Melva Gifford

I hope the following topic can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, family devotionals and home evenings.

I came up with an idea that might be useful to teach a child how to observe their world around them. First of all, and this could occur after you taught your child terms they may not be familiar with. You may tell a child not to step out of the yard; but, does the child yet understand what the word yard is? Last week I discussed how to introduce a child to new terms so that when you give rules to a child, they can better understand what you expect of them.

Now let’s move forward to observation skills. Let’s say you want a child to notice things in their yard and neighborhood.  First begin with a frequent trip the child if familiar with such as going to a local grocery store.

1. You could say, let’s go ahead and draw a map of what we how we go to the grocery store. You begin by drawing your house and your car in the drive way. Next you draw the street that represents our block. Next draw the streets that lead to the store. As you draw the streets, point out the different stop signs and stop lights. Maybe talk about where you often park when you arrive at the store.
2. Now have your child start to add details about houses, trees and other details not explain in your simple map. Maybe give them some prompting of what you remember. Have them explain to you what they remember the different details along the trip. Do they remember what the house looks like that’s across the street? What do they see when they leave the neighborhood? What does the grocery store look like?
3. Now say that you take an actual trip to the grocery store and you want the child to pay attention to things they see. You simply go ahead and have them look at things and pay attention.
4. You take a third trip to a local store and you with your child brainstorm on the different details around them. Describe the house that you pass at the end of the street. Maybe you would point how certain streets are often busy while others are not. You and your child discuss the different houses and observe people walking down the street. What are they wearing? What are different people doing outside? This is a way for the child gets a more perspective of the world outside them in safe environment within their car or a trusted transportation system. This could be the beginning stages of the child and observation skills.
5. As you go on additional trips a lot times young children get bored. This might be an opportunity for the child to describe to you what they see as they travel. This increases their abilities and engages them in their activities. Make observations using words and statements that may be new and should be defined or explained if it is a new word for the child.

This is one idea on maybe how to teach a child how to observe the world around.  If you have had success in teaching children or adults observation skills, please feel free to share hour suggestions or observations in the comment section of this blog.  Thanks

Recently I haven’t had much down time but thanksgiving was an evening of relaxation. I had a chance to watch the Piano guys on PBS tonight. They’re great.

Today’s blog is a tribute to their talent. Here are a bunch of links to their talent.

Beethoven’s 5 Secrets – OneRepublic (Cello/Orchestral Cover) – ThePi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_918434&feature=iv&src_vid=jzF_y039slk&v=mJ_fkw5j-t0

Over the Rainbow/Simple Gifts (Piano/Cello Cover) – ThePianoGuys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzF_y039slk

Cello Wars (Star Wars Parody) Lightsaber Duel – ThePianoGuys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgAlQuqzl8o

Coldplay – Paradise (Peponi) African Style (ft. guest artist, Alex Boye) –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_558468&feature=iv&src_vid=mJ_fkw5j-t0&v=Cgovv8jWETM

Lord of The Rings – The Hobbit (Piano/Cello Cover) – ThePianoGuys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZNqs0YgWkM

Titanium / Pavane (Piano/Cello Cover) – David Guetta / Faure – ThePia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_942491&feature=iv&src_vid=FZNqs0YgWkM&v=fz4MzJTeL0c

Christina Perri – A Thousand Years (Piano/Cello Cover) – ThePianoGu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaTQ5-XfMM

Code Name Vivaldi (Bourne Soundtrack/Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_4034464111&feature=iv&src_vid=QgaTQ5-XfMM&v=09RUuTAM2H0

Swedish House Mafia – Don’t You Worry Child (Khushnuma) – ft. Shw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gCulUDvALM

One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful (5 Piano Guys, 1 piano) – Th

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VqTwnAuHws

Other than piano guys:

Rowan Atkinson – Invisible Drum Kit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sf_pogZ8jE

Bad: utilites

Good: utilities

How do I remember the third i? how about this visual image. I think of three things when it comes to utilities i. power i.gas and i. phone. Each I can represent a pipe or wire into the house that feeds that utility for my house thus 3 Is, which equal utIlItIes.

We’ll see if that will help on my future spellings of this word.

These instructions are for people who have not yet created a face book account.

Facebook is an avenue for individuals to share a status about themselves to multiple people all at once through social media rather than one at a time through individual emails. A user can either post their status to only the people who have friended them or to the general public so that their comments or status can be viewable by everyone that happens upon their user’s page.

Creating an account in Facebook:

1. On your internet browser (examples are Internet Explorer or Google Chrome), type in the following line into the subject line:

facebook.com

2. On the top left side of the page is a green button with the words SIGN UP. This will give you the ability to create a new account of Facebook. An account on Facebook gives you a great opportunity to share your status and comments to multiple people at once. Many people share their status to friends and family or with individuals who share common interests. Companies and organizations find Facebook to be a useful tool to promote their products and services.

3. Creating an account of Facebook will ask for the following information: First name: ___

Last name: ___

Email: ___ (This will be used to give you notifications through your email account that you have new message posted to your Facebook account. Your email is also used with your password to give you the ability to log into your Facebook account.

Password ___ (It is advisable to have a complex password with characters, numbers and #@#$ unique symbols to make your password more difficult to break and help maintain the security of your account.

Birthday: ___ (You can configure Facebook to not feature your birthday later in the privacy settings of the page if you wish to not disclose your age. Age is required to prove to Facebook that each new user meets the age requirement to use the program.

Gender: ___

Click on the Sign Up button at the bottom to create your account.

4. Once your account is created you can log into Facebook and start looking for people you know. You can search for contacts through the search box at the top of the page.

5. The next procedure will discuss logging into Facebook and using it.

Today’s topic for teaching embellishments is giving meaning behind words you use when teaching your  children.  I hope today’s topic can be of use to youth ministries, family devotionals, family counselors, grandparents and family home evenings.

At church, today, a teacher talked about how we as adults need to watch out for what words we share with our children. When teaching kids about important safety tips, we may say phrases like “stay in the yard, ” but a child may not understand those words.

Many times we may tell a child to not run out in the street, but as the child may not know what the word ‘street’ means yet. They’ve learned a lot of words. Already the observation, but they haven’t been into many other areas outside the home. There may still be terms, the unfamiliar with. If they don’t understand the instruction to “stay out of the street “, than how would they know how to obey the rule? My encouragement is that when we teach children, new concepts, we need to give them a foundation of what different words mean. So I have an idea on how this can be done.

First of all, you could draw a map on a piece of paper of the house. You could draw a sketch of different rooms of the house. Name the different rooms such as the kitchen and the front room. You could then walk about the house have the children touch and see the real objects of the house and compare them against the sketch on the map. You may even compare your drawings to what’s actually exists in the room to give the child understanding of that a map illustrates reality.

Next, to teach such words as as street, block or sidewalk, you go outside walk to each of those locations and show them the meaning of the word. You can then follow up by showing them a sketch that you may have drawn of the neighborhood. You can illustrate what it means to stay within the yard by walking around the parameters that defines the yard.

When you want to teach a child what to do before crossing a street. Parent and child may walk down the sidewalk. You show them how to look left and right. You might even wait until a car drives by and have them wait on the sidewalk with you. You show them how to wait for the light changes from red to green.

Another example is of teaching kids safety is by defining who a stranger is. You might show photos of the family and photos of friends that you know and trust. Then you show photos of people that they don’t know. You might even create a pretend game of how they should respond, if strangers tried to engage them in some way and how they should respond

Parents may say “don’t burn yourself on the stove. ” One way to show this concept may be have a cooked potato. You let the child examined the boiled potato, to illustrate how nice and smooth the skin is. You might turn on the stove until a filament is bright and hot. Place the potato on the stove and let it burn the surface the potato. An alternative example might be to blow up a balloon and placed the balloon against the hot filament making a loud pop. The loud obnoxious noise may startle of the child, and they help engrave into their mind that experience that the hot filament causes damage. This example may engrave a sense of caution about the stove for the child.

My final example is how to teach the child to avoid climbing in dangerous places, such as on the top of the couch. You may place a ripe cantaloupe on the back couch. It falls away from the couch and bursts open. You may ask the child to put the cantaloupe back together again. They can’t, because it is broken. That might use a child a concept of balance in danger when they attempted to climb up on the couch.

These are just a few possibilities if he has some alternative suggestions, please feel free to share. Thank you

I made an interesting observation at a city council meeting I attended this week and it gives me pause. There was a city councilman who excused himself from being part of a decision because he received a donation from an applicant making a request of the city. I responded very positively to councilman not wanting to be put into a position of bias. Several others applauded. But then latter, the applicant said that he didn’t appreciate being in put on display by the actions of this councilman. Apparently his company had donated money to the councilman’s campaign and he wasn’t aware of it. He emphasized he appreciated working with the city.

I see several possible reasons why the applicant may have said this.

1. The applicant thought that the Councilman who separated himself from the council’s decision was simply making a show, and may have been ‘playing’ the audience.

2. There has been some past contention between certain members of the city Council. By the applicant, seeing that his company had donated money to one councilman. He might feel it could jeopardize the other council’s goodwill toward making a positive decision.

Now I know this one councilman is liked by many and not liked by some. The thing I realize that I need to be careful that I’m not being played. The Councilman may have been very sincere about excusing himself from being part of a judgment, because he received donations from somebody. I also realize, that sometimes a politician will say the words that will appeal to his constituents, but that he may only be doing it for show. I don’t know which is true in this particular example. The caution, I want to share, is for us to be very careful on who we trust, especially when it comes to politicians.

In the national news this week, a senator was caught for drug use. Prior to his election to the Senate, someone I respected asked the senator: How is your soul?

The politician responded with: What does that have to do with anything?

Some people say that a lot of people lose their original perspective when they go back to Washington. Many people will often compromise their original values to achieve power and to achieve a greater good. Some may choose to justify their actions and compromise their values to gain power and to get in good with people of power.

I invite each of us to be careful of flattering words. There are certain things that I hear that pleases me and I want to go ahead and say, I love this person, I’ll support him/her all the way. But the same time I need to be cautious that they are not just words. I need to find ways to research an individual’s past character to see if their behavior is consistent to their words. I realize that in regards to this city councilman, that I heard a second negative thing about him. The negative thing was reported by someone who doesn’t like the councilman and is against his policies. Who is right?

The thing is, I need to treat everything with open suspicion, even those who I trust when it comes to politics.

I invite you to do so as well.

Good: eloquent

Bad: elequent

I want to spell it with an E. but being eloquent of action and word involved a choice. Either yes OR no. so I remember the O of Or for elOquent.

If you have other ideas on how to remember this, please share. Thanks.

I acquired a new experience, this month, in trying to be a salesperson over the phone. I’m selling a service that people already have in their homes. It is my goal to convince them to choose my company’s product over what they currently have. During training, I was given a list of some of the most popular rebuttals a customer may give to avoid buying a new product. The customer may have several possible responses. I share these for all those aspiring sales people out there. Or if you receive a sales call and you have one of these responses response . You can see how a salesperson may respond.

I am happy with what I have:

–        Ask them what they like about their current service. Then ask them that if they could change anything about their current company, what would they have different? Note the things they don’t like. These will be there hot spots. These hot spots can provide an opportunity for you to give them a chance to consider an alternative.

–        If it looks like that your service provides the same options as their current service, but at a better price than let them know.

I’m not interested:

–        You are not interested in saving money?

–        What if I could give you the same services at a better price?

Are you trying to sell me something?

–        I’m not trying to sell you something that you don’t already have. We are offering an alternative price and additional materials.

Some of my blog readers may already have some sales experience. Please feel free to share your hints of salesmanship in this particular blog. Share with us:

1. How to convince the customer to consider your product or

2. Just general suggestions on salesmanship.

Thanks