Week 17 - Daniel has Self Control

Printables for this week:

Self Control Bible page

Self Control Chart from Hubbard’s Cupboard

Proverbs 25:28

Zoo ABC - letter n

Zoo Math N - #14

This week we learned about Daniel practicing self control when offered all the royal food in the King’s court.  The children really seemed to connect using self control to stopping yourself.  We started the week by taking it outside to play Red Light, Green Light.  Throughout the week, we also did some role playing of situations that would require self control (getting toys taken away, hit by a younger sibling, being accused of something you didn’t do, tackling a frustrating task) and practiced some techniques for calming down.  Our favorite techniques were taking deep breaths, counting backwards from 10, taking a break, reading a book, and doing the frustrated dance.

We also touched on nutrition this week, after learning about how Daniel chose to eat the food that was the best “brain food.”  In our home, we use terms (borrowed from my big sister) “brain food” and “tongue food.”  Brain food makes your mind and body strong, while tongue food tastes great to your tongue, but doesn’t do much for the rest of your body.  We say that water, fruit, veggies, whole grains, fish, chicken, brown rice, things made with brown flour (whole wheat...hehe) are brain food.  Tongue foods are highly processed, full of artificial stuff, and made with refined sugar and white flour.  These terms makes it easier for us to categorize food, since with a vitamix I can make a healthy version of all sorts of fun stuff like ice cream, milkshakes, cookies, cakes, and even pizza!  This helps us to handle food battles too, as when the children want some tongue food I will simply require a certain amount of brain food first.  By now they are getting fairly good at choosing their brain food independently, which is helping to develop self control and promote good nutritional choices.

Our zoo friend was Nigel Nightowl, so I came up with No Bake Nests for our cooking project.  The children formed some warm No Bake Cookies into a nest shape by sculpting it with a spoon in the bottom of a bowl.  We put them in the fridge to cool faster, and I snuck some candy coated chocolates in there as “eggs.”

Peter had a beautiful new owl puppet that was the highlight of the week.  We had fun flying him in on cooking day to surprise the children by laying eggs in their nests.  hehe  He also sang Happy Birthday to Abi as we celebrated her birthday on Fun Friday.