Homeschool Fun - Tactile Tracing

Tracing Activity: (for the tactile learner)

We're working on tracing capital letters. Introducing one a week. Younger kids are not ready to write yet, but you can begin to work their smaller fine motor skills muscles by tracing in a large space. (Play-dough is good to build those muscles too.)

You can have them trace one letter that takes up a whole sheet of paper or have them trace it with their finger in a pan of sand. We use rice, because it's on hand. Here's a pic of Claire tracing over the letter "N," that I made, with her finger. 

Homeschool Fun - Heart Chart Lessons in Virtues

The kids are learning a lot. Ethan goes to French pre-K to learn French (and they are teaching him French cursive!) and he seems to be doing great. Claire is completely home-schooled (she's 3 and will go to French pre-K in September to learn some French too, but we might just do a half-day). She's currently learning the letter "M" and is starting to recognize some numbers and letters here and there. I'm so proud of my kiddos! They are so curious and excited to make friends. They had very little adjustment to work through in coming to France. Praise the Lord!

So this is my first entry about some of our homes school projects or ideas. I want to remember them and maybe others can profit from these posts too. I like to be creative and think I have some capability, but really I don't have a ton of time to invent new things for the kids to do, so I quickly search things online (using my creative juices to choose good projects). A lot of what we do, I've borrowed - I can not take credit for it.

This first one comes from the Women Living Well Blog (I have a button for it on my site - check it out!).

So a Heart Chart is a way to track your child's progress pertaining to a certain virtue. I made a grid by using colored electrical tape on a dry erase board.

Our virtue last month was Kindness. They had to work together as a team. If they were kind (polite, helpful, caring) they could earn a heart that they would draw in one of the squares on the dry erase marker board. If they were mean or rude, they would lose a heart. By the end of the month, they filled the chart and earned their reward. They got to choose what kind of ice cream pops they wanted.

Claire age 3 & Ethan age 5 (almost 6).

This month we are working on Obey Right Away. It might be a long month, but it will be worth the effort. We're in the process of sculpting souls. Ministering to my kids is important - it is well worth the effort.

BIG Need for Ministry - Vehicle for Africa

Here's something to add to your prayer lists:

The Brollier fam is in need of a serious vehicle for when we arrive in Africa.

Actual photo from in "our" country

We'll need it travel between villages to get supplies and to travel up country to the capital (a 2-3 day drive because of the roads and the distance) for branch meetings three times a year. Part of our traveling in country is made hard by heavy rains and pot holes the size of hippos and trucks! (No kidding! You'll get to see pics).

We have asked our branch what they recommend for such travel, and they gave us a serious answer.

We will need a 4-Wheel Drive Vehicle which we're estimating will cost close to $50,000. 

This is a big need, but God can meet our needs in whatever way He sees fit. 

I know you're thinking, "Why does it cost so much?"
We need a reliable vehicle - one that won't break down much. We're not mechanics & we don't want to get stuck out in the bush in between our village town and the capital. That means we need to buy a new vehicle - not a used one. Something kinda like this:

Our branch leadership also requires us to have some very specific features for this vehicle:

- a snorkel (pipe pictured above - helps the engine can breathe when we drive through high water during rainy season)

- a winch (a crank with line to help pull the vehicle out of mud when we get stuck - we're told we will)

- space for enough gas (spare tank) to make the full trip to the capital because there are fuel shortages in country.

- a 12 seater to fit our family (4) and possibly other teammates (2+). The remaining fold down seats will be space for cargo crates that we'll bring from the shipping port up in the capital. (These crates contain our set-up supplies for getting our African style house live-able and workable: pipes, wiring, solar panels, battery cells etc.)

Our family & teammates in the 1st two rows - cargo for the rest

In addition to these features, we will need to include in our fund raising, customs fees/ taxes for importing such a vehicle from Japan.

Since the vehicle will be coming from Japan, we need to get a jump on raising support to have this vehicle pass customs and be in country waiting for us when we arrive late Spring 2012. The branch expects there to be some delay with imports from Japan because of the recent devastation from the tsunami. They regularly estimate at least 4-5 months to get the vehicle in country so that means we need to place the order well in advance of our arrival.

Although Brent & I grew up in Assemblies of God churches (AoG), we can not benefit from the Speed-the-Light Vehicle program because we are not AoG ordained missionaries. We are commissioned to serve with Pioneer Bible Translators (PBT) and we're required to raise funds for a field vehicle before departure for the field.

On the road  (no it's not a river) to our village town

Will you pray with us for God to move this mountain? 

Will you pray for provision... like only He can provide...

For something that's seemingly out of our reach?  

He is able & He is amazing!

Please PRAY that God would provide for this need.

If you'd like to donate
towards our PBT Africa Vehicle Fund...

Checks can be made out to PBT 

And mailed to our Stateside forwarding agents:   
 M & C Shell

 1502 NE 11th Terrace

 Cape Coral, FL 33990 USA

To Donate Online Right Now,
Scroll Up & Click on the yellow Donate Now button on the Left and...
  Select "Projects" and
 Choose "Brollier Vehicle"

We know that not everyone can give, but
  Everyone can pray. 

We know that your prayers make a huge difference because PRAYER is POWERFUL!

Thank You for Praying with Us!!!!!

Actual pics from trucks stuck in the roads in country

HEAVE!!!

The unpaved road on a good dry day

More roads in country

Holes the size of Hippos (spans the entire bottom of this pic)

Please consider being an advocate for us - share this need with your friends and your church. Thanks again for praying!

Traditional French Lunch

We had the opportunity to be invited over for lunch after church by some French friends who have children the same age as ours. It was a delightful day & we were so excited that they extended an invitation to us since they know we do not speak a ton of French yet.

The day was lovely! Traditionally if you are invited for lunch, you should plan on spending the whole afternoon. We read up on what it could be like before we arrived. We made sure to bring a gift since that was recommended. That was interesting to try to figure out. It's recommended that if you bring wine, you bring a good French wine. We're not wine experts so we avoided bringing wine. It's recommended that if you bring flowers you bring an odd number but not 7 or 13, and also certain flowers signify different things and so do their colors. We avoided bringing flowers too. It's safe to bring chocolates, and I was comfortable with the idea of bringing a dessert, though I did not want to show up my hostess if she had prepared one. So we brought fancy chocolate tea cookies (biscuits) and some Disney character chocolate or strawberry filled cakes (reminded me of twinkies) for the kids. Turns out we picked a good thing to bring. They were a hit with the kids and the adults. :-)

So the main idea of a meal is not just good food. In France the idea is to sit and talk and taste and talk some more. It was fabulous! We started at about noon and finished the day with our friends at 6pm. The first course was an apertif, or pre-dinner drink. It was some sort of hard liquor, maybe Vermooth (I don't even know how to spell that!). We sat sipping this strong drink while talking and munching on pistachios and chips (pronounced: sheeps). Then the kids were called in for the meal and we sang & clapped a prayer.
It went something like this (pardon my spelling and lack of accent marks):

Le pain de hier etait dur. (Yesterday's bread is hard.)
Le pain de demain n'est pas cuit. (Tomorrow's bread is not yet cut.)
Merci Pere, pour le pain d'ajourd'hui. (Thank you Father for the bread of today.)

Then they poured water into one cup and wine into another and we all toasted: A votre sante! (To your health.) All French people, including Christians, have wine with meals. It would almost be unheard of to not have wine with a meal. Wine is used for communion and at the potluck meals at church too. It takes some getting used to.

There was a delicious chicken and a special regional potato and cheese dish for the main course followed by bread and three types of cheeses and then a salad (which is traditionally just lettuce with a dijon mustard dressing).  We spent lots of time talking and laughing, and stumbling over our French. It was great and they were so patient. After dessert, strawberries with chantilly cream (whipped cream), we went to the lake. They drove us out to the lake near Chambery simply because they had asked if we had ever been and we had not -what hospitality! The lake was stunning with the Alps in the background. I wish we had brought our camera. It's the largest natural lake in Europe. The weather was perfect and the water was cool. Our kids loved it! When we came back we had icepops. I'm pretty sure the evening would have continued but Claire suddenly started feeling ill (the start to her flu), so we went home. We plan on having our French friends over for an American experience soon. :-)

We were so glad to be able to experience this so that we could prepare a traditional meal kind of like it for our friends who visited from the States.

More Likes - for Laura

Here's another simple list (in no particular order) of things I like...

1. Stain glassed windows
2. Medieval flags
3. Riding my bicycle
4. Eating a meal outside in the cool of the evening ( in a garden - even better)
5. Watching really FUNNY movies with friends and quoting lines afterwards
6. Playing yahtzee or cards with my kids
7. Eating fresh baked pastries (croissants, baggette, chocolate chip cookies!)
8. Buying news songs that I love on ITunes
9. Good old time music (Sinatra, Fitzgerald, Armstrong, 50's, 60's - things that remind me of time with my dad) and black and white movies (The Thin Man series, Arsenic and Old Lace, Casablanca)
10. Sewing on a sewing machine or by hand (makes me feel creative like my grandma and mom)

The following, I only tried once so far but absolutely LOVED each one:
1. Riding horseback
2. Making pottery
3. Archery
4. Canoeing
5. Camping