January 25-31 // Journey Stick, Mapmaking, Life's Interruptions, and More!
This week's newsletter is Hobbit-themed!
Hello! Whether you’ve been reading The Hobbit this month or not, it’s fun to have special themes sometimes, so this week’s meals and activities revolve somewhat around Middle Earth. But if you don’t like the epic fantasy world of the Lord of the Rings, don’t worry; all of this content is applicable to fans and non-fans alike. This week’s pep talk in particular might really hit home for you.
January's Theme: Becoming Purposeful and Productive
Activities: Journey Stick and Map-Making
Parenting Pep Talk: Guarding Our Kids Against Overstimulation (+printable)
Thoughtfulness: Collecting Garbage on the Journey
Mini-Challenge: January Discussion Questions
Book Club: Finishing The Lazy Genius Way
Older Kid Book Club: Finishing The Hobbit
Picture Books: Quest, Return, Extra Yarn, and Show way
Activities: Journey Stick and Mapmaking
Journey Stick
Depending on how mild your winters are, January might be an awesome time for hiking. A fun way to remember all the cool things you find on your hike is to create a journey stick.
Simply find a big stick—even better, a hiking stick—while you’re journeying, and use string or rubber bands to attach items that you find along the way to your stick.
We started out by adding dried citrus for color and whimsy. Simply slice oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc. to about 1 cm thick and bake them at 250 for two or three hours. It’s very gratifying. (You can also add jingle bells, if you have a threshold for such noises 😉)
Some conversation starters while you do your family walk:
Is the point of going on a walk or hike simply to reach a destination? No? Then why do we do it?
Is there any hard thing in your life that you might want to rush through quickly? What are some ways we can appreciate the journey along the way?
Wow, you found some cool things! Do you think you would have noticed them if you weren’t looking for them?
Map Making
Have you ever made a map of a pretend world?
It’s really fun to imagine a whole planet that has different creatures and continents and cultures than our own. It can keep kids busy endlessly, and who knows—maybe this activity will launch them into creating stories that change the world.
All you have to do is give your kids paper—maybe two pieces glued together, or a half-posterboard—and Sharpies or pens! Play inspirational music such as the Howard Shore soundtrack for The Hobbit while everyone creates. They can use sharpies to draw continents and use watercolors to quickly paint oceans, forests, and deserts.
You can sneak in some geography lessons and teach them about different landforms and the existence of national boundaries. But the main goal of this is to open up the child’s imagination and let them dream and create.
We also have a special treat for you: we bought a cartography design asset by BrushBoy and arranged some of the buildings and landscapes into PDF’s! Just print them out, and invite your kids to cut them out and attach them to the maps they’re working on with a glue stick.
If you don’t have a printer, you can upload the PDFs to CVS and print on high-quality paper for 29 cents per sheet. It’s usually ready in an hour or less. We were quite pleased when we tried it out. They also sell poster boards there, so you can get all the materials you need in one quick stop.
PDF’s below:
You might be surprised by how much of a hit mapmaking is with kids of all ages. The feedback we got from the kids who tried this activity was stellar. Some questions you can ask while the kids are making their maps:
Where does that bridge lead?
What’s the name of this continent?
Does the king of this land live in that castle? Is he a kind and generous king?
What used to be here before it became ruins?
Who is buried in that graveyard?
What’s the weather like in this area?
What types of food grow here?
One last thing: don’t forget that word with. Your kids want to see what fantasy worlds you come up with, too. Enjoy. 😊
Parenting Pep Talk: Interruptions Are Part of the Adventure
This month we’ve been trying to grow in purpose and productivity. This whole newsletter aims to help you do that. Our motto is this: enriching life for everyone.
But it sure is hard if you’re in the first trimester of pregnancy and feel like you’ve been injected with horse tranquilizer, isn’t it? Or if your refrigerator broke at a really inconvenient time, or if Covid hit your family right when you felt like you were hitting your stride. Sometimes it feels like the machine of your life has so many malfunctioning pieces that you have no choice but to break down.
C.S. Lewis wrote this in a letter to a friend: “The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.”
We tend to have the attitude of “how dare you?” when unwanted circumstances come into our lives. But if we have this deep-rooted belief that we’re the kings of the world and everything needs to bow to us, we will never be able to be happy or do anything meaningful in the world.
Check out this proverb: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests.” (Proverbs 14:4, NIV)
If you didn’t have kids or other people in your life, it would be a lot easier to have a consistently clean house. You wouldn’t have to deal with as many annoying habits, or cancel as many plans, or wake as many times in the night. Sometimes you might miss your old life when there weren’t quite so many moving pieces that have the potential to mess up your day.
But wouldn’t you rather have a dirty barn than one without any animals to plow your field? Isn’t a tired, fruitful life much preferred to an easy, empty one? The choice to love other people is uncomfortable and sometimes grueling—and maybe your “yes” was something you fell into more than something you chose—but it’s an adventure. Would you dare to see it that way?
As Bilbo said at the beginning of his journey in The Hobbit, “We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them."
But oh, how he changed by the end of it. And oh, how we’re changing through this journey that we’re on. Embrace the journey, dear friends, and may you see that interruptions are part of the adventure.
Act of Thoughtfulness: Collect Garbage on Your Journey
If your planned MLK Day service was canceled due to bad weather like ours was, this week is a great chance to bring a garbage bag and gloves with you on any journeys you have planned, and pick up some trash!
Mini-Challenge: January Discussion Questions
Feel free to save this image to your phone and ask your family some of these questions this week!
Grownup Book Club: Finishing The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi
Whether you finished The Lazy Genius Way this month or not, let’s look at one last quote:
“If you want to embrace what matters, you need mindfulness to do it. If you want to get stuff done, you need energy to do it. Both of these are fueled by rest.” (pg 172)
Would you say you’ve learned how to rest? You can be lazy for hours and still not have a moment of rest. What does it take to truly rest for you?
How can you ask others for support as you try to have the fuel it takes to embrace what matters and get stuff done?
Older Kid Book Club: Finishing The Hobbit
Whether you finished the Hobbit this month or not, let’s soak up one last quote from the book:
“You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit? You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!” “Thank goodness!” said Bilbo, laughing.
How did Bilbo change by the end of the book?
Do you think the things in your life happen just by luck and only for your benefit?
Or do you think it's possible there's a big wide world with all kinds of mysteries and heroic journeys quests for you?
What does this make you daydream about?
Picture Books
Earlier this month, we recommended Journey, the first book in Aaron Becker’s wordless epic trilogy. Let’s finish that series by reading Quest and Return. You might be surprised by how these illustrations take your breath away.
Extra Yarn, written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen, is a beautiful story about choosing to love and use your talents for good.
Show Way is a beautiful true story by Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by Hudson Talbott that exemplifies bravery and resilient love that endured through multiple generations. It’s excellent.
From Our Hearts
May you find delightful things on hikes and appreciate small natural treasures.
May your imagination be as wild as ever, whether you’re dreaming of make-believe continents or of the impact your family might have in your community.
May you become less frustrated with inconveniences and see them as simply a part of your real life and a reminder that you’re a human.
May the limitations that come your way feel more freeing than restricting.
May you and the kids in your care find adventure in simple things such as cleaning up trash or choosing to love a difficult person.
May you learn to rest so you can actually do difficult things.
May you find wonder and mystery in all that happens in the world, and may your heart be pointed to the truth.
We are praying these things for you.
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
P.S. Here’s a phone wallpaper for you!
