Review of Called to Controversy by Ruth Rosen

I have really been lucky in my most recent review books. First, I had the great privilege of reviewing Call to Wonder, and now I have the wonderful privilege of reading this book.

I chose this book, because I spent several years in a Messianic Jewish congregation. It was a watershed time in my life. Through the Messianic Jewish congregation, I met some of the most amazing people--people who had a lifelong influence on me. Through that period of my life, too, I learned so much about the Jewish base for Christian beliefs and deepened my understanding and appreciation of the Bible, both Old and New Testament.

Many of the experiences from that time in my life are such a blessing to me, so I really wanted to read the book about the founder of Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus was not very active in the community where I was a member of the Messianic Congregation, but we were aware of their mission and admired it.

And the book does not disappoint. It is beautifully written.

This is the story of the life of Moishe Rosen, founder of Jews For Jesus. It goes through his normal Jewish upbringing, his marriage and the eventual process that opened his eyes to the understanding that Jesus was the Messiah for the Jews, as well as the Gentile's Savior. After his conversion, he attended a Baptist church and learned a great deal. He also experienced a huge culture shock, because some of the expressions used in the church caused him consternation.

He went on to attend seminary at a conservative college. Then served on the staff of the New York missions board. The experiences he had there were instrumental in leading him to the next step: Jews for Jesus. At first, this was just a catchphrase, but eventually the work of Jews For Jesus outgrew the missions organization with which it was associated and became a separate entity.

Jews for Jesus was a controversial group, but their work was always founded on and saturated in Scriptures, both Old and New Testament.

This was a fantastic book. I enjoyed learning more about this group I have heard of for so many years. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review. I am grateful for the opportunity to read it. I really enjoyed it. 

Vegetables From Seed

I moved all of my garden blog posts to my new site,Twenty Foot Garden. It seemed to me that most of my readers either read the homeschooling stuff, or the gardening stuff, so I separated them. I think it was the best decision for me.

However....

This week in the ABC's of Homeschooling with Dawn from The Momma Knows, the letter is V. And for me, V could only stand for Vegetables.

From the time my oldest son was an infant, he was a very picky eater. He taught my middle daughter to be picky. And they taught my youngest daughter.

I have prayed about this and prayed about this. I wasn't willing to serve my kids different meals than the ones I make for my husband and myself. I wanted the family meal to be a family time.

When we moved into this new house 2 years ago, one of the things I wanted was a garden patch. Little did I realize that the garden patch I wanted would be related to the prayer about picky eating.

In January, I used my Christmas money and bought grow lights. My husband set them up. Then I proceeded to scour gardening magazines for just the right seed.  These were things I was doing in my spare time. I didn't make it a project for school, and didn't offer to include my children until they asked.

 I set the grow lights up in the laundry room. It was the only space I had available. I checked on the seeds every day. So did each of the kids. The youngest one wanted me to pick her up so she could see.

This week, my oldest used his own money to buy a little cactus for his room.  The middle one used her own money to buy 5 red pots. She wants her father to take her to the store for seeds.

All of them now say, "When I have my own garden, I'm going to..." and "I want watermelons, peas, radishes in my garden." "When I am grown, I am going to be a gardener."

And, they all eat vegetables that they have loved and seen growing from the time they were little seeds.

Outdoor Nature Challenge Moon Study

The waning crescent moon in our front yard, 3-16-12

Barb at The Handbook of Nature Study challenged us this month to do a moon observation study. She gave lots of options of ways we could accomplish this. For my children, it seems to work best to observe the moon nightly for a period of time.

Our observations
3-4-12: Three-quarter moon. Since my children are only 7, 5, and 2, we didn't go into the name "Gibbous". We did talk about the terms "waxing" and "waning". I had the kids guess whether the moon was waxing or waning. My son's guess, "waxing". My middle daughter's guess, "waxing." The two year old said, "Moon!" They were right.

3-5-12: A really clear night. Three-quarter moon. I pointed out the Big Dipper to the children.

3-6-12: We did a Bird Experiment during the day, and later saw a swallow tail kite swooping and soaring. When we observed the moon, my middle daughter said, "It's full." I told her that it wasn't quite full. (The eighth was the full moon this month.) I showed my children how to see that there was a flat place on one side of the circle. When I showed them this, they saw that it wasn't quite full.

3-7-12: We did a second bird experiment during the day. When we did the moon observation, the moon was almost full and was going behind and coming out of fast moving clouds. My middle daughter said, "I didn't know the moon moved so fast." I explained that the clouds were moving, making the moon look like it moved. They again thought the moon was full.

3-8-12: We read some from Handbook of Nature Study about the moon. "...as the beginning of the study of astronomy, it appears as the largest and brightest object seen in the sky at night; and since it lies nearest us, it is the first natural step from our world to outer space." and "The moon is a member of the sun's family, his granddaughter we might call her if the earth be his daughter." on page 855. I loved those lines.

Later, we did the Oreo Moon Phases, as Barb had suggested in her original post. I am not sure we did it quite right, but the kids learned a lot about how the moon changes from waxing to waning and back again. (We are still practicing our vocabulary words.)

You can see that I ended up with my new moon by my full moon.
I may attempt it again with them and place these opposite
each other, but they did learn a great deal from this activity. 

That night, we saw the full moon moving in and out of clouds. Both of my older kids thought the moon looked HUGE.

3-9-12: No moon siting. It was too cloudy.

3-10-12: My son was on an overnight event with Cub Scouts, but my middle daughter, my youngest and I looked for the moon.

3-11-12 and 3-12-12: We forgot to do the moon observation.

3-13-12: We tried to see the moon, but it was too cloudy.

3-14-12 and 3-15-12: We were unable to see the moon before the children had to go to bed, because of Daylight Savings Time.

3-16-12: My son and youngest daughter arose early enough to see the moon in the morning. My son's only comment was that he could hear the cheer-up, cheerie-up of the robins. (We learned about them in a children's book.) Once he pointed it out, I could hear them saying that, too. My middle daughter got up a little later and saw the moon. Her comment:"Waning!":)

3-17-12 to 3-19-12 We were unable to see the moon, because of the time change and the children slept too late in the mornings.

3-20-12: We went outside at 8:34 PM to look for the moon. The children were unable to see the moon, but they did spot two very bright "stars". These are Jupiter and Mercury. They are closer to the earth than they will be again for 24 years. Celestial Almanack was posted by Kate Kessler on Facebook, and this has helped me very much in explaining to the children what they spot in the night skies. My middle daughter was interested to hear the crickets singing.

All in all, it has been a wonderful month of moon observations. I am so grateful for the moon study challenge we were offered by Barb at the Handbook of Nature Study Blog. The children have learned so much about the moon, and have had several other nature experiences because of this study. This is not a study I would have thought of doing at this time had we not received the challenge.

This article was submitted to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival. Please go to Barb's site to see what other people did with their families this month.

Review of Call to Wonder by R. C. Sproul, Jr.

RC Sproul Jr's book studies the scripture, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."

He looks at this scripture from the personal perspective of a father with eight children, one of them a special needs child. In this very personal and deeply moving book, he discussed some of what he has learned about this passage from his role as the father of his children. He covers God's call for us to trust Him the way a child does. His next chapter is about God's call to wonder, especially as it relates to nature. He also discusses the desire that children have to please their fathers and how we should respond in this manner to our Heavenly Father. Children, as a general rule, unless given reason to do otherwise, trust in the love their fathers have for them. We should do the same. Then he goes a little way down a different perspective, that we should by no means remain children, but should mature in the faith. Fathers delight most in their children when their children are happiest, and so we should be filled with joy.

 I found this book to be a book that I could not quickly scan through, but felt it needed time to ponder. It really moved me and challenged me. It caused me to pray about how God would have me to apply it to my life. These are all things I treasure in a book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Tyndale in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Tyndale.

Part 2 Bird Experiments--Nesting Materials

As I promised in my previous post, here is the second experiment my children and I conducted using the above book. In this experiment, we gathered items that different birds might use to make their nests. We again put these items into bowls and put the bowls on a table set up near the back of the yard.

The six items the book said that birds use to make nests are: moss, sticks, yarn, mud, hay, and one other thing that I didn't have.

My son gathers moss.

The kids had to make mud, much to their amusement. You
can see that my middle daughter got wet, even though we
were trying to avoid that. Then they had to gather the mud.
They also enjoyed that very much. 

My middle daughter gathering mud. The book said it was supposed
to be very goopy. 

Here are the five things we gathered for the experiment: moss,
hay, sticks, yarn and mud. 

We only had one visitor. We think it was a mockingbird. It took moss from one of the bowls. We left the bowls out there for two days, but that was the only visitor.

My take away: I really enjoyed these experiments and though we really didn't have a great deal of action at the tables the act of gathering the things seemed to cement the lesson into my children's mind. 

Bird Study Experiments

My middle daughter loves birds. She regularly asks that we go back through a bird unit study. Because of her love of birds, we have done unit studies focusing on wood thrushes, and robins. We have hiked our local Audubon Nature Trail. We have spent time at the local Environmental Center to observe birds at close range. We have attended Beginning Bird Watching events with our local hiking club.

So it happened that while I was at the library by myself, I spotted this book on the shelf. I brought it home and my middle daughter promptly hid it in her room. Several days later, she brought it to me, requesting that we try some of the experiments listed in it.

We tried two experiments from this book so far. You could say that the experiments were failures or you could say we learned a great deal. Because we actually touched foods that birds eat and materials birds use to make their nests, I choose to believe we learned a great deal. I choose to believe that the kids learned more about the foods birds eat and the things they use to build their nests by touching and holding these things than if we had just memorized the lists.  Through these experiments we were able to talk about different types of birds and how different types eat different things. Different birds make their nests with different materials. All these things were positive. But only one bird ate from our Bird Buffet.

This post contains the pictures from the bird experiment about the foods they eat. I will do another post for the experiment about the nest building materials.

My middle daughter loading the worms into the bowl for the experiment.  Do you
see her bird house? That was all she wanted for her birthday.  

These are the different types of foods birds eat. From top left
Top row: Fruit (especially soft fruit), animal fat, sunflower seeds.
Bottom row from left: softened oatmeal, worms, and breadcrumbs. 

A close up on the table as we set up our experiment. Worms in the foreground and breadcrumbs
above them.

 

 

This papa Cardinal studied the situation from every angle, but he could not be persuaded to eat anything. Remember the scripture that says, "How useless to spread a net in full view of all the birds!" (Proverbs 1:17) Well, they sure seemed to think this was a trap. 

This little guy studied the situation from a little farther away. He didn't get as close as the cardinal.


One bird did swoop through and grab a snack, but I didn't get a picture. An old crow ate a bite of the animal fat.

But guess what did eat the food? Yep. Squirrels. They had a feast. They went from one bowl to the next starting with the breadcrumbs. They left only the worms and the animal fat.

Leprechaun Finger Puppet

I have only got my son with me today. He is such a great kid and is so much fun to be around. We are still working on St. Patrick's Day. Today he helped me look around on the Internet for a craft that he might like to do. He picked the Leprechaun Finger Puppet. 

Of course, you know that we had to add our own spin on this craft. We always do. It's part of the creative process to put your own creative touches. Or at least that is what I think.

We used embroidery thread and an embroidery needle, with small green scraps of felt we had in our craft kit. I showed him how to thread the needle and make the knot at the end and he did the rest. He is seven. 

He decided that he wanted to sew the face to the body rather than using glue. He wanted eyes and mouth to be sewn on as well. I showed him how and helped when he needed it.

I first showed him the basic stitch. Then for the face, I showed him the whip stitch.

He had a great time. He decided how to make the hat all by himself. He did the entire thing on that part. And most of the rest of it by himself, too. This is his finished leprechaun. I think it looks great!

He decided that his leprechaun needed a pot of gold, so he made one. He is showing it to you.

He said that this was a very fun craft. He really enjoyed learning basic sewing stitches and making his own toy. He liked that it wasn't made out of plastic. He said we could use it as the character for the books we are reading right now for St. Patrick's Day. I think that would be a good idea, too. 

I made one, too,  and use it for my pen topper. Maybe that way I can keep one pen that my kids won't take from me.

Blarney Stone Cookies

I have found my new favorite cookie!!

For twenty years, my favorite cookie has been Rolo Cookies (made from a similar recipe to the one on this site. I roll mine in powdered sugar and freeze the dough before rolling.)

But because of all the St. Patrick's Day things my children and I have been working on, we decided to make Blarney Stone Cookies from Taste of Home Magazine. I could hardly believe it when I took my first bite. Oh nirvana!! Good googly woogly! Unbelievable! Amazing! And any other word you can think of to tell how astounding these cookies were.

The original recipe called for walnuts in the cookies and said that you should add enough green food coloring to make the cookies green, but I don't want my children eating all that food dye when it's not necessary, so I left it out.

Here is the way I made them.

1 cup margarine, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 package (3.4 ounces) instant pistachio pudding mix
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 eggs
2 and 1/2 cups AP flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butterscotch chips

In a large bowl, cream margarine, sugars, pudding mix and extracts until light and fluffy.

Add eggs, beating until well mixed after adding them.

Combine flour and baking soda. Gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in chips. Batter will be stiff.

Drop by teaspoonfuls to an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 between 8 and 10 minutes or until only lightly browned. Do not overbake.

Cool on wire racks.

Try not to eat them all the first day.

Blarney Stone Craft Done a Little Differently

There are loads of crafts about the Blarney Stone in honor of St. Patrick's Day, but I wanted to use up some of those crayon ends we have around the house. I looked all over, but couldn't find anything exactly like this online.

I pulled out all the broken Crayola crayons in any shade of green, white, even a couple of yellow ones.

Then I took all the paper wrappers off them.

I put them in a steel can that had previously been used for green beans, and cooked them in a double boiler until they melted. They formed a nice medium green.

We used a stirring stick from a paint store to stir the hot melted wax and to drip it onto our rocks.

My youngest daughter just wanted to paint onto her piece of wax paper that I had taped to the table.

As the crayons started to cool down and harden, we poured the melted wax over the rocks.

It sounds a little dangerous, but we were very careful, I handled the double boiler, I supervised continually, and we prepared our surfaces.

We had a great time with it. We even went to the Blarney Castle website to read the history of the castle. This was very interesting and very cool.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. We will probably be posting more St. Patrick's Day ideas soon, since we have started a little unit study about this holiday. I have to say that the kids are enjoying themselves immensely. They find all the folk tales about leprechauns to be enchanting. They have been intrigued by Blarney Castle. They are learning a little about Ireland. It is just fun all around.