I’ve been doing a series of Facebook Live posts that mostly cover the topic of botany and include some crafts, writing ideas, and more. Here is a printable for an outdoor botany scavenger hunt, too! Enjoy!
Outdoor Botany Scavenger Hunt
The Benefits (and Blessings) of Homeschool Conventions
Hello Everyone! I am sooo excited to be finalizing many of my speaking engagements for 2020 and am very honored to be speaking this year at THREE Great Homeschool Conventions! Homeschoolers, let me first tell you why YOU need to attend a homeschool convention. Although you can do lots of things in a virtual manner, like curriculum shopping, reading blogs (like this one), and even chatting with other homeschoolers, there is nothing like doing these things in person. I remember attending my first homeschool convention as a new homeschooling mom. I was blown away! Just walking among the other attendees was an encouragement to me. You see, I often felt alone in my homeschooling journey, even though we would join local co-ops or take outside classes. Being around all these other folks who were doing the same thing as our family made me realize what an awesome thing this homeschooling gig is…and even more amazing…I was not alone in it! The encouraging workshops made me realize that many of us share similar struggles. I often struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to me…and, what a surprise!…we had so much in common already!
Homeschool conventions are places of encouragement and fun!
Strolling through the vendor hall was also a treat. I was able to finger through many of the curricula I only saw online. I could talk with the vendors and ask questions that were specific to my children’s needs. I was also able to take advantage of the many convention specials they offered, too!
But the best thing that these events provide is a face-to-face element that just cannot be met virtually. Believe me, I have homeschooled for 21 years. I have also worked in those vendor booths and have spoken at homeschooling events all over the country. The things that happen in those booths bless my heart. The conversations quickly go from asking about a lesson plan, to potty training, to how to build a relationship with your spouse. Many times, I find myself hugging a mama after we have shared some deep things with each other. And that happens all through the conference. One-time strangers become fast friends. Someone standing next to you will strike up a conversation and offer helpful suggestions, share hints on local field trips, or even recommend homeschooling groups in your area. It is truly a convention for YOU!
And Great Homeschool Conventions play a wonderful role in bringing these amazing events to your area. These well-organized conventions offer something for every stage of the homeschooling journey, from helpful how-to-homeschool workshops, to mom encouragement and big picture topics, to working with littles, or helping your teens launch well.
I will personally be speaking at these upcoming GHC events:
- March 19-21: Greenville, SC
- April 16-18: Cincinnati, OH
- June 25-27: Jacksonville, FL
I would LOVE to see you there!
~Sherri
God’s Design in Nature and the Golden Ratio
For Christmas, my son got me a lovely necklace. It is a silver pendant showing the golden ratio.
What is that and why would I wear something like it? Well, to me, the golden ratio is a testimony to God’s perfect design.
The golden ratio is a perfectly symmetrical relationship between two proportions. Numerically, it is about a 1:1.61 ratio, and it is most easily represented by increasing square sizes, beginning with two squares that have sides that are 1 unit in length, while the next square has sides that are 2 units in length. The increasing squares will have sides the length of the sum of the previous two squares.
Mathematically, this ratio is closely related to the Fibonacci sequence, where each term is the sum of the previous two (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…). Then you can see an increasing spiral that moves from the smallest squares to the larger ones.
Like this:
Historically, the golden ratio has been used in architecture and design because its proportions are pleasing to the eye.
But to me, the most compelling examples of the golden ratio are found throughout creation.
We see this perfectly increasing spiral formation in a nautilus shell. Cauliflower exhibits the same orderly proportions, too. And it is even seen in the ratios of the intricate webbing within delicate dragonfly wings.
Did all this perfection occur randomly? That is hard to believe. Whenever we see order in the world, we should think of design. In fact, the more I study science, the more I see that there is an underlying foundational order to the universe. There are laws that the heavens obey. There is a noticeable pattern to the construction of the atoms within all the elements in the periodic table.
If you really want to see a wonderful animation of all of this, take a look at this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA
You see, to me, all this points to a Designer. One who spoke all of creation into being. Glorious mathematical structures not only display beauty and artistic perfection, but they also point us to a Creator-God!
And THIS is why I love my necklace!
A Year’s Worth of Events in 9 Days – God’s Provision and Protection
Provision and protection are my words for 2018. Do any of you pick a word to be your theme for the new year? Up until this year, I haven’t had one this early. Why? Well, the pressure of trying to live up to a word I pick just overwhelms me. What if I pick the word “joy,” for example, and then as things happen in our year, I forget to respond with joy? I would fail (It’s just the way my mind works…) So, what I do instead is wait to see how God brings certain things into my year and ask Him to show me what He is doing. It usually is a few months before I see a theme going through our lives.
Not this year.
Today is January 9, and I already have not one, but two words. Yes, indeed. We have jam-packed so many events into the first week-and-a-half of this year, that I already know what God is trying to show me.
It started on New Year’s Eve. We had family over and were going to celebrate with them by making homemade pizzas, shooting off fireworks, and having a bonfire. But first, I thought, let me throw a load of clothes in the wash so I can stay on top of the laundry. We have a front-loading washer, and basically it broke mid-wash, which means we couldn’t open the door. You see, a front-loading washer cannot be opened if there is water inside it – it stays locked. So, after my husband tried several things, he finally had to rig a wet-vac hose and some plastic cups to vacuum out the water so we could open the door and figure out what was wrong.
Twice…As we were “celebrating” for New Year’s Eve…
Long story short, we had to buy a new washer (which will not deliver for two weeks!). So, no laundry.
Amidst that, my husband came down with a 3-day cold bug that knocked him out. One-by-one, it made its way to each of us (I am just now able to get back on my feet). You can imagine the difficulty of not having a washer while you have sickness in the house!
Oh, and did I mention that our air conditioner/heater unit broke? Yes, we had to have the repairman out here THREE times to finally get it fixed. Meanwhile, we froze while we were sick (Florida’s 28-degree cold snap hit for a couple days during this time).
Next in our continuing saga, our shower handle broke off the wall. After Dave tried to fix it, he realized that it was a broken cartridge, and that it required a plumber to repair it.
The grand finale was a car accident. While I was trying to sleep off a fever and stuffy head, my husband was running errands and was hit by a red-light-runner. Thankfully, he was not hurt, but because of the angle of the impact, four cars were involved. The entire front end of his car (both sides and the front!) was smashed. Oh, and the driver at fault was driving with a suspended license and has no insurance.
So here we are, nine days into 2018, with a long to-do list that I was not planning on. It includes germy laundry piling up that I can’t wash, repairmen for the a/c-heat and shower, new washer delivery (can’t wait until Friday!), paperwork for the car insurance company plus taking the car in to get an estimate on the damage (praying it won’t be totaled – it’s paid for), all while trying to recoup from the last few days of feeling like I was a limp piece of spaghetti.
Well, I could certainly mope and wallow in this terrible beginning of the year. But I know there is something else happening. You see, even though we have things breaking, we do have the ability to replace them. We had to do a bit of financial shuffling, but we can still do it. So, I am grateful for God’s provision.
The sickness? Well, I know many people who deal with continuing illness daily. As I was sick, I was pretty sure that in a few days, I would be better. What a blessing that God protected me and my family from getting something worse.
And the accident? If my husband was just a few feet further into the intersection when he was hit, he might have been terribly hurt. I know that God protected him.
So instead of asking God why he would allow all this mayhem to happen in the last several days, I am realizing that He protected and provided for us. He protected us from getting a sickness that was worse than what we had. He protected Dave by keeping him from getting hurt. He provides for us so that we can fix the things in the house that need fixing. He is present. He is engaged.
Therefore, protection and provision are my words for the year. I know they can potentially involve drama like we’ve already seen, but what a wonderful God we have who knows our hurts and our difficulties. As the events of this year unfold, then, I choose to look for his provision and protection in it.
Do you have a word for the year?
Toddler Handprints and God’s Creation
I was cleaning the windows the other day and noticed something that made me suddenly stop what I was doing. Instantly, my demeanor went from “daily-grungy-chores-blah” to “heart-lifting-cheery-smile.” What caused it?
A tiny handprint.
You see, just a few weeks ago (no judging as to how long it took me to clean!) my daughter-in-law and 1-year-old granddaughter came from out of town for a visit. This toddler handprint was an instant reminder of that.
But it was more. It got me thinking. How could an “organized smudge” evoke such an emotional response from me? It’s because that handprint belonged to someone specific…someone to whom my heart is attached.
And when I see it, her sweet face comes right to mind. I think of her reaching up to me to be picked up. I remember her little hugs.
There is another One whose handprints cause me to instantly stop in my tracks, changing my countenance almost immediately. I see these prints on things in creation. You see, when God makes something, his handprints are all over it. What he crafts is covered by his unique “organized smudges.”
So when I step outside to get the mail and suddenly see a lovely rainbow stretching across the sky, I stop in my tracks to marvel at it. As I observe the awesome complexity in creation when I look into a microscope, I am taken aback that my God spoke this into being. When I see a sunset, with its glorious colors, my heart soars at the design behind how white light bends and creates this mosaic of color.
A handprint.
What a magnificent thing. It’s a connection to the individual who left it. And in the larger scheme of things, it is a testimony to God’s creative power!
Collecting Beautiful Beach Sand
Recently I posted a picture of my beach sand collection on some social media sites because after my recent trip to Australia and New Zealand, I added 4 new beaches to it. Well, I was amazed at the feedback I received! Many of you asked to find out more about how I do this, particularly how I display them.
First, let me tell you what this collection is all about. You probably already know that I love the beach. As a marine biologist the ocean fascinates me, and the beach is a truly restful place for me. So many of my family’s trips over the years have been to beach-y locations.
When we were first married, my husband and I had very little extra funds for things like souvenirs. But I wanted to keep some kind of memento from places we had been. We were gifted (very generously) a trip to Barbados for our honeymoon, and one of the beaches there was made of pink sand.
It was so stunning to see, but the pictures didn’t do it justice. So I grabbed a handful of pink beach, put it in a small zippered sandwich bag, and brought it home. It stayed in that little bag for quite a while.
Because we live in Florida, we took a few trips to the beach the next summer. I noticed that the sand there was very different as compared to my Barbados pink sand. Thus, my collection started.
Now I needed a place to store the sand so I could see it. The perfect solution? Glass spice containers. I found a really inexpensive set at a thrift store, painted some of the caps different colors and filled them with sand. I added little tags to each bottle with the name of the beach, its location, and the date we visited.
As my collection grew, I wanted a better place to display it as compared to its current location on top of a bookshelf. The little wall shelves from IKEA were a perfect solution. They are narrow, inexpensive, easy to install, and come in different sizes.
My traveling has increased over the years – one reason is due to my children having grown and the other is due to my traveling to film for science DVDs and to speak at conferences. So my beach sand collection has grown even more.
It is amazing to see how different each beach is. Beaches are made by the materials either on land or in the water near them. The wind and waves churn and erode those materials until they become small particles. If there is very strong wave action, sometimes the tiny sand grains are washed away, leaving a rocky beach. Volcanic land can cause black sand beaches to form from the crushed up lava. Pink sand beaches are made from small bits of shells and corals in the area.
There are also purple, green, orange, and red beaches, depending on the minerals in the rocks or shells in the area. It is truly a great way to remember where we have been as well as an inexpensive way to bring back a memory from our travels.
The Beauty of Monotony
Parenting is interesting. One thing that continues to amaze me is how being a parent helps me gain insights to life. Sometimes, it forces me to see my sin or selfishness. Other times, it makes me view the world through the sweet or introspective perspective of my children.
For example, when playing with a toddler, you soon realize that they love repetition and regular routine. They thrive when there is a known thing ahead…when there is snack time, then play time, then nap time (well, not always that one!).
Suffice it to say that their little spirits are designed for that regularity.
Yet that doesn’t always excite me as a mom. I get tired of the day-in-and-day-out monotony. It isn’t exciting. It makes one day seem to drag into another. During the days when I had 4 little ones aged 6 and under, I longed for adventure. I dreamed of challenges. I would have even settled for a little spice in my food (my kids couldn’t handle spicy).
But I came across this awesome quote from G.K. Chesterton the other day.
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
Have you ever pushed a child on a swing? If they had their way, they would have you pushing them indefinitely. When they are playing in the dirt, they don’t want to stop to come inside to get cleaned up. And then when they are in the tub, they don’t want to get out to dry off for dinner.
They are “in spirit fierce and free.” They “exult in monotony.” But as Chesterton suggests, God seems to revel in monotony, too. Each day since the beginning of time He has made the sun to rise again. He has made the moon to continue in its path.
Since creation, he has made an infinite number of daisies – each one like the other – but he makes them without tiring. And we marvel at a springtime bouquet of them, right? They are still breathtaking to behold!
I love how Chesterton says that perhaps God never tires of this regularity because he has the eternal appetite of infancy. We, as grownups, worry about tomorrow. We stress that we are not keeping up with the laundry or the dishes or whatever else brings stress. We are not living moment by moment.
Yet our children do.
They can help us to see things from our Father’s vantage point in that they have not “grown old” like we have. They have a jubilant, joyful perspective.
It is the same each day. Play. Laugh. Do it again.
Let’s try to remind ourselves that we are God’s children and we can gleefully embrace each day he gives us with laughter, enjoying the fun things of the moment. We can linger a bit more in those times, saying “Do it again, Lord!”
I know there are worries in this world. But let’s try to use the eyes of a child to view things around us. Let’s ask God for strength to exult in monotony. Indeed, monotony can be beautiful!
Mom Guilt – Guest Posting at Rachael Carman’s Blog
Have you ever struggled with mom-guilt? You know what I’m talking about. When you relive moments when you said things to your children you shouldn’t have (or just said things with the wrong tone of voice). Or how about when you wish you could have given your child an experience that you didn’t have the time/finances/energy for?
Today I am guest posting on Rachael Carman’s blog about forgiveness, but it has to do with forgiving ourselves in light of the forgiveness we receive from our Lord. Hop on over. I’d love if you would read and leave a comment!
Click here.
Thanks! ~Sherri
Everything Created is Useful (In Praise of Vestigial Organs)
No one will dispute the fact that science is continuing to advance. Our knowledge of how the world works increases each year. But that new information is also doing something amazing. It is showing us the importance of vestigial organs, creating a stumbling block to evolutionary theory.
To help you understand all the science-y stuff, let me give you an example from a (hypothetical) kitchen. Let’s say a person once spent lots and lots of time baking bread. This was in an effort to produce a good, healthful, relatively inexpensive food for her family. She went a little overboard and bought stoneware loaf pans, a grain mill to grind multiple grains, and lots of yeast and vital gluten to make the bread come out soft and fluffy. These tools were used to feed her family for a few years. But then things got super busy. She found herself not having much time to devote to baking. The family became busier and busier, and the kids were growing and moving out. Two of them identified that they had an intolerance to gluten.
Thus this (hypothetical) mom stopped baking bread. Yet if you go into her kitchen today, you would find remnants of this once-used activity. There’s a neglected grain mill and some baking pans stored in the back of the cabinet collecting dust. They once served a purpose in this kitchen but they now no longer do. They are a vestigial part of the kitchen body.
They’re like our appendix.
People think some parts of the human body, like the appendix, are no longer useful. They think it is a vestigial organ. By definition, a vestigial organ or body part is something that once served a purpose within the body but is no longer useful.
According to evolutionary theory, unnecessary parts are a negative thing for organisms, hindering their ability to survive. That’s because it takes precious energy to maintain something that serves no purpose. So any organisms that happen to be born with smaller unnecessary parts will better survive as compared to those with larger ones. As they pass on the genetics for smaller unnecessary parts to their offspring, the next generation will do the same, and eventually that non-useful part is no longer there.
But living organisms are NOT like that hypothetical person’s kitchen!
It turns out that the structures in the human body that are considered non-useful actually serve important purposes. The appendix was once embraced as a vestigial organ – thought to be a remnant of a time before people evolved when the diet our “ancestors” had was filled with rough, leafy foliage. But thanks to scientific advances, we know the human appendix has lymphatic tissue which indicates it has a job in the body, serving important roles in the immune system.
Similarly, the coccyx – or tailbone – is sometimes called a vestigial structure, suggested to have been a tail in an evolutionary human ancestor. The coccyx is located at the lower end of our backbone. Scientists now know that it serves an important purpose for humans. Several ligaments and muscles are attached to it in order to provide structural support for the body to work well.
Evolutionary scientists like the idea of vestigial organs. They think these organs once served a use, but through the evolution of creatures that came before humans, these organs lost their purpose. Since they were no longer “needed” as organisms evolved, those organs started to decrease in size. Eventually, as humans continue to evolve, these organs would disappear. It seemed to make sense to them and fit their purpose.
However, thanks to scientific research, we are seeing that there is indeed purpose for all these structures. Of course we can survive without them, but we wouldn’t survive as well. For example, I can live without my pinky on my hand, but my grip would not be as strong without it. These organs can be removed and the person survives, but that is not a measure of function!
As more and more “unimportant” structures in nature are being found to have purpose and function, the idea of vestigial organs as a support for evolutionary theory is becoming less and less valid in the scientific community. Indeed, everything created by God is useful. God, in His infinite wisdom, is the perfect designer and everything He creates is important!
Is Your Career “On Hold” As a Mom?
More than once in the past few weeks I have had conversations with moms who were feeling frustrated with their situations. They had “put their career on hold” and they had to wait for the busy-ness of motherhood to slow down so they could “get back to what God had for them.”
Folks. We have to shift our thinking about this. Let me start by giving you a bit of my story.
Before I had children, I had a pretty fun job. I worked at Walt Disney World. I was a marine biologist with the responsibility of collection, transport, and care of over 100 different ocean species living in a 6-million-gallon aquarium. I regularly swam with dolphins. I published scientific research on shark behavior. They sent me to the Florida Keys each summer to fish and dive at their satellite facility.
Yeah, it was fun. My career was starting to expand as I wrote for scientific journals and magazines.
But then I had our first child. Both my husband and I really believed that God was calling me to stay home and be there full time as our family grew. So to the amazement of several of my co-workers, family, and friends, I quit my job and came home full time to be with our son (and in the next few years, more children).
I considered it a promotion to motherhood.
But I had to keep reminding myself of that. After all, it definitely was not as glamorous or mentally exciting as what I did before. Some days I felt like my “job responsibility” mainly consisted of cleaning up bodily fluids coming out of tiny humans.
I have to be honest. Those days weren’t very “fulfilling,” at least on the surface of my thoughts. With four children ages 6 and under, I was in full-on Mom mode: messy hair, sleep-deprived, and fueled by peanut butter and jelly crusts.
Yet, when I really thought about it, I knew it was the best thing I could be doing and was ultimately the most fulfilling occupation for me. Today I cherish those sweet reading times on the couch with all the children snuggled around me. *I* wanted to be the one who bandaged their scraped knees or scolded and encouraged them when they were learning to share.
And THEN… if we weren’t weird enough in this culture…we really felt God directing us to homeschool our children.
So my “career” changed a bit more. I added curriculum to my days. I had to learn how to teach proper writing and grammar skills. I studied all I could about learning styles, scope & sequences, and transcripts.
Today, after 21 years of homeschooling, all of our kids have graduated and are out of the home.
You might say, then, that I can finally get back to my career.
But I would answer you by saying that I never left it.
What do I mean? Well, granted, I didn’t remain working as a marine biologist once we had kids, but I continued in my skills and career-building as I faithfully (sometimes not-so-faithfully) did what God had before me.
During those days of homeschooling, I actually gained an education in areas that I had been lacking. Although my grammar skills had been OK before, let me tell you that after teaching elementary- and middle-school-level grammar four times through, I can now hold my own with the grammar-Nazis!
Looking back from the vantage point I have today, I can see how God placed me in various positions and gave me certain skills in order to prepare me for what He had for me right now.
You see, working at Disney put me in front of hundreds of people at a time, so I had to learn rather quickly how to speak to large groups. That job also gave me career experience and exposure. Coming home gave me an education on how children learn and grow. Each of my four children has different learning styles and unique needs. When I began homeschooling, there was little available curriculum so we often had to create our own (I can pretty much write a unit study on anything…I mean anything… Yep, even dirt…I can do it…).
I gained more skills in my academic field, too. Because of my science background, I offered to teach science to other homeschooled students as well as my own. In these little informal co-ops, I gained more skills as I began to understand the best ways to explain scientific principles, using examples and hands-on demonstrations.
And I loved it!
So what am I doing today? Well, I am speaking at homeschool conferences, science camps, and ladies’ retreats to encourage families. I am also writing curriculum for middle school and high school. And I am filming instructional DVDs to accompany science courses, enabling me to use hands-on examples to explain scientific concepts.
But I could NOT be doing this if I hadn’t gone through the skill-building pathway God had for me. In those early days of being home with my children, I had no idea what was ahead. The technology to do what I am doing today had not even been invented yet!
However, God knew.
He knew what would be the best “career path” for me. And as I have the blessing to look back with today’s perspective, I am grateful to be able to see that what I did was not a side-track or putting my career on hold. Indeed, it was EXACTLY what I needed to do and experience so that I could build the skills necessary to do what I am doing right now (even the grammar!).
So if you are wondering about the spot God has you in right now, know that it is not a Plan B for your life. Raising and training children in itself is one of the BEST things we can do with the ministry of our lives. It is the MOST fulfilling. In the long run, it is more fulfilling than ANY other career.
And know that your external career is not being put on hold. We all have to think of it as another step in God’s plan for our individual journeys. Each journey will look a little different, because we each play a different role in the body of Christ.
But EACH ONE is a vital role. EACH ONE is worthwhile. And EACH ONE is made up of a pathway that God will use for His good.
