We’ve had another busy month with lots of play and learning at our place . This month, most of the key activities have been centred around some of our favourite books we’ve been reading. Here’s a little roundup of a few of my favourite activities we’ve been up to this month. ~ The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse ~ Eric Carle books are always a big favourite at our place. The children really enjoyed identifying the various animals pictured in the ‘The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse’ and naming the surprising colours of each animal. A blue horse? A green lion? A purple fox? I personally found this book to be a great tool for reinforcing learning the names of colours through identifying the unusual colours of each familiar animal in the story. I prompted the children to share and talk about what animal they would choose to paint and what colour they would paint it. Each child eagerly shared their choice of animals and colour to come up with really fantastic and unusual animal col...

Many, many years ago, at a small group meeting of one of the previous churches I attended before I was married, the group leader called out the usual invitation for people to ‘share’ any personal testimonies or words of encouragement with the group. As each person jumped in to share one after another, each sharing was received with applause or jubilant ‘hallelujahs’. God is good. Life is good. So-and-so were having a tough time recently but their prayers were answered and life is fantastic now. I was still very new to the group, but that evening I plucked up my courage and raised my hand. “Yes, sister? What would you like to share?” the leader piped up exuberantly. All eyes were upon me, looking at me expectantly. I took a deep breath and decided to go out on a limb and share something a bit different – a personal difficulty I was going through in my life at that time. I cannot recall the details exactly, but I knew it had something to do with work. And I was going through a really t...