Compassion...

The point of our "week in Thailand" was to get the girls more excited and familiar with the homeland of Aom, the child we sponsor through Compassion. Today's activity was a simple one: draw a picture for Aom. According to the letters we receive from Aom's family, she loves art and is a pretty exceptional artist herself. I thought this was rather impressive for a 5 year old:

For comparison, here is the picture E drew for Aom:

In case you were wondering (and I certainly was) the big thing is a tree and the little thing is a flower. We'll be sending this picture, along with a letter and updated picture of ourselves to Aom and her family via Compassion.

If you've ever been to a Christian concert, event, or even just surfed the Internet, you have probably heard of Compassion International. According to their website, "Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults."

There are many reasons why we chose to sponsor a child, but here are a few:

• Encourage Generosity. We chose our sponsored child during the Christmas season to help refocus E from getting to giving.
• Teach Multiculturalism. We want our children to respect and value diversity.
• Promote Prayer. We pray for Aom and her family almost every night, allowing E the opportunity to consistently pray for a child she has never met.
• Practice Our Faith. The Bible calls for us to care for "widows and orphans" (in other words, those who struggle to care for themselves). We like that Compassion works with local churches and faith-based organizations. Sponsoring a child is a simple but very practical way we can put scripture into practice.

If you're interested in sponsoring a child, visit Compassion's website or just click on the widget below. You can view available children directly online and even choose gender, age, and country if you'd like.





Sponsor a Child

Easy Batiking!

Don't you love batik? There's an easy way of creating fun, colorful batiks with your kids that doesn't involve hot wax. I found the method on That Artist Woman and tried it out for myself. Here's how we created this fun Batik Pillow.

You'll need:

• 2 pieces of same-sized fabric
• gel glue (I'll explain later)
• acrylic paint
• paint brushes, water

1. Trace or draw your design lightly on the fabric with pencil.
I googled "elephant coloring page" and found a design I liked for my panel. For E's panel, I simply traced over one of her recent paintings. If you wanted, you could simply have your child skip this step and draw straight with glue.

2. Trace over the pencil with the glue.
Gale @ That Artist Woman used Elmers galatic glue. I couldn't find it or her other recommendation: Elmers washable school gel glue at Walmart. (I wasn't about to make a special trip.) What I did find was Clear Gel Tacky Glue. I think what's important is that the glue is not for fabric and is in gel form. I tried using good ol' school glue, but it spreads once it's on the fabric, so stick with gel glues.

3. Allow to dry overnight. 

4. Mix acrylic paint with water to make a very runny paint.

5. Paint!
The glue will not repel the paint, but don't worry, it'll wash out later.

6. Allow to dry. Again. 
This should only take a few hours.

7. Soak in the bathtub in very warm (almost hot) water for around 20 minutes.

8. Remove the glue.
At this point the glue will have softened up. Rub the fabric to loosen the paint over the glue. It will come off in flakes into the water. Then you can take a nail brush and scrub off the remaining glue.

9. Wring out and dry (in the dryer, if you'd like).

10. Sew into a pillow!

E keeps trying to convince me that we need to send the pillow to our Compassion child Aom in Thailand. I love the sentiment, but I think I'll pass on the international shipping!


An Elephant in the Backyard by Richard Sobol

I don't choose non-fiction very often, but this one is definitely worth a look. It tells the story of the elephants of Tha Klang, Thailand. The people in this village have been raising and training elephants for hundreds of years. The book introduces one special baby elephant, Wan Pen, and explains how the elephant lives with her human family and is trained.

Although written for older children, E sat through the entire reading and really enjoyed the pictures of Wan Pen with the Thai children. Even A seemed to like the full-color photography of elephants and daily life in the village.

Afterward, I got to share a few pictures of my own elephant trekking experience in Thailand! Who knows? Maybe these were elephants from Tha Klang!

I'm linking up with:
- Show Off Your Stuff @ Fireflies & Jellybeans
- stART @ A Mommy's Adventures

More Thailand for Toddlers

Sawadee Ka! We're learning about Thailand this week. Last night, we talked about how children in Thai mountain villages sleep. I explained to E how people build houses up on stilts and keep their pigs, chickens and roosters under the house. The kids lie on grass mats under mosquito nets and listen to the animal noises as they fall asleep.

Just before bedtime, we created our own pretend village hut. E loved pretending to be a Thai village child. Daddy and the dog weren't as excited about their roles.

The pretend play was a perfect lead-in to our bedtime story:

Hush! A Thai Lullaby by Minfong Ho

This prequel to Peek!: A Thai Hide-and-Seek follows a similar format. A Thai mama hurries around her home telling the different animals to be quiet because her baby is sleeping. (Having slept in a Thai village myself, I can attest that it is a noisy place!) The rhythms and repetition are wonderful:

"Wee-wee, Wee-wee," A small mosquito.
Mosquito, mosquito, don't come weeping. Can't you see that baby's sleeping?
Mosquito, Mosquito, don't you cry, My baby's sleeping right nearby.

The baby, of course, does everything but sleep, climbing out of his hammock and following Mama around the house. Kids will love trying to find the hiding baby in each picture, as well as enjoy learning the different animal calls in Thai.

For another related activity, I worked with A to build this Paper Plate Elephant. A came down with hand-foot-mouth disease and is absolutely miserable from all the blisters on her tongue and gums. I tried to distract her this morning with this simple craft. Using this template, I cut out the pieces and gave them to her to put on the plate. She chucked the ears at my head, so I did those for her and then she got the idea and helped with the nose and googly eyes. The googly eyes were a huge hit with her. I swear I only turned my back for a second!

Tomorrow I'll show our attempts at an ancient Asian art form.

Tails from Thailand

I had the awesome privilege of spending two months in Thailand when I was 16. The country and it's kind, generous people made an indelible impression on my young soul. To this day, I love all things Thai. So it is no surprise that when we decided to sponsor a child through Compassion, I chose a little Thai girl. We pray for Aom nightly, but I wanted to get the girls more invested in their Thai sister, so we are learning all about her homeland this week.


Peek!: A Thai Hide-and-Seek by Minfong Ho

We love this book! The illustrations are gorgeous, full-color eye-candy and the story is simple and precious. A father plays Jing-Ay (Thai for Peek-a-boo) with his daughter. She hides all around their home while her father keeps finding animals instead of his daughter. The animals start off simple and common, like a dog and a bird, but move more exotic and dangerous: snake, elephant, tiger. Eventually the father has had enough and begs his daughter to come out!

Both of my girls (5 and 19 months) enjoyed the book. A liked pointing at the different animals and E loved trying to find the little girl hiding in each picture. I loved that the inside of the book is covered in Thai writing. It's a wonderful introduction to the sights and animals of another country!

To go along with the book, I created a Thai-themed Sensory Bin for A to play with this morning. I filled it with rice (of course!) and added chopsticks and animals found in the book.

She promptly evicted the animals and spent her time drawing in the rice with the chopsticks.

After the fun of that activity wore off, I drew a R for rice with glue on construction paper and let her drop handfuls of rice on top. When we shook it off we had a beautiful letter R!

Tomorrow we're going to read another book by Minfong Ho and explore what it's like to live in a Thai village!

Thank you to everyone for your kind comments and emails concerning my father's passing. We had a beautiful memorial service for him, and though we continue to grieve, I am grateful to get back into our daily routine... including blogging!

I'm linking up to: What My Child is Reading