Theme week #1 - Gardening

Thanks to a good friends' inspiring example (shared with me via her husband via my husband...wait....there is probably no chance any of the facts or details were accurately communicated through two men....on the other hand....Greg and Dano are the two most detail oriented, thoughtful guys I know...so I will take it for fact.) we are starting theme weeks around here. My attempt to give us all (mainly the little boys and I) direction as we go about our days and activities. So we have some intentional learning through experiences each week. I figure if I think about the many teaching opportunities I have each day ahead of time I am more likely to present it in some sort of profound manor. And tie it all back to God.

This first week is Gardening week. It started Sunday with Greg and Ben planting several succulents in the back yard. They dug up old roots. Transplanted plants, watered, rested, dug some more, cleaned up all their tools and celebrated a job well done.

Monday morning, I let Ben play with Greg's Western Gardening book. Hoping he would mark his favorite pages with stickers that we could then go to the nursery and find the plants he'd marked. But he is two. And most of the stickers ended up on his head. So a friend and I took our (FOUR) boys to the nursery so they could see where we buy plants. They each picked out four herbs and we took them home and planted them. For some reason this activity was not as fun with mom as it was with dad. Hmmmmm. Regardless. Herbs planted and a little over watered. Hope they survive. We talked about God creating the plants. And giving them water through rain when they were thirsty. And sometimes we give them water also. But we are not God. (a hard reality...that is even harder to explain to a 2 year old. So I didn't.) And helping them grow with light from the sun. So we can eat them. This is one of the many ways God provides for us because he loves us.

Using the herbs to make dinner tonight.

And going to a pumpkin farm Friday. We'll see how it all goes.

Some other themes we are going to do this fall:
Photography week. (Ben LOVES taking pictures)
Zoo week.
Cooking week.
Art week.
Sports week.
Cleaning week. (just kidding....maybe)
Mail week.
Beach and ocean week.
Garbage week. What is it with kids and the garbage truck? They LOVE it.

Do you have any other ideas? Please post a comment!