soak the ball of dirt and seeds in a cup of water until soaked through, and place in a small cup/vase of water with the wick-end down, grass seed end up.  Cover for a week with a plastic container (helps create humidity and warmth so seeds will germinate and start to grow).  Peeking is allowed during this time, but be sure to keep it covered when the peeking is done.

In about a week, you will see your first grassy hairs poking through.  And in another week… well, you’ll get something like this:

Poor Winnie, with the sparse hair.  I think he’s the only duck out there with a uni-brow (see the single blade of grass growing up between his eyes?).  Elias and Donovan will be able to give him a hair cut soon, just to get the ends evened up, I think.  He still needs some time to grow and fill in before we do any big styling changes.

So even if weather (the never-ending winter!) or allergies won’t let you outside to enjoy nature, you can bring a bit of God’s creation in to your kids.

Please share… do you have any special ways to help your kids learn to love nature without leaving your house?

I subscribe to Family Fun magazine. And love it. I read each page with oh-my-goodness-why-didn’t-i-think-of-that and always say, “We are SO going to do that.” And then we never do. So. I have decided to challenge myself to do at least one craft or activity from Family Fun every month.

Today we made this adorable Curly Bird. I wouldn’t say it was exactly a quick craft as we had to measure each piece of paper before we rolled it. But it turned out so cute that Lydia has been making nests and food for her new little pet. She wants to make a whole flock.

Plus, our little curly bird is a good reminder that God has his eye on the tiny sparrow and each one of us, too!

“Aren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? But not one of them falls to the ground without your Father knowing it.  He even counts every hair on your head! So don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31

PS: Don’t forget about our Alphabet Crafts ebook giveaway!!

When I first started Impress Your Kids it was because of a little blog I found called No Time For Flashcards. When I say little, of course, I mean HUGE and AMAZING. Allison, the author is an amazingly creative insightful mama who uses crafts to teach her son the alphabet and more. I got to meet and chat with Allison at Blissdom and fell even more in love with her!

This week Allie released her first ebook: Alphabet Crafts.

Don’t you love it already? Each letter has it’s own craft that kinda reminds me of The Letter People. (Remember them?) Each craft is made out of EASY materials, nothing crazy you need to buy or learn to use. (This is important to me. I am not as crafty as I look…)

Lydia and I looked at every single craft and she decided we needed to do the V vase.

Is that the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?! Lydia had such a fun time. We talked about colors, “v” words, our “v” verse, flowers, long and short stems and more! Every letter in the book is like this: a really great craft that shows the sound, the word and the letter.

You can get your own copy of Alphabet Crafts for a mere $8 by going to No Tme For Flash Cards. {Please do! You will love it!} Or you can win one here! Allie has generously offered up a copy for one of our readers! If you’d like to win a copy of Alphabet Crafts…

Leave a comment telling me a descriptive word starting with the first letter of your name (ie. Amazing Amanda!)

If you’d like an additional entry, leave a separate comment if you:

1. Subscribe (or be a subscriber) to Impress Your Kids.

2. Tweet the following: I wanna win @NoFlashCards’ new “Alphabet Crafts” ebook from @impressyourkids! http://wp.me/pw8ov-H4

3. Share this post on your facebook/tumblr/blog/sampler.

I’ll announce the winner on our fyi@iyk post this Saturday! Thanks again to Allison from No Time For Flash Cards. Please read her blog, follow her on twitter–you’ll love her, I promise!

No disclosure necessary because I bought my own Alphabet Crafts ebook. I asked Allison if she would like to give one away on our blog. I just wanted to spread the love for her!

We made it! We got to the final Fruit of the Spirit! I can’t believe it. Next time I do a “unit”, I’m going to try to keep it under half a year! Sheesh.

As we’ve gone through this unit, I usually picked the fruit we’d focus on based on what was going on in our lives. That’s why self-control was first, we needed that most. Goodness seemed a little similar to the other fruits (kindness, love, etc.) so it became the last fruit I looked at. Therefore, it had no choice but to be lined up with a LIME, our very last scratch-and-sniff fruit! I could find no correlation for a lime=goodness. So, we’ll leave it at that.

SCRIPTURE

I picked a verse we already partially memorized around Halloween:

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

I never want to focus on good deeds because I know it’s easy to get in the mindset that good deeds is what brings you to Jesus, or makes you worthy of His love. Jesus’ love is unconditional, He saved us because He loves us. Period.

Anyway, we’ve done lots of light crafts (including a Christian t-shirt!) so after we had read the verse I was kinda bummed that I chose it because I couldn’t think of anything cool to do with the verse. You can only draw so many sunshines and use glitter so many times.

We finally settled on a sun catcher. And suddenly this seemed brilliant to me. Here we are in the middle of winter, a normally drab and dark time. Hanging a sun catcher up in the window wouldn’t BRING us any light–only make us appreciate it and add some color to our day. What a great picture of what our GOODNESS can do for others—we are NOT The Light nor do our good deeds actually make anything happen BUT they do make others aware of  The Light. Our good deeds bring attention and color to a normally dark and drab world of sin!

I’m pretty sure Lydia didn’t get the nuances of our sun catcher craft, but it has been especially significant to me. I want Lydia and Asa to see my good deeds (cooking, cleaning, loving my husband, being patient with them) and when they do that it would make them aware of Jesus and His Light—that it would lead them to praise and follow their Father in Heaven.

CRAFT

It honestly is not as pretty as the original version that I found online (as usual), so I’ll just leave you with a few pictures and links to sun catchers.

This is actually the one we made. All you need is tissue paper and a clear plastic top (which we didn’t have, so I used a disposable plastic container). We made ours in the shape of heart and a candle. You know, obvious reference to Matthew 5:16. Oh, and we used lime green tissue paper, of course. (see complete instructions at Making Friends.)

I love this one with the pressed flowers. I guess it would be kind of hard to do in the middle of winter, but even some pinestraw and a few dried leaves might be pretty! Plus, you could do any shape as the frame! (Complete instructions at Great Ideas For Mom.)

This suncatcher from Family Fun is really the one I wanted to make. Isn’t it lovely? We just didn’t have any translucent beads in the house. Copper wire we had, but beads? Nope.

And how could we forget about my icy sun catcher? Always a crowd pleaser!

Wouldn’t it be fun to make all of these and line your winter-y windows with them?!

lime photo by darwin bell

Being housebound because of snow and sickness makes me a bit stir-crazy, but it also helps me get a bit creative.  I had seen these cool dry erase calendars online for a while (like this one and my other inspiration one that I cannot find a link to), but because I thought I didn’t have any spare frames around, I wasn’t planning on making one any time soon.  But then I remembered… in my life before kids (actually, before marriage), I was an opera singer and a voice teacher, and I had three huge opera prints framed for my voice studio.  Luckily, they were stored in my parents’ attic and were still in great shape!  I dug them out and went to work…

The frames themselves are 20″x28″ wood frames painted black – and instead of glass, they have plexiglass, which makes the frames nice and lightweight!  To make our family calendar, I used a piece of foam board that I got at Michael’s (2 for $2.50!), a ruler, a pencil, a permanent marker, and scrapbooking stickers.  Other tutorials that I saw online told you to draw with permanent marker directly on the glass in reverse and use vinyl cut-out stickers in reverse, too.  However, the thought of drawing on the glass (plexiglass, in my case) seemed a bit too permanent, and I don’t do well in reverse, period.  I also did not have the extra money or time to get vinyl cut-out stickers of what I wanted to put on my calendar, so I used what I had on hand.

And the scrapbooking stickers I had on hand?  A little secret – they were pink and purple! yes!  I don’t typically get a chance to use pink and purple stickers in my scrapbooks because of my boys, so I had all these extras left over, and I just went over them with a coat of black acrylic paint.  It made them all dry and crackly, and I would not recommend doing that to stickers that are going to be touched in a scrapbook or anywhere else, but because these are under a sheet of plexiglass, they are absolutely good to go!

So, as I said, I had 2 inspiration calendars to go from: this one and one that I cannot find the link to.  I loved the calendar part of the first one, and the second one did not have a monthly calendar part to it – it just had a weekly calendar and places for lists and chores and menus, etc. (does anyone remember seeing that as well?  I even remember it was in a red frame, but I cannot find a link anywhere!  if you remember it, let me know, and I’ll link to it!).  I loved the looks of both of them, and because my frame was so large, I could combine the two!

Here are some close ups for you:

The Bible verse is not done in stickers… it is in my scribbly handwriting – the neatest I could get it.  That is in permanent marker, directly on the foam board.  And it’s verse that was shared on in our wedding (from Colossians 3:12-17), so it has always had special meaning to us.

All of the other handwritten stuff (month, dates, lists, etc.) are on top of the plexiglass and are easily erased with a bit of water and cloth… You can definitely use dry erase markers on here, but with little hands smudging everything in the house these days, I’m using wet erase markers for a bit more permanence.  But not too much – because at the end of the month, I just wet it all down, wipe it all away, and start fresh!

And I’m sorry I didn’t clean up the “Chores” area before I took some pictures.  It’s been smeared for a couple days, and I think it was a little wet hand that did it…  The boys like seeing their chores up on the calendar, and we also put our memory verse in the “Remember” box.  I can see me doing much more with the “To Do” and “Chores” boxes as the kids grow up and can actually read.

Our new family calendar is hanging on the door that goes from our kitchen into the laundry room/pantry, so it gets used ALL the time (but it gets terrible lighting- sorry about the dark pictures).

I used these nifty Command Picture Hanging Strips from 3M – very cool! 6 sets total – one each on top and bottom, and two on each side!  No nail holes in my hollow-core door… completely removable and repositionable if I wanted to move it to a different place.

This is so easy to do with whatever you have on hand – small frame, large frame, calendar, fabric… Look at these other ones here, here, here, and here, and I know there are more out there.  Try it with a small frame and some pretty paper and use it for your memory verse or to leave love notes for your family on it!

I’m linking this up to Kimba’s DIY Day…

Exhort: to incite by argument or advice : urge strongly : to give warnings or advice : make urgent appeals.

If you were to start a new series on your blog that you would hope to use to encourage yourself and others, I would exhort you to start with a simple word or idea – I do not recommend starting with teaching a 4 year old and a 2 year old about exhortation.

… let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24). As parents, we are continually exhorting our children – encouraging, urging forward, teaching our little ones how to love and do good deeds.  Even if we don’t think we are exhorting, we are – I think it’s a natural part of teaching those we love.  We love them, and we want them to love and to do well and to do good things, so we exhort!

Teaching our little ones to be exhorters themselves can be difficult.  I think Elias has a gift of encouragement – he is always telling people how well they are doing and exclaiming over their abilities/attempts/activities.  But I think the natural self, even if gifted with encouragement, has a hard time exhorting.  I mentioned last time how Elias encourages Donovan towards trouble instead of away… wanting to do “fun” things that are not allowed (jumping on beds, throwing balls in the house, etc.), so he delights in Donovan’s lack of self control as he does those things Elias knows he shouldn’t.  Tattling is also a part of this…  when a child comes to “tattle” on another, he is missing his chance to exhort the other to do good.

We have punished Elias for egging his little brother on and for tattling, but we have not exhorted him to exhort Donovan on to good deeds.  That has been our first step.  I think I will also be making a chart (see Amanda’s posts here and here) to help him see when he has the chance to exhort to good deeds or disobedience.

And after starting off with a quiet bang, we quickly fizzled out on exhortation crafts.  That’s OK, though.  Mulling over it for a while and continuing to talk to the boys about it has helped me to come up with something that I think is really fun, and we’ll add to it with each character trait we study…

Introducing “God Wants Me To Be… a book about Christian character traits,” by Elias and Donovan!

I cut out a LOT of pictures of people from magazines, and with each trait we work on, we will copy the trait, definition, and Bible verse into our book, and the boys will select what picture(s) they think illustrate the character trait.

Here is a picture of a little girl telling her friend how to love and do good deeds!

At the end of The List we will have a book of 51 verses that tell us how God wants us to be.  These are similar to the other verse “posters” we’ve made in the past, and I’ve wanted to bind them all up into a “book,” too – perhaps we’ll have a couple of volumes of verses that the boys will be able to look back upon for years to come.

What do you think about your role as exhorter?  How do you help your children encourage others?

Remember the Fruit of the Spirit series Lydia and I did? Well, you may have forgotten it because Christmas kinda took over and now I’m just turning back to it. Don’t hold it against me, ok?!

With all the discipline and behavior issues we’ve had lately, this Fruit of the Spirit really stuck out to me this week: GENTLENESS. I need it. She needs it. Our household needs it.

SCRIPTURE

The first verse that comes to mind (and was our “A” verse) is Proverbs 15: 1, “A gentle answer turns anger away.” Today would have been a perfect time for Lydia to test this verse out as I was pretty angry with her behavior most of the day. Alas, it’s me who had to practice this verse so I could set the gentle example. (Not sure if I did it…)

As I looked through the verses about gentleness, it was encouraging because most of them were referring to Jesus. Or encouraging us to be gentle like Him. Isn’t it lovely to think about Jesus as gentle? Sometimes its easy to fall into that Zeus-like god image where Jesus/God is sitting there impatient, disappointed and ready to knock our heads together. I love thinking about Jesus as the gentle Good Shepherd instead. What a model to emulate!

The verse I ended up choosing is found in 1 Peter 3:3-4. It is the perfect verse for my girly girl:

Braiding your hair doesn’t make you beautiful. Wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes doesn’t make you beautiful. Instead, your beauty comes from inside you. It is the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Beauty like that doesn’t fade away. God places great value on it.

Lydia was amazed that braids are in the Bible. And gold jewelry! She had it 90% memorized after reading it three times. I kid you not. Every time she learns a new verse I feel bad for not teaching her more—she’s a sponge!

ACTIVITY

I chose grapes to represent gentleness. Basically because a lime and grapes is all that’s left from our scratch-n-sniff fruit basket. So, we made the coolest grape craft after dinner tonight. I found it at Danielle’s Place (a great site–especially if you teach kids at church!)

All you need is a funnel, flour, one balloon and a little scrap of green craft foam. Use the funnel to fill the balloon. Then tie. Add a little leaf to the top (cut or punch a hole and pull the knot through). Now you’ve got your own fruity stressball! Isn’t it cute?

We talked about how soft and nice it was to squeeze her new “Gentle Grape”. She loves it and decided she is going to carry it “EVERYWHERE WE GO TOMORROW!” I hope she carries some gentleness, too. My heart AND hers are in need of some gentleness.

photo by lanier67

My friend Christine from Dates to Diapers is challenging herself to make a craft every day this week with her kids. (And this is quite a feat considering she has six kids and she homeschools and runs a hugely popular blog!) To help her out, I’m guest posting about a fun winter craft Lydia and I did this week. Your kids will love it. We have the dyed fingers to prove it!

Check it out and if you don’t already read Chrsitine’s blog make sure you click and get to know her. She’s fantastic!

Lydia’s 4th birthday was last week. My husband took most of the day off so we celebrated by goign to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. (If you live in Atlanta, you must be a fan of theirs on facebook. They run deals every once in awhile–so for Lydia’s birthday we got in for $5 instead of $16!!)

We wanted to take her to the Center for Puppetry Arts because I had already planned that her birthday party with friends and family would be a Puppet Party! (<—click there to read all about it on my personal blog!) It was so amazingly fun. One of the biggest parts of the party was the puppet craft–we made a Rod & Stick puppet. And I stole…I mean was inspired by the Center for Puppetry Art’s Make-a-Puppet Workshop!

The puppets turned out so cute, I thought I’d do a more detailed description here! These would be perfect for any occasion–you can decorate them to look like anything or anyone! Plus your kids will play with this puppet forever!

I cut the body out of posterboard. This is much better than construction paper because it’s more sturdy.

Then two arms: one solid and one in two sections. The sectioned arms should have holes punched in each end. Then once you attach them to the puppet’s shoulder with brads, you’ll have a moving arm!

We cut out the head and hands from brown paper but any material would do. I think adding the brown face and hands makes it more fun to decorate—and adds some contrast to the body.

We used all kinds of things to decorate the puppet—craft foam, pom-poms, buttons and wiggly eyes.

But the best part was the hair. I cut out pigtails for mine from construction paper. Then, once my artistic brother got to the party, he cut out little “wigs” for all the puppets. He just folded the paper in half and cut out a nice braid shape. Unfold and voila–instant puppet hair!

Grab a paint stick for the back (glue and tape works best) and then attach another stick to the moving hand. I used a skewer with a piece of making tape on top to protect the kids from the point.

Lydia has been playing with her puppet all week–with or without a puppet stage!