I thought WOW what a great way to learn and have hands on fun at the same time! So I searched the internet and found a lapbook on PIGS. I love this idea of LAPBOOKS it is a great way to learn. So off to do a little research and I printed off pages for coloring, cutting, and gluing. I also put together some vocab. We learned words like sow, litter, piglets, boar, crops, grain, pork, leather, and crate. We placed all these things in a simple spiral notebook to be added to over the year with different activities! As the week of delivery came we counted down the days on the calendar, we read books about pigs from the library, and did pig crafts!
I found that this notebook idea has worked out really well. Each one of my girls has one for nature/science and then another one for reading books. This way I can keep all of their activities together and they can show off there books to family members when they come over! I allow the girls to cut and past and color pages. Now I DO help with some cutting and I supervised glue as I would have everything glue to the dinning room table if I didn't! LOL.......
Bugs is learning how to cut on her own! She loves proving to me that she CAN cut the smallest pieces!!!!
Also she loves to color, she is trying to hold her markers like she does a pencil but it is still confusing.
Coloring is "Butter Beans" specialty, she loves cutting too, she tries so hard to keep up with "Bugs"
Now when I say we help I mean we help!!!! My husband and I have always been the type to push work ethics and its amazing the lessons that come with them! Sometimes the things not planed are the best lessons. 
Like, scooping poop!!!! Bugs, learned the lessons of scooping poop this summer, "life is full of it so you better start now." Then theres the bucket, June Bug helps with feeding and loves to do so!!!!
The hands on experience, one of the other sows had babies and WOW we were excited, this made the wait for BINDI'S babies that much more important!!! But for the time being we would help with REBA'S babies. We learned that pigs do to have belly buttons, eyes, noses and most important they poop!!!!
Now I am a practical mom, some think there are things children should not now about and at "OUR" house we go with the keep it simple but tell the truth!!!! Children have the greatest questions!!!! There are times I have to hit the PAUSE but and say hmmmm "Girls let me get back to you on that one"!!!!! This week one of the largest questions that came with the pigs was "Mama how do they eat, and how do they know where to go?" Well let me say this was our visual.......
O my I thought, well how am I going to relate this to a child but be honest!!!! So my explanation!!!! "Girls, God was all knowing and such a good designer, that when he made mommies he made them with built in baby bottles!!!!" "These bottles have there own nipples and each little pig will have its own." "This is how they will eat and be nourished by their mom." They simply looked at me and said "Wow Mom that is cool" and I exhaled!!!!!
My husband bent over the crate and explained that we will know when Bindi is close to having pigs because milk will come out of her nipples, then he squeezed one. Later as we were getting ready to leave we caught our girls checking to see if the time had come.
I just laughed to myself as I looked at my husband and said "This is better then any classroom." Wow what a teacher he is!!!!! Later that night when I was making dinner and the girlz were in their pjs, I could hear them playing in the other room. I knew they were building something as I could hear them giving orders back and forth and planning. Later when I stepped in to see, there in the corner of our dinning room was a home made crate! The pillows to my favorite chair, a laundry basket and a table chair. But what was funny was the large stuff animal (yellow lab) laying on its side with all of these little stuffed pets laying right beside it as if they were nursing. I just laughed and walked back to the kitchen. I thought to myself "We really learned something today LOL!!!"
This lesson turned out to be more than I had signed on for, as our Bindi did have babies!!! She had 6 babies and then we lost her!!! Now on the farm this is a way of life!!!!! In life this is what happens!!!! But to a child who has built a relationship with this animal and taken care of it, I must say our girlz were very torn!!!! We knew ahead of time that this was going to happen so I had a few hours to prepare the girlz. I told them that sometimes things just happen. There are things that I cant explain, I believe it is important that they realize mommy and daddy do not have all the answers! When the morning came and we found Bindi the girls were with me, I felt so bad!!! But then there were the babies!!!! I had to get them off of Bindi and onto another sow!!! I took 3 and moved them, all was going well until I went to reach for numbers 4 and 5. I couldn't reach them!!!! I stopped and thought and then it happened. You, know one of those moments in life when you realize you are doing your job, you are being a great parent, and let me tell you those are ahhh moments in our house!!! Bugs, looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said "Mom I can get those babies." "I said no honey I don't want you to see Bindi like this!" She continued "But Mom you said the best thing we could do for Bindi now is to save her babies and thats what God would want us to do!" Wow I hate it when my own words are used against me.............I just exhaled..............and then I realized she was right. I have to let her learn! I let her climb in there and hand me the babies one by one!!!! We placed the babies in the new crate. All three of us watched as the babies began nursing off their new mom!!!! It was so peaceful in the that little shed, no sounds, all you could hear were the babies nursing and as I looked down at our girlz I looked into "Bugs" eyes and she nodded and smiled as the tears rain down her face!!! She had lost a friend her and "JuneBug", but she had also understood when I told her what God would wanted us to do!!!!
Driving home that afternoon I realized we were doing OK. Sure we have our fits, tantrums, but when the chips were down our girls were great and for that I praised God!!!!
Some of the greatest lessons were not planned but painfully this week!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment