Parenting in the Chaos

Teaching Children to Pray

By Sharla Kostelyk

Model prayer. This is the most important and effective way to teach your children to pray. Allow your children to see you pray. My best praying happens in the shower or in the van when driving alone or in bed late at night or early in the morning. None of those are places where the kids can witness me praying. Therefore, I have to make an effort to be purposeful about praying in front of my kids. It doesn’t come naturally to me. Neither does praying out loud, but I consciously do both to model a prayer life to my kids.

Teach them the power of praying in numbers. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”-Matthew 18:20 If someone texts, e-mails or phones me a prayer request, I will often ask the kids to pray with me for that person or situation, explaining that it is more powerful if we all pray together. Sometimes we do this while in the van or while in the middle of an activity. I think the drop-everything-and-pray when used only occasionally is very powerful as it shows them that nothing is more important.

Keep a prayer journal or another type of record of answered prayers. When we pray first thing in our homeschool in the morning, I jot things down in my homeschool planner as they come up. Later, the kids and I look back on what prayers have been answered. This has been a good way to reinforce to them the power of prayer.

Have visuals. We use pictures. I call it our prayer wall. In our homeschool classroom, there is a corkboard and I add pictures of people we are praying for. We used to do this on our fridge. This gives the kids a visual reminder to pray for those individuals and it has been powerful to witness what God has done. We have helped pray home many children waiting to be adopted. Seeing their “before” pictures when they are in an orphanage or foster home and then being able to put up the “after” pictures of them with their new family has been amazing. We also prayed for our friends’ son who was in the hospital for almost the first two years of his life. He has just been discharged and now I will be able to change his picture to one of him at home and the kids will see visible proof that their prayers are at work!

Form habits. Just like most things in life, prayer is easier when it becomes a habit. By praying at certain times of the day, a habit is instilled. For our family, this happens in the morning, before supper and at bedtime when we tuck the kids in. This is a very effective strategy as now if we forget to pray before supper, the kids are the ones to remind us! On nights when we get home late and the tuck-ins are fast, the one thing that we cannot not do is pray.

Pray in all things. It can be easy to praise God when a prayer is answered or when we are desperate and crying out, but praying in the little things, in the in-between moments teaches our kids that God is to be our confidant, our friend, our Healer, our Redeemer, our Everything.

There are some books that as a family, you just go back to over and over and they become part of your family’s culture and vocabulary. For us, those books have become worn and tattered over the years, but they still hold such a special place in our hearts.

It was hard to narrow it down to just 10 books. In fact, I had to come back and update the list to add more than just 10 because I didn’t want some of the other ones that are so dear to me to feel left out (!).

Our favourite read-alouds for kids:

I Promise I’ll Find You Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type Leah’s Pony I Love You, Stinky Face I Don’t Have Your Eyes A Bad Case of Stripes I Love You More Than Rainbows Big Red Barn Oh, the Places You’ll Go!I Feel Orange Today 17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore Animalia

I Promise I’ll Find You – Oh, how I love this heartwarming book about how a mother would search to the ends of the Earth to find her child. The kids love not only the message of the book, but finding the child on each page. Also, a portion of the proceeds of the book goes to fund finding missing children, so what’s not to like about that?!

Click, Clack Moo…Cows That Type – How can you not love a book that features typing cows?! We’ve been reading this one for years and the kids still ask for it, though they pretty much have it memorized. We did a mini unit on it and you can check out the corresponding activities we did here.

Leah’s Pony – Some of you who’ve followed my blog for awhile may be sick of hearing about how much we love this book! I love a book that makes me cry every time I read it and that teaches good values and provides opportunity for discussion. This one about a girl growing up during the Depression provides opportunities to discuss history, family, and the goodness of people.

I Love You Stinky Face – Any book that has the word “stinky” in the same sentence as the word “love” has to be a classic! This book reassures kids that we love them no matter what!

I Don’t Have Your Eyes – We own an awful lot of adoption related books for the kids, but this seems to be the one that they like the best. It’s especially good for transracial adoption.

A Bad Case of Stripes – This is another book that we loved so much, we turned it into a mini unit! This book is just awesome…if you have never read it, you are missing out! You can see the crafts and activities we used to go along with this book here.

I Love You More Than Rainbows – When I look over this list, I’m suddenly aware of what a sap I am! Apparently, if it’s a book about how much I love my kids, I love to read it to them! This one is one of those that has really seeped its way into everyday conversation. I say things to the kids like, “I love you more than Slurpees” or “I love you more than my special chocolate”. It’s fairly common to hear the kids say something like, “I love you more than my special blankie” or “I love you more than riding my bike”. Any book that can create conversation like that in our house is a winner in my books! We also expanded the book into learning about rainbows.

Big Red Barn – This book is usually for younger kids, but my kids still love it! I have had it memorized for years and the kids like it when I add in some animal sounds and they sometimes create a competition after we read it to see who can do the best animal sounds. This is just a simple, yet great book!

Oh, the Places You’ll Go – I couldn’t have a read-aloud list that didn’t include at least one Dr. Seuss and this is our favourite Dr. Seuss of all time! It has a great message. It helps the kids to talk about feelings and the future and it is a great gift for celebrating occasions such as graduation or baptism. It’s a keeper! We are huge Dr. Seuss fans and even held a party to celebrate his birthday.

I Feel Orange Today – When you have a child with Aspergers and some kids who have traumatic histories and are/have been in therapy, your bookshelf tends to collect titles about FEELINGS. We have many. Other favourites in this category are Today I Feel Silly, The Way I Feel and I Talk to God About How I Feel.

I know that’s 10 already, plus 3 more mentioned (what can I say…I really love books!), but I just have to mention 2 more because they are awesome and no library is complete without them.

17 Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Anymore – I like a read-aloud that makes me laugh and this one does. If you have an active or strong willed child, this book will have you laughing or at the very least, nodding your head in agreement.

Animalia – This book is one of the first ones I ever bought with kids in mind. It was purchased before I had my kids and it still gets pulled out a lot. It has great illustrations, is cool and is a great alphabet reinforcement tool.

What are your family’s favourite read-alouds?

Family Fun Night – Minute to Win It

By Sharla Kostelyk

These Minute to Win It games are hilarious! They are great to play at home with the family or at your next party or group event. Fun for all ages! We had a Family Game Night with a Minute to Win It theme. It was extremely easy to come up with the activities.

This theme made the evening so much fun! We laughed a lot. It also worked really well for all the different age groups from our youngest child right up to us adults. One of the things that makes these games so versatile is that they can be used with groups of all ages.

For our party, I used a Minute to Win It party bucket, but it is no longer being sold, so I created a printable decoration kit for you that includes everything needed to host your own party.

Decorations:

The Minute to Win It Printable Party Pack includes:

Treat Bag Toppers
Cupcake Wrappers
Cupcake Toppers
Favour Bag Tags in two sizes
Straw Flags
Score Sheets
Game Directions for each of the games here and the games in our Dollar Store Minute to Win It night

Food:

I had planned to make cupcakes and number them from 1-12 and have them in the shape of a clock, but I ran low on time (ironic?), so we made mini cinnamon rolls instead. I made a variety of finger foods: veggies, surprise spread, tortilla chips, salsa, spinach dip, focaccia, crackers, cheese, and meat.

Other food ideas for this theme:

take the top layer off Oreo cookies and draw a clock face on the white part with black edible pen or icing.
make a veggie tray in the shape of a clock
fried cheese filled wonton clocks

Minute to Win It Games:

This was the really fun part of the night! All we needed was a timer and things that most people have around the house.

I did buy the ping pong balls, the Oreos, the Smarties, and the pantyhose, but everything else we already had on hand.

For prizes, I bought mini skateboards, parachute men, and let the kids keep a ping pong ball each. All told, the party supplies cost about $5.

Face the Cookie.

Supplies needed:

Oreo (or similar type) cookies

This game is also sometimes called Cookie Face.

Have each person place a cookie on their forehead and try to get the cookie into their mouth using only their facial muscles. No touching with your hands!

Einstein did it successfully. He was rewarded with bragging rights and finishing his Oreo!

Stack Attack.

Supplies needed:

36 plastic cups

This game consists of stacking 36 cups in a pyramid and then back down into a single stack. We have found that the red cups, like the Solo ones, work well for this.

The Ferrari came the closest to conquering this one in one minute, but even he wasn’t completely successful.

Movin’ On Up.

Supplies needed:

7-11 red or white plastic cups
1 blue plastic cup or permanent marker

(I love the look on Granola Girl’s face here!)

In this game, start with the blue cup on top of the stack of cups of another colour and stack the cups one by one until the first cup is on top again. Use 8-12 cups depending on the age and ability of those playing. If you don’t have a blue cup, you can mark the rim of one cup with a permanent marker and start with that one on top.

Junk in the Trunk.

Supplies needed:

empty tissue box
8 ping pong balls
adjustable belt or wide ribbon

This game is hilarious! With a tissue box strapped around the waist, the participants have to try to get out the 8 ping pong balls just by movement.

It was really funny to watch! We laughed so hard that it was difficult to keep the game going!

Fill an empty tissue box with 8 ping pong balls. Use a belt or ribbon to attach the empty Kleenex box to the player’s waist. Contestants can then shake, shimmy, bounce, jump, or dance in an effort to get all the balls out of the box.

Suck It Up.

Supplies needed:

Smarties, Skittles, or M+Ms
plastic straws
paper plates

In this game, players have to transfer Smarties or other similar sized candy from one plate to another using only a straw.

My kids were able to eat the Smarties afterwards which no one seemed to mind!

Penny Hose.

Supplies needed:

2 pennies
pantyhose

Players had to retrieve 2 pennies, one at the bottom of each leg of the pair of pantyhose. This is another funny one to watch. It’s more challenging to complete than it sounds.

Ping Pong Bounce.

Supplies needed:

ping pong balls
six cups

In this game, players have to bounce ping pong balls into six cups. Everyone was able to do it in the minute. It’s nice to choose some games that are a bit more attainable like this one so that people don’t get frustrated.

Mix in the easier ones with some of the more challenging games. This is especially true if younger children are playing.

Keep it Up.

Supplies needed:

feathers
bucket or bowl

In this game, players have to blow a feather from one side of the room to the other and land it in a bucket or bowl.

This one is much harder to do than it sounds like it would be. In our family, only our oldest son was able to do it successfully. It was awfully fun to try it though!

Yank Me.

Supplies needed:

index cards
plastic cups

This game was the hardest of the ones we tried. No one was able to do it in one minute. One of the kids was able to get close though. Maybe if you’re playing these games with a group of adults, you’ll have more luck.

To play, stack an index card on the top of the cup until there are five cups and then yank the index cards out to attempt to create a single stack of five cups.

It was a great family fun night! This was a very easy theme to plan around and it was one of the rare themes that worked well with the broad age range of kids that is represented in our family. It would be a great one to plan for family get togethers, family reunions, birthdays parties, or youth group nights.

Minute to Win It games are based on a former NBC TV show hosted by Guy Fieri where contestants would vie for prizes by competing against the clock in these type of games. They are easy to recreate at home or at the office.

Sign up for a free copy of our Minute to Win It Build Edition challenge cards. Use these cards to create an easy, impromptu games night. All you need is the cards and building blocks such as LEGO.

You can find other hilarious game ideas in our Dollar Store Minute to Win It Night. There, you’ll find Chocolate Unicorn, Puddle Jumper, Ponginator, Hanky Panky, Ball Drop, Breakfast Scramble, and Elephant March.

Our Christmas Minute to Win It is perfect for the holidays!

Or check out our Minute to Win It Thanksgiving Games for your family gathering.

If you’re looking for outdoor large group games to play at a picnic, family reunion, or camping, our Minute to Win It Camping Games are the perfect solution.

If you’re looking for more fun party games for family or group get-togethers, check out The Flour Game.

Another game that is so easy to set up and can be played with large groups and a variety of ages is The Bag Game.

Don’t forget to grab your Minute to Win It Party Pack!

Red Carpet Premiere Family Fun

By Sharla Kostelyk

For our most recent Family Fun Night, we did a theatre theme. Some of the kids even dressed up and pretended to be stars going to a Hollywood Premiere! Anyway, I don’t have the best pictures, but you’ll get the general idea. The theme idea came from a friend, who also does Family Fun Nights with her family. (thanks Karen!)

I decorated with movie themed tablecloth, cups, napkins, and skewers and used the extra paper popcorn boxes as more decorations. We had a make-your-own nachos bar for supper with blue and white tortilla chips, cheeses, peppers, tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos. The kids all assembled their own and then I cooked them.

Einstein and Snuggle Puppy having fun

Dancing Queen and Granola Girl enjoying their nachos

Miss Optimism

After a nutritious supper of nachos (!), the kids were each given a ticket that they could redeem at the “concession”.

The concession was a hit of course! Even at a real movie theatre, there is no way the kids would be allowed that much junk to eat!

Fred gets creative with the licorice!

I had closed all the blinds and curtains in the house, trying to make it as dark as possible to make it like a theatre. As a family, we watched “The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry” which was perfect as it was appropriate for all the ages. Later, when the younger five kids had gone to bed, The Husband, The Ferrari, Fred, and I watched “The Blind Side”. It was a great Family Fun Night and the kids all had a blast!