Cold Brew Coffee Review
Did you know that cold brew coffee has been around for many, many years, and it’s not just a current craze? My parents and grandparents made cold brew all of my life. Our fridge always housed bottles of liquid gold, cold brewed coffee concentrate. We never had to worry about shelf life because we went through it quickly. Hot black coffee was the natural way to start and end the day and to offer to guests. Once some friends even let themselves in our house just before we returned home from a trip and hid my mom’s cold brew and ate up the ice cream in the freezer. The ice cream was forgivable, but we couldn’t imagine a more horrible prank than to hide the coffee! While I had to use mini 4 cup coffee pots thru college, I soon got my own Toddy Cold Brew system. Cold brew regular and decaf liquid concentrate are always in my fridge. While we dabble with French press and pour overs at our house, we always have cold brew on hand for hot or iced coffee. My favorite benefit is the lower acidity of the cold brewed coffee than the traditional hot drip…
Sensory Strategies for Learning
How can you squeeze a little learning into playtime? As a teacher and tutor I have had to think creatively and quickly to come up with out of the box sensory strategies for learning to help students learn in a way that makes sense to them. This happens usually when their frustration becomes evident. The student begins to act out or shut down. For some reason they are unwilling or unable to focus on the learning. That brings out my creative side! I WANT every kid to find joy in learning! And if they are not, I want to know why and what I can do to make it better. Getting creative with sensory learning is a good starting spot. It’s not the only way to teach and learn, but there can be fun activities connected to our senses and our study time. Learning styles are basically just how your child learns best – by hearing, by watching, or by doing. These are not the only way your child learns, so do not discount all the other ways we can learn, but understand that sometimes it helps your child to focus on the content when we present it in a…
Book Review – Wumbrand
What book have you read that was life changing? Hopefully your first answer was the Bible. In addition to God’s Word, there have been a handful of books that have impacted my thinking and actions. WURMBRAND Tortured for Christ the Complete Story was one of those books. A friend gave me the book and movie as a Christmas gift. 376 pages will have you staying up at night wanting to know what happens. The movie Tortured for Christ is graphic and a shorter way to get the gist, but not nearly as rich with details as the book. Apparently the story has been around for years in several different books and sermons, but this is the complete story based on the words of Richard and Sabrina Wurmbrand themselves. It tells the life story of the Wurmbrands who were imprisoned for their faith in Communist Romania post-WWII yet never gave up on their faith in God or in their desire to help others. Could the same be said of us? Would we be brave enough? Strong enough? Would we have memorized enough scripture should our Bibles be taken away? Could we survive mental and physical torture for years on end and…
Put On Put Off Chart
What area of disobedience do you find yourself nagging a child about? It’s common to tell children to “stop doing that” but less common to take the time to tell them what to do instead or to probe into the heart issue behind the problem. Even with our own faults, it’s common to focus on the fault not on the flip side of what we could do to change it. When my kids were little, I happened upon an obedience chart that gave suggestions for replacing bad actions with good ones. It gave Biblical principles and verses of what to “put off” and what to “put on” in an easy to read chart. I used this idea over a few years, making similar lists according to the top few problem areas for my kids. This chart is still available on the internet as Wise Words for Moms. It also gave heart probing questions to ask, which are useful in the moment of discipline or as table talk conversations in general. Many types of “if-then” consequence lists are available, but this one is great for the younger years and will help you with Biblical parenting that sets a foundation for middle…