1/27/08

The Sunbeam class went much better today. I can't decide if it was because Dion took Randy for most of it or because we offered them treats for sitting quietly, or a little of both. Udelia introduced the concept of "sit smart" that she learned from another lady she taught with a year or two ago. "Sit smart" means feet are quiet, eyes are on the teacher, hands are in lap and mouth is quiet. She brought 8 cleaned out babyfood jars with a child's name on each and I brought chocolate chips. Every time we'd ask them to or see them "sitting smart" we'd put a treat in their jar. They were actually pretty into it. Randy was with Dion (he didn't have to teach today) because he was wiggling and making noise non-stop in Primary. Dion brought Randy in to class late, so he didn't see the whole "sit smart" presentation, unfortunately. We briefly explained it and he kind of got the picture though. I think that as the weeks go on Randy will get it. Also, instead of just practicing sitting quietly for 3 minutes with Randy at home, I'll increase the length of time and use the sit smart concept with some songs, activities, questions, etc. For class, I did a couple of little activities. One involved having the children hang up pictures showing the different times/occasions we can pray (morning, night, family prayer, meals, at church, when we need help, etc.) and the other one involved sitting on a blanket and working together to make a little comic with cut out pictures about Daniel and the Lion's Den. I tried to be dramatic in my story telling and I held everyone's attention but Randy's and one other, shall we say, energetic, little girl's. By the end of class things were getting a bit wild. Udelia had brought pretzels to show them how to make a pretzel - fold their arms - during prayers. So, they kept coming up asking for more and more pretzels and not staying in their seats. And a couple of kids kept making breaks for the door. Anyway, I see light at the end of the tunnel. Plus, my back doesn't hurt NEARLY as much - only painful twinges every now and then and continued stifled flexibility. And, as a side note, all 3 of our kids did well in Sacrament meeting. It was a fairly successful day so I don't feel like crying!

Also, today I did a bit of indexing. (Looking at scanned in documents and records on the computer and typing the information into a form that will be double-checked and stored in a database, so it will be available for people to search on-line.) I started in October or so and did 3 or 4 pages and then got distracted around the holidays. Today I did another page. I had the 1850 Ohio census. Several people from Ireland, a few from Germany. The handwriting is quite beautiful, but sometimes it is difficult to read - it's fancy. In fact, I got one page and had so much trouble deciphering I sent it back and got another one! So far I've only done 242 names total. I consider it a kind of volunteer work. http://www.familysearchindexing.org/en/index.jsp