I know that the most important thing I need to be teaching my children is to love Jesus. Of course I know that. Write it on the door posts and foreheads etc… And for the first few years of our home school world, that is exactly what I did. Through 2nd grade, I used the Bible as the core of our curriculum and wrote my own plans through passages of the Bible and learned other subjects through it.
If we were learned that Quirinius was the governor of Syria in Luke 2, then we learned about our governor and state government and wrote him a letter. When reading in Psalm 23 about laying beside still waters, we learned fun facts about water and did experiments with solids, liquids, and gasses.
These were exciting times for me! I loved getting the word into their hearts, and I also throroughly enjoyed prayerfully developing my own curriculums. That is how my new book being published, Duncan’s Journey, came to be! I wrote it to teach my own children about the 23rd Psalm.
The last two years, we’ve moved into history/geography being at the center of our school world. We did a study through Galloping the Globe and now are using Beautiful Feet Early American History. Although both have elements of a Bible Study in them, and we have loved the lessons and what we’ve learned, I can’t help but feeling that our Bible Time has grown rather anemic. It’s something we need to check off rather than being the meat of the day.
This is probably ok for my older two girls, they are doing the Wonder Devotional Studies on their own as well and have a good grasp on the basics, but my boys, ages 5 & 1, are growing up with more boring Bible Times. We aren’t doing the puppet shows, crafts, and fun games that I always accompanied the studies when my girls were younger.
I think I’m somehow going to change that next school year. Right now, my 5 YO is content with learning to read and playing LEGOS, so I have some time to figure this out. I might just pull out the curriculum I wrote in the past – through the One Anothers, Lord’s Prayer, Luke 2, Resurrection, Psalm 1, Obedience Stories, Psalm 23, among others – and go through them with the boys, encouraging the girls to join in for fun.
I’m not sure how I’ll fit this in to an already loaded school day, which gets fuller each year, but I need to. After all, it’s the most important thing.
What do you do to keep learning about God’s word fun and meaningful? I’d love to hear!
Follow me on twitter and facebook!
