Christmas Play Ideas #ButterflyHomeschool

Our Christmas Gift For You Is Play Ideas.

During the holiday season, you might be a little lost about how to keep your children busy. You might need to keep them occupied while you prepare for your Christmas event guests or for travels. Or maybe you just need to keep them busy so they stay out of trouble when your normal schedule is not in play. Here are some mild weather outside play ideas that we have been using, along with some recent photos.

Why Play With Your Children?

Also, if you play with your children, it is a great way to get some exercise AND clear your head from holiday stress. You can use the time while they play to take photos of the children in action. Later, you can use printed versions of those photos for craft projects to create future greeting cards and gifts for close family and friends.

Make A Holiday Welcome Mat

Get out the colored chalk and make your own holiday welcome mat.

chalk welcome mat and holiday greeting #butterflyhomeschool

sidewalk chalk fun #butterflyhomeschool

Mild Weather Outside Play Ideas:

• Sidewalk chalk play – create a hopscotch board
• Freeze Tag – even with a small yard this game is easy
• Frisbee – get a really big one with soft cushy edges
• Hiking at your local or state public park

jumbo disc – giant soft frisbee #butterflyhomeschool

Where To Hike With Your Family

We recently checked out our local library’s complimentary state park pass in Fulton County, Georgia. Library patrons can access it once per year per adult library card. It was a blessing because the park we chose to visit was much much nicer than we ever expected. Also, our unseasonably cool weather warmed up nicely at about mid-day, and was not too hot. Check out our picture gallery of Sweetwater Creek, a Georgia State Park below.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

~ The Johnson Family: Henry, Donna, Justine, Samuel and Charity

P.S.

Please also check out Mom Donna’s articles over on the Christian Homeschool Mom’s blog. Here is the link to her profile:

http://christianhomeschoolmoms.com/donna-marie/

The series of articles that she shared in Fall 2014 gave tips on why and how to connect or re-connect locally and prevent or stop isolation.

Three Reasons Why International Missions Are Important

This update shares why international missions are important to our homeschool.

INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS

Thank you for your donations to our fundraising campaign for our missions trip to South Africa’s Teboho Trust school for at risk kids in Soweto.

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 We are so glad that Justine has been making some delicious fudge and wanted to bless you with some as a thank you gift, too. Our October 2014 donors will receive some fudge from Justine’s fresh batch soon.

CURRENT STATUS OF FUNDRAISER

Our current status in our fundraising campaign is that we are starting over. We decided that we would not give up on our missions trip goal, but that we would change our approach.

If you would like to keep up with our progress and give to our cause, please click or copy and paste this link:

http://gofundme.com/safricamissions

3 REASONS WHY

Having this opportunity to volunteer on a global scale is important for our young learners because:

• 1st – We believe in the mission of Teboho Trust, after reading about the founder and watching the video (click here to see video). Their goal is to be a safe place where their learners can focus on their studies, instead of all the surrounding drama, and successfully matriculate and move on to higher education.
• 2nd – We know that traveling, especially internationally, combined with volunteering, expands a student’s perspective of life and of the world, helping them to become more compassionate global citizens. This is because our mom, Donna, was an international volunteer in her youth, which shaped how she lives and educates her own children now.
• 3rd – Most importantly, we believe that Father God has a destiny in this for all of our young learners. There are some experiences that He has waiting for them in South Africa which will connect them with His destiny for their lives.

We would love to share with you as we take this journey. We will provide more updates through our fundraising campaign page on the gofundme platform.

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Have you included volunteering and/or international travel as part of your homeschool? If so, what impact has it had on your learners?

Thank you for reading!

~Donna, The Mommy of #ButterflyHomeschool

Going To South Africa With Kingdom Purpose

IMPORTANT UPDATE – We have not given up on our dream of volunteering at the Teboho Trust school for at risk youth in Soweto, South Africa, even though the KDE trip deposit deadline passed. We provided more details about what we plan to do now on our gofundme fundraiser page. Please click the image below or click here to learn more about our current goals.

South Africa Missions Trip #ButterflyHomeschool – TO GIVE NOW – CLICK IMAGE

Our family has had an ongoing love and passion for volunteering, especially when it has to do with things we are most interested in including: God, family, children and business. Because of this love, we have been volunteering with the Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur Community. We affectionately call it the KDE Movement. It covers all of those bases of helping expand the Kingdom of God by helping families, kids and businesses.

VOLUNTEERING FOR KINGDOM EXPANSION

Over the past year or so, the Mom, Donna Marie Johnson, and the kids have participated by:

• Interviewing KDE Founders Shae Bynes and Antonina Geer Before They Launched The Community in 2012
• Moderating Business Forum in the online KDE Community
• Leading as Certified Small Group Leader Locally for #AtlantaKDE
• Volunteered at the Atlanta Firestarter Tour
• [FUTURE] Volunteer at South African At-Risk Kids’ School: Teboho Trust

#ButterflyHomeschool Kids Volunteering at KDE Firestarter Atlanta Tour

In the near future, we will have another opportunity to serve, and this time internationally during the South African Retreat and Missions Trip to the Teboho Trust school which helps protect and educate at-risk kids to ensure they get a better start in life.

FOUR WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT OUR MISSIONS TRIP

If you’d like to help us, please support us one or more of the following ways:

• 1. Pray For The Johnson Family Regularly

  • Henry, Donna, Justine, Samuel and Charity

• 2. Support Us Financially & Believe BIG With Us

  • Click Here To Go To Learn More About The Financials

• 3. Follow/Subscribe to Our Blog Updates

  • Keep Up With What We Are Doing (and keep praying for us, too)

• 4. Share Our Updates

  • Use sharing buttons and tools  to help spread the word

Thank you so much for reading, sharing and supporting us.

We love you!

Sincerely,

The Johnson Family – Henry, Donna, Justine, Samuel and Charity

P.S. In addition to asking for your donations, we will also be selling some items (t-shirts, recipes, artwork and more) to raise funds in the future. So, please click on the blog follow button so that you can receive our updates.