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Back to School Prayers for Kids, Teachers, & Admin (PRINTABLE!)

Reading Time: 2 minutes

12 ways to pray teachers

Though inevitably there’s so much excitement as everyone heads back to school, teachers and administrators I know are already strapping in for another hard year. We want, need, to pray for these key influencers in my kids’ lives.  I’ve seen teachers and admin–and the prayers for them–make a tangible difference. But they’re not the only ones navigating tough waters. How can we pray for our kids? (Aside from what’s below, check out this printable–a prayer from Scripture for each day of the month–and this word cloud, which can give you a lot of ideas when you don’t know how to pray). I’m hoping these back to school prayers are a great way to kick off loving on the teachers, administrators, and kids in our lives and cheering them on throughout the year. Please feel free to share or use in your small group or church if you find this useful.

12 Prayers for teachers and administrators

PRINT THESE BACK TO SCHOOL PRAYERS FOR TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS HERE.

pray for teachers

Back to School: How to Pray for Our Kids

PRINT THESE BACK TO SCHOOL PRAYERS FOR KIDS HERE.

pray for teachers

HELP US OUT: What would you add that you’ll pray for your kids and their teachers?

Comment below!

Thanks to Steven Helmick, a principal of a school of over 1000 and an educator among the top eight Arkansas’ 2014 teachers of the year, for lending his expertise to this list. read more

New Year 2021: Ideas to Put the “New” Back In

Reading Time: 4 minutes

New Year 2021

While living in Uganda, my language acquisition developed to an equivalent of that drunken-sailor lurch of a new toddler. That is, my ability to speak resembled lurching, grinning, and occasionally falling on my rear.

And of course just because you can speak a language doesn’t mean you use it in the same ways. I’d occasionally get weird looks for wishing someone Merry Christmas (Seku Kulu enungi!) in December. Apparently Ugandans keep this phrase pretty much for Christmas day. read more

13 Kids’ Thanksgiving Activities (with Printables!)

Reading Time: 3 minutes

kids thanksgiving activities

Like so much of 2020, there are parts of Thanksgiving this year that are a bit sad. We’ve canceled our family trip for reasons you can probably guess (thank you, COVID).

But this year continues to fling doors wide open in raising resilient kids. read more

FREE Thanksgiving Scripture Art

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Thanksgiving Scripture art

Happy almost-Thanksgiving!

I feel like this year, my family needs a day of gratitude even more. read more

Anger Issues? Ideas to Keep a Lid On

Reading Time: 5 minutes

anger issues

I still recall with vividness my son’s drawing, proclaiming my anger issues to the world.

It was in red marker (his favorite color). Chunky hands rested on wonderfully slim, stick-figure hips. “I made you look mad, but you’re not mad in this picture,” he explained. read more

5 Quarantine Gifts We Don’t Want to Lose

Reading Time: 4 minutes

quarantine gifts

Here in Colorado, our shelter-in-place ends in a matter of days, yielding to reduced prevention measures. As we celebrate a homebound birthday of my most extroverted child today, I’m reminded how tough these weeks have been for him–resulting in some signs of stress. He opened his quarantine gifts sent by Grandma and Grandpa, and we’ve got a cookout, and all-family games of hide-and-seek and kickball on the docket.

I think, too, of my friend waiting to finally grieve her husband’s passing in community.  I long for worship services in person. For fear to subside. read more

Child’s Play: 65 Non-Screen Ideas for COVID Closures

Reading Time: 4 minutes

play

Kids crawling up the walls? Need ideas for a little creative, active play? Let’s get to it. (I’d love your own ideas added to the comments section below!)

  1. Play restaurant–maybe with a little bit of real food (today’s snacks, perhaps? Water, anyone?). Make a menu, set the table.
  2. Give them something to clean or organize–like whatever that gray mass is under their beds.
  3. Family game night.
  4. Facemask with your daughter.
  5. Race toy cars using a board or cardboard box propped up at an angle.
  6. Check out books and audiobooks from the online library.
  7. Practice an instrument.
  8. Have an older child make dinner.
  9. Tell them to design their own flag.

  10. Put a mattress on the floor for somsersaults and wrestling.
  11. Camp out in the living room.
  12. Let them decorate their bedroom door.
  13. Pick out one of these 50 role-playing ideas.
  14. Play dress-up (dudes can play, too: pirates, army guys). Fashion show optional.
  15. Take a bubble bath.
  16. Paint faces. (Maybe do this before #11?)
  17. Make an obstacle course–indoors or outdoors.
  18. Make a movie with your phone.
  19. Have a dance party.
  20. Play with shaving cream on a cookie sheet.

  21. Finger paint (you can make your own). play
  22. Get out the toy winning the prize for “haven’t played this in the longest time”.
  23. Find an online class or tutorial for something they’re interested in: guitar (um, you should have a guitar); art; cooking.
  24. Send them outside to play soccer, baseball, kickball, or my kids’ favorite, Calvinball (from Calvin & Hobbes).
  25. Play with playdough (you can make your own).
  26. Play “store.”  Line up your pantry items, grab grocery bags, set up a “cash register” cardboard box, make some paper money and pricetags. (This is great for early money lessons! You can even make pretend “checks”.)
  27. Take photos with your phone (perhaps using siblings or stuffies?), and put them in their own “book” to tell a story.
  28. Find a podcast they’ll like.
  29. Create a prayer paperchain of people you love.
  30. Memorize Bible verses for prizes. (My kids like to make it easy by downloading songs from SeedsFamilyWorship.com.)
  31. Read out loud one of the Chronicles of Narnia, or R.J. Palacio’s Wonder.
  32. DIY Pedicure with your daughter.
  33. Make and send cards for someone isolated or anxious.
  34. Get on Marco Polo with a friend.

  35. Give them a small budget to create a worship-music playlist.
  36. Feeling ambitious and homey? Make your own soft pretzels. Kids will love to choose the toppings!
  37. Let them pick a craft on Pinterest.
  38. Make a fort.
  39. Play library.
  40. Make a parade using stuffed animals, bikes, musical instruments, posters, streamers…
  41. Have a Nerf war. (I personally prefer outside.)
  42. Make a sensory bin. (Tip: Put it on a shower curtain or sheet for easier clean up.)play
  43. Put on a play. (You can make one out of your favorite story.)
  44. Call Grandma or Grandpa.
  45. Play post office.
  46. Make a photo Chatbook–maybe even for someone else. (My husband adored the one my daughter made for him for Christmas, full of photos of him and the kids.)
  47. Camp out in the living room. Have hot dogs and/or s’mores for dinner.
  48. Make a scrapbook.
  49. Make muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast.

  50. Leave packaged snacks with a note for the neighbors.
  51. Make a maze on the driveway with chalk.
  52. Make your own mega-bubbles. Cut the bottoms from disposable water bottles or large plastic cups for instant bubble-makers (watch for sharp edges).
  53. Play “laundry” with doll clothes. You could wash them for real, or let the kids put them in a box-turned-washing-machine-and-dryer. Let them pretend to hang the clothes on a pint-sized wash line, then play-iron.
  54. Make sock- or bag-puppets, and maybe even a puppet stage. Put on a show!
  55. Build a marble rollercoaster or maze out of straws.
  56. Make spear-like building materials from rolled-up newspaper (start at the corner) and masking tape. You can make large structures and throw blankets over them for a hideout!
  57. Make your own secret code, and/or write something with Q-tips and  “invisible ink” from things you have at home. (Milk works, too; let it dry and put near a heat source, like a lightbulb. Obviously, kids should be careful with that last part.)
  58. Make your own popsicles (No molds? You can use cups and popsicle sticks the old-fashioned way!).
  59. Grab an easel or clipboard and make an outdoor art-studio.

  60. Play veterinarian with stuffies.
  61. Make tissue-paper flowers to hang from your daughter’s ceiling.
  62. Line up chairs to make an airplane, race car, canoe, Magic School Bus…
  63. Make your own instruments from recycling.
  64. Make (or print) and color your own paper dolls (there are some for boys, too).
  65. Play BINGO for small prizes using at-home reading accomplishments.

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11+ Low-prep ideas to occupy kids on Christmas break (with FREE printable!) read more

Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: Courage (with Book List & Printables!)

Reading Time: 7 minutes

My daughter’s headed to winter camp soon, which she adores. This morning, over an increasingly plain-looking Greek yogurt parfait, she gushed about camp’s breakfast buffet. She loves the free time, the reconnecting with old friends.

But in light of her anxiety issues, and apparently a night last year when she laid awake till 2, she’s already nervous about getting to sleep.

(All those suggestions in the Help! My Kid Can’t Sleep post? Those are hard-won, peeps.) read more

Ephesians 1:16-21: Print Free Watercolor Scripture Memory

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Ephesians

I loved sharing with you last week a little snapshot of my life.

Alas, my manuscript is due MONDAY to Zondervan, so my little heart has been written out. Tonight I wanted something calm and pretty and open and blue, like an ocean. read more

Holiday Rerun: Happy Thanksgiving! FREE Scripture Art

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Happy Thanksgiving! I love that we still celebrate a day of gratitude. I don’t want to hop over it in my scurry on to Christmas.

I’m hoping for more than a quick, compulsory burst of gratitude tending to last five minutes over some corn muffins. I’m thinking about how to make lifestyle of Thank you, God–over and over, thank you for us as a family. Because naturally over here, we lean toward patting ourselves on the back.

We’re working on covering a window with sticky notes of things we’re grateful for. (You can grab more you-can-totally-do-this gratitude ideas for families in this post. Threw some free printable thank-you notes for kids in there.) read more

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