Inspiring To Learn: Totbooking

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So comes the time of year where we endeavor to reminisce about what the Lord has done for us this last year. We think about the blessings He has laid upon us. As King David laid awake in bed at night, he remembered and recounted the goodness of the Lord in his life:

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Psalm 63:6

What a wonderful thing to do- to meditate on His faithfulness, His goodness. And a wonderful thing to teach our children to do as well. Not only at night in our beds, but all the day long. (Deut 6:6) In our family we do not celebrate hallow33n or the controversial "harvest parties" that coincide with Oct 31st. If Christian families wanted to celebrate the harvest of the Lord or play dress-up, why on THAT night when there are 364 others? I am not really asking anyone that question, I know that if they really are honest with themselves and God, they will know the answer. But I digress...

However, we DO spend a great deal of time in October and November preparing our hearts for the coming King, which we celebrate in December (although not like you may presume). Much time is spent giving thanks, reflection and in praise before December.

This year in particular, we have a long list of thanks and praise. I personally just had a near miss with death and will be with my family here on earth longer. A couple months ago, my grandmother gave her life to Christ only 3 days before she died. My husband has had a major financial breakthrough at work last week and our list of praises goes on.
Two days ago, I was literally laying in my bed as King David did. I was alone and thinking in the dark and suddenly became overwhelmed at how thankful I am that the Lord has spared my life to stay and serve my immediate family longer. In that moment, I had no thought for myself whatsoever, after all I would have been in Heaven. Nothing bad about Heaven, folks! No loss for me to go- only gain. BUT... my only thoughts were of how my immediate family needed me and I was truly humbled right then and there. Humbled by the honor to be reserved here to continue to serve them.
It was a God moment.
A moment like that is hard to really convey to another person the depths... or rather how deep and wide the implications and understanding you had in that tiny instant. True revelation, I guess you could say. In any case and however you might say, I have been made keenly aware once again how
not even a day is guaranteed to us;
how good through and through the Lord is;
my conviction to press on toward the mark has been rekindled
and also, interestingly and unexpectedly, I saw myself in the mirror in this last couple weeks. I was disappointed in a few things, but I was surprised at how clear and unpolluted my motives were in the rest of my "closet" when the Lord shone His light in there. Maybe that was an additional gift from God. How could that be a gift? Reason why is that, honestly, I doubt myself and my personal walk a lot. I always wonder in the back of my mind somewhere, "Am I really desiring what the Lord wants? Am I selfish in these ambitions? Is my heart truly running after Him?" He has eased my fears of this, at least for now, and at the same time He gently showed me my weak areas to work on. What a good Father He is.

Clearly I have a lot to be thankful for. I know you do too. Won't you make these two months special and tell God how much you love and appreciate Him? Sort of like a romantic anniversary you may have with your husband. Love on Him!

Aside from talking about the Lord all the time and praying and thanking Him, we try to learn more about Him as much as we can. During ThanksGiving we spend extra time on thankfulness and do some crafty things for fun. I'm not really crafty, but these are some neat ones I came across.

Here are some nice printables for this time of ThanksGiving. I printed ours off on some orange construction paper I had trimmed down to the A4 size (common copy paper). This way I could use the black and white option to print and our ink was saved but still had beautiful orange pumpkins. There are several pages. HERE

Our next project is this one from Valerie at "Christian Preschool Printables".

Pumpkin Pocket Craft
http://www.christianpreschoolprintables.com/Pages/Thanksgiving/PumpkinPocketCraft.html

Valerie at ChristianPreschoolPrintables is really sweet. She lived and homeschooled in our area and it was a joy to get to know her. She does all that she does for the same reasons I do all that I do here- to serve the homeschool community.

This is a reletively new concept: Totbooking

Totbooks are very similar to lapbooks but they focus on play/learning value and a smaller size.

I am really excited about it. One of my children is three years old right now and I got so excited about it I started to create our own Ten Apples Up On Top reproducible tot-book. It is not done yet so I need to get into my files and finish those.

Here is some more information on them. The totbook concept is so new, there is not much info on them out there! The majority of totbooks are geared toward boys. Hopefully, people will start creating these to share and there will be more that appeal to girls.

http://lapbooksbycarisa.homestead.com/TotBooks.html

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-twist-on-tot-book.html

http://aquietsimplelearninglife.com/?p=351&cpage=1

Inspiring To Learn

Welcome!

Cheap Printer Ink

Thankfulness - giving thanks

Totbooking

Lapbook: Phonics "Consonant Blends"

Workshop & Seminar Topics