Teaching Kids Art Through Picture Books

As  a follower of Jesus, I love thinking about how to incorporate our faith into everything we do as parents and grandparents. Since children are always watching and catching and observing, it's important to take every opportunity to share the wonderful truths we believe with them. Today in keeping with the "Space" theme,  I wanted to reflect on what a peek into the heavens taught me this month.

As I observed that amazing total solar eclipse--the moon covering the sun completely--for 4 rare minutes in Indianapolis on April 8, I was overwhelmed with awe at our Creator and His creation. One of my takeaways from this experience was that I could actually see the sun gradually disappearing behind the moon, and yet...it was still mostly light outside!

Here the sun is almost covered by the moon--but--look how light is still is!:
On the left below, the sky is still blue but the sun is mostly covered (my camera didn't capture well) and on the right, the sky got...

 Is learning supposed to be fun? Most kids and adults think of learning something new as a bit of a chore. It sometimes feels daunting; a mountain to climb requiring a lot of hard work and effort. But what if we could instill a sense of adventure and reward and fun into learning? What if learning generated excitement instead of dread? It is possible to do this. Here are three ways to teach kids to love learning.

        1. Feed their interest-Start at the library and let kids browse the non-fiction books in the children’s section. What are they interested in?

One of our sons was interested in the Titanic. That led to reading all the library books about shipwrecks, watching DVD’s about shipwrecks, which led to reading about finding buried treasure. Did that seed planted about adventure and travel eventually lead to him becoming a pilot? I don’t know, but it didn’t hurt.  Check out bunches of...