Horses and Keys

Yes, if you haven't guess already, a horses theme was inspired by Olivia's love of horses.  (Click here for post of her riding a pony recently and learning about grooming, saddle, etc.) And keys...well, I love keys, and I recently got some more skeleton keys for the children.  Ironically William's long-lost skeleton keys came up during this time.  He rearranged some things in his room, and he found the box of keys underneath where his dresser was.  These keys I recently acquired, though, are miniature skeleton keys, but they're oh-so-fun and neat!  I always loved skeleton keys as a child, and my great-grandmother had given me several.  I remember when she even still had doors with skeleton key door locks.

I decided to name the keys for the kids "Keys of the Kingdom" and to start them off all with one, with the exception of Elizabeth to whom I gave ten on a hemp string, because she really does no wrong.  Then at the end of each week, if the kids are deemed worthy, they receive a new key, and they each get to choose which one they want.  (The original three the oldest three chose are not pictured.)  

My discipline/guidance/training method with the children is heavily based in the "kingdom" theme, as some of you well know.  I thought the keys would be a neat theme to play on for awhile, and it goes well with the horses, because end-time prophecy uses both keys and horses as symbols.

I LOST my paper on which I typed the scriptures I used for this theme, and I didn't save it to my hard drive, either.  So no picture of the scriptures this time.

We read some horse books and read some parts out of the World Encyclopedia under "horse." 

We mostly looked at pictures of different horse breeds in Album of Horses.  This is an old copy that was my mother's or one of my aunts'.  Patch and Starlight are both learning-to-read books, so Trusten read some of the pages.

This is from a screenshot of some free books I downloaded via Kindle.  We haven't read all of these, but we read Horse book for Kids by Valerie L. Cross, Hi, I am Dolly the Famous Pony by Alice MacDonald, and Cassidy and the Rainy River Rescue by Valerie L. Cross.  The horse book was educational, but so was the graphic Dolly book.  I really liked this last one, because it was a fun children's book, but it also nicely detailed several functions a horse can fulfill, like plowing or showmanship or riding or pulling a wagon,  herding cattle, and several others. It was pretty cute!

The kids learned not only about some different breeds, but they also learned horse terms like foal, mare, stallion, etc., and just a few of the main parts of the saddle (seat, pommel, stirrups, reins). 

Source: World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 (1972)

Source: World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 (1972)

The kids and I each drew a horse.  Even Elizabeth sat with us and scribbled. 

Source: How to Draw a Horse

Liv named her horse "Oto."  She got the 'v' in her own name upside down.  LOL  I helped her draw her horse.

I'm not sure how much Trusten actually tried to follow the steps.  When I asked him what he wanted to name his horse, he yelled Trusten-style, "I don't want to name my horse!!!!"  (Okay, sweet boy, calm down.  You don't have to name your horse.) He then ripped his paper to shreds and threw it away.  :-( Glad I snapped a photo before that.

 I like how Jaden William chose to shade his horse.  He name his horse "Kaia," which is his planned-on-future wife's name.  He recently bought her a special treat at the store, wrote her a letter, and is ready to mail it to her.  His picture, though, is on my refrigerator.   I did snap a picture and send it to her mother, who is my friend.

This is the horse I drew.  I gave it the Latin name "Lordosis."  Aptly named, I think.

It was so funny.  I guess Nathan didn't see "Momma" written on the top of the paper.  He thought Jaden had drawn this one, too, and he said, "You drew that???  I thought it was pretty good for a ten-year-old."  I replied, "But not so good for a 31-year-old."  Hahahaha!  Hey, I do not claim to be able to draw well (or paint, or just about anything along those lines, and I'm not so sure any of our children inherited any such talents, either, though Nathan and I both do have artists in our families).

We watched some Amazon movies on the tv:  Black Beauty and Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken.  I'd never seen the former before.  Wow, how sad.  The latter I've wanted to show the kids for awhile, because I love that movie!  I can't remember whether both are Prime, but I know the first one is.

Liv loved Wild Hearts.  She said she wanted to be a horse-diving girl when she grew up. Ha!  Over and over and over she would say that over the course of a couple days or so.  She kept asking whether she could.  I told her I wasn't sure.  (Not so sure I'd want to encourage it, either!) Furthermore, Liv cut her hair again!!!   She was inspired Sonora Webber's character on the movie when she cut her hair.  At least Liv only cut a snippet.  How many times will that child cut her hair?  She's so sneaky, too.  Thankfully I caught her in the act, standing on the bathroom counter, otherwise she might have gotten more radical.  That makes the third time she's taken scissors to her hair, and that doesn't count my having to shave down her hair when she was a toddler from her pulling it and putting it in her mouth.

Liv played some horse games, like Girl Horse Games (Liv played "Girl and Horse Dress up" and attempted "Horse Eventing 2," but the latter proved difficult) and Horse Games ("Egyptian Horse," "Me and my Donkey").

And then I made them all a horse sandwich:

This doesn't look much like a horse, I know, and the source where I got the idea also doesn't look much like a horse.  As Liv said, theirs looks like a pig.

I saw a "Funky Lunch" one that looked cool, but I didn't find instructions, and it looked complicated and more time-consuming.

I didn't see this one until now, but it looks much more like a horse and doable.  Oh, well...maybe I'll do that still.

 I used chocolate chips, rather than peas, for the eyes. Don't they look more like horse eyes than green peas?  Anyway, notice that is the first thing Elizabeth eats! 

I came across some "key bread," which is basically challah bread shaped like keys, which is cool, but I just chose to do the horse sandwich.

Then the kids got a new dvd movie to add to their library, for just five bucks on Amazon, with Prime shipping!  They love The Indian in the Cupboard.  I remember reading the book when I was eight, I think.  Then I saw the movie years later, when it was made. 

For those who don't know, this story is about a nine-year-old boy who receives an old cupboard from his brother for his birthday, and his mother gives him a skeleton key that fits the lock.  He put his Indian toy figure he got for his birthday in the cupboard, and in the morning the Indian is alive!  It's a fun story, contains moral lessons, and it also has a horse in the movie, a toy horse that came alive with its cowboy.

And then of course I went over the scriptures I compiled and did some talking with the kids about the "key of David" and Christ and also about the horses of Revelation and false religion vs. the true Christ and more.  I also talked about wisdom and the keeping the commandments, etc. being a key.  I even threw in the war horse theme by quoting from Job. 

I also talked about the different meanings of "key," that it doesn't only unlock doors, gates, chests, etc., but it can be the unlocking of reading a map (the "legend"), or just the way of unlocking understanding (which led to certain scriptures I'd chosen on wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, etc.).  I don't want to think of and compile those scriptures again, and I can't remember every single one, so only if I find my sheet, I'll then add it to this post later. 

Well, I think that's it! 

Until next time...