HIDE AND SEEK SCRIPTURES: Book Cover Sneak Peek...and Incorporating Siblings in Child Rearing12/18/2021 BOOK COVER SNEAK PEEK:
So excited to share with you a sneak peek of my book cover. I am excited about this last phase before print, especially since Hide and Seek Scriptures Book One has taken a lot longer to publish than I anticipated. This is in no way the fault of my self publisher, Christian Faith Publishing, My project supervisor, Nicole, has been helpful, timely, and professional. It has actually been my novice understanding of the process that has slowed things down. In Book Two, I will do much more planning and editing before the process starts, which is a lesson you can only learn with experience. We are, nonetheless, making progress, and the book should be moving on to printing in about 6-8 weeks! I WILL CERTAINLY KEEP YOU POSTED!
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BEFORE WE HEAD TO SOME FUN LEARNING TOOLS...I would love to update you on the progress with my first children's book. I survived to editing stage and now we have finally arrived at one of the last stages, ILLUSTRATIONS. Below is a sneak peek of the main character, Kanani, and her brother, Chad. This is a collaboration between my illustrator and a good friend who does illustration professionally. Check out her instagram page. Please let me know what you think about this mock-up in the comments below:
Hello all! Yes, I finally broke down and decided to self-publish my children's book series, HIDE AND SEEK SCRIPTURES. Book 1: THE BAILY FAMILY'S TRIP TO THE BEACH should be out in about 4 months. I had hoped to publish traditionally, but it is a tough reality that not many children's books get picked up by traditional publishers unless you have a name in the industry or have celebrity status. I have neither :)
The great news is that my wonderful husband heard my heart for this project and encouraged me to go for it. So...here we go into the unknown but working with the very talented Christian Faith Publishing The steps to publish a book with this company are clear, and their help through the process has been timely, professional, easy to understand and encouraging. I'm finally on way way! I don't know if I have mentioned it here, but we are so incredibly proud of our son-in-law, Dom, and daughter, Shelby, for making a wise decision to homeschool their boys this year. It was homeschool or put them public school where they would be in a plastic cubicle while wearing a mask all year. Easy choice...but for two busy parents it was still quite the commitment. Sensibly, they chose to homeschool with another family to foster accountability and community. Shelby and her good friend, Amy, have taught Oliver, Ruby and Clark well all year long. Another excellent choice they made was to combine learning with outdoor play. This allowed the children to gain more than just an education. They also received:
Hello, all! It has been a long time. Sorry I have not had a chance lately to contribute some helpful ideas to aid you in your educational journey with your children/grandchildren.
It has been quite a year for all of us with Covid19 and all of the related challenges. I had my attention elsewhere this past year, and I wrote a little New Year's post that I would like to share with all of you from my heart to yours: Is there a sweeter sight then a child getting so excited over a great book find?? Well done, Clark! OK, I know we are in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and self-quarantines, however I decided to go ahead and post this blog since it had been a work in progress long before COVID19 rocked our world. I am posting this blog about THE BENEFIT OF LIBRARY TIME in good faith that we are headed back to normal life SOON with God's divine help! UNTIL we can all travel back to the library, set up a fun 'pretend library' in your home. I hope this will kill some time with a purpose: 1. Gather all the kids books you have in a certain area of your home. 2. Have the kids pick 5 or so books each. 3. I have a 'check out process' (list their books on a post it note that they have to show you when it is time to 'check out' more books) 4. Send all the kids off to read. 5. Have a cup of coffee or tea in peace and quiet while you write me a big THANK YOU NOTE :) 6. For those of you who don't like peace and quiet, instead of sending the children off to quietly read....have a 'story hour'. Read aloud to them and then take a nap later! 7. Have a music-filled family fun clean up time. ALSO, here is a great find for other learning options while at home during COVID19: An Educational Toolkit for AT HOME LEARNING put out by the Barbara Bush Foundation. My nephew, aka Pastor Camden, teaching his baby sister, Madison, an at home Bible story. HOWEVER, as I said before, I thought of this blog post idea before the word Corona ever graced our ears, so I do want to write about going to the actually library....SO LET'S GO FOR IT...keep reading below!
Ever try to teach your children to blend letter sounds to no avail? It can be quite a mountain to climb to teach letter blending, especially after you just spent the past 2 years teaching them individual letter names then individual letter sounds. Our daughter,Shelby, has been trying to teach our grandson, Ollie, how to blend, but it has had its' challenges and frustrations. After talking through it with her, I thought this blog may help her and some of you. Ollie knows all his letter name and letter sounds, but when he tries to blend he often says /ca-a/ making 2 sounds instead of /ca/, which is the desired singular sound. Let's explore together some ways to help Ollie and your children/grandchildren, who may be having the same struggles. Ever have a desire to teach your children to read or aid them in their path to reading? I always tried to remember that all of our children’s education was our responsibility, and all of the tools and learning environments we chose were aiding us in that goal. We cannot just leave our children to others to educate them because no one wants them to succeed like their family does. Proverbs 1:8-9 explains how precious our instruction is for our children: "Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck." Our daughter, Shelby, is teaching Oliver to ready as you can see in the picture below. She is adorning him with a precious gift, which will eventually allow him to read the Word of God and many other important pieces of literature and items of instruction.
I would like to pass on some ideas I have about learning to read that I have learned about in my Master's degree in teaching English and my PhD classes in in Linguistics. I will keep it all in layman's terms, because the main idea is to teach our kids to read not to be confusing. I thought it might be fun to show you the idea behind my book lived out by my grandson, Oliver (aka Ollie). I was blessed with a wonderful week in Rhode Island due to the generosity of my sweet husband. He stayed back in Birmingham and took care of my mother. What a husband!! Anyway, while I was in Rhode Island, we went to a beautiful island called 'Newport' (I recommend it for a weekend away at a cute Bed & Breakfast). On this island, we decided to learn a Bible verse in the Hide and Seek Scripture way!
Have a look and try it with your kids :) HERE IS HOW IT IS DONE: 1. Hide one part of the verse (e.g. 'I AM'). 2. Make sure your child is not looking then yell 'GO'. 3. Once they find the verse, have they say it to you over and over in different fun ways (jumping, spinning, clapping it, etc.). 4. Now on to the second part of the verse....have them close their eyes again and hide the next part of the verse. When my children were young, we did some homeschooling during their education years. The curriculum we used required some Bible verse memorization. It became quite the academic process at times, resulting in a verse memorized for a grade then quickly forgotten. I don’t think that is the point of memorizing Bible verses, right? One day while the children were busy with their school work, an idea hit me out of nowhere (I literally felt like the Spirit of the LORD deposited it in my mind with a purpose). What if a verse was memorized in a way that it was not quickly forgotten? I had an idea to memorize 'chunks' of the verse. After a small portion is memorized, then new portions are added all the while reviewing the 'chunks' as a whole. The video below will explain it all!
*Have a peek at this link for tips on memorizing then NOT forgetting Scripture verses. Anyone have a child who says, 'I don't like to read'? A huge complaint I hear from parents is ‘my kids don’t like to read’. Many times the problem is that the children were never motivated to love reading... Here are 3 practical steps to help motivate your child to learn to read:
#1. Recognize that reading has an impact on your child's future reading success Statistics consistency confirm that a parent, grandparent, sibling, caregiver or friend reading to children is a powerful indictor of future success in reading. You may feel your baby or toddler is too small, distracted or just won't sit still, but statistics don't lie....so read on! Look at the pic below - my grandson Clark is moving around, but his eyes are still fixed on the page as his big brother, Ollie, reads. Allow your children to have exposure to books and hold them captive with the intonations of your voice as you read (even a boring story can sound exciting with a little creativity). They will be hooked for life on books and on their way to being avid readers themselves. Life can hand us some sweet dreams, but those dreams can sit on the shelf for years or even a lifetime. The dreaming can be quite fun, but the waiting can be quite the headache. How long is too long to wait - I say there is no limit if the dream is from the LORD. My grandson, Oliver, found this state puzzle quite the challenge when we sent it to him at age 3. He needed his parents to help him the first 10 or so tries, but he hung in there and finished the whole thing BY HIMSELF well before his 4th birthday. You can see the strain on his face, but he never gave up. Way to fulfill that dream, Ollie!!!
Hello all! I just returned from a few days with my grandsons, Ollie and Clark. I came back armed with some new blog ideas that I hope will bless all of you. Read below for simple and fun ways to make the 'learning to read' process a joy instead of a chore! My daughter, Shelby, has been trying to prepare my grandson, Ollie, to entering kindergarten next fall. As I showed you in a previous blog, I sent her the Abeka Kindergarten series. Book 1 seemed a reasonable place to give Oliver a start, with the goal of reading it to me on FaceTime in order to get Book 2 sent in the mail as a reward. However, Shelby quickly realized that Book 1 was even a little bit advanced for him. Below is another Abeka series for K-4 (pre-school kids age 4), in case you sense the K-5 series is too advanced for your child. I just ordered them for Ollie because I feel they will boost his confidence before he heads back to the K-5 series. As promised last week, this week's blog will explore healthy boundaries for your children. This aspect of parenting was a huge learning curve for me, but my husband’s wisdom led our children with strong love and clear boundaries taught with calm discipline. Honestly, I followed his lead (except for the calm part at times...just ask my kids), so I hope some of my thoughts will help you if you struggle in this area. |