52 Lists Project: List the Things You Should Be Proud Of

I've been joining Chasing Slow with the 52 Lists Project. This is the 3rd week, and the List this week is "Things You Should Be Proud Of."

This was a hard list to write, in a way, because there are so many big things I am proud of. I tried to list the every day things that I often overlook, but things that are so important!

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The things I am proud of are:

the meals cooked and goodies baked by Mikaela

scriptures memorized by all my kids

efforts put forth by Silas to learn letters and numbers

drawings and doodles produced by Mercie

comics drawn and stories written by Eli

praise songs sung by Titus

prayers from sweet little hearts

Bible Drill skills

cooperation shown

my hard working husband

faith and dedication shown by my missionary parents

my sister, who is applying to medical school in London

 

Linking up with Chasing Slow:

The Thinking Tree Thursday: Bible Time Kids

 

Today, I'm going to give a short review on this Bible Time Kids Devotional Journal & Coloring Book by Sarah Janisse Brown.

 

Mercie {7} and Eli {10} each have one of these journals they use every day for their quiet time with God.

 

There are pages with room to list the book, chapter and verses read that day. Then there is space to write "Today's Special Bible Verse" {something important from the passage they read}, "I Am Thankful For", "Prayer List" and "Plans & Goals".

 

 

Next to these pages are coloring pages with a scripture passage and a thought-provoking question from that passage. Mercie uses these pages a guide that shows her what to read each day. Then, she fills out the Bible Passage page from those scriptures. Eli has his own reading plan, so he just colors these pictures.

 

 

There are also these pages:

 

There is are things to write in these shapes, such as "Memories to Keep", "I want to change", and "I am thankful for".

 

These Bible Time Kids Devotions are great for younger kids to keep a daily journal and keep them accountable to read scripture. They are good to take to church to help keep your kids focused.

 

They are priced at $12.50 on Amazon, which is a great price!

 

Linking up with Linda:

 

 

 

 





Blogging Through the Alphabet: L is for Learning through Literature

We are on Week 12 of Blogging Through the Alphabet, and this week, L is for Learning through Literature {I have two "L"s in there!}

I love good books, and I love to see my kids reading good books. Personally, I think all your children need to have to learn anything is good literature. Books can open up so many doors, so many opportunities for learning, so much imagination!

When your children are babies and toddlers, board books are wonderful. I love textured and interactive board books that teach the alphabet, numbers, animals sounds, and shapes and colors. Allowing your children free access to books at this young age will help to instill a lifelong love of books.

At the pre-school and pre-reading age, read to your children all the time! Invest in good books, ask for books instead of toys for birthdays and Christmas, and allow your child to pick out their own books from the library. When you read, point out things in the books and ask your child questions: "What season is it in this story? How do you know?" "What kind of animal is this? What does it eat?" "Do you know what this plant is?" "Point out the squares on this page." "Count the stars." You can even take a book and make an entire day {or week} of learning from it.

Once your child is an emergent reader, have them read a book to you. Ask them to point out all of the verbs on a certain page, or find as many adjectives as they can in a certain amount of time. If the book takes place in a different country or time period, make a craft or cook a meal from that time or place. Have your child draw a 3 part summary of the book - what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story. If there is an animal in the book, your child could do a little research to find out what the animal eats, where it lives, and other interesting facts. You could even give them their own notebook to keep an animal journal - every time they read about an animal, they can draw it and write a few things about it.

When children are upper elementary, you can have them read a chapter or two a day from a book. Ask them to write down 3 unfamiliar or uncommon words and define them. Have them do further research into a topic in the book. If there is a handicraft or life skill mentioned, your child can learn how to do it, too {whittling, starting a fire, sewing a pillow case, baking bread, training a dog}. Copy work from classic literature is a great way for your child to learn how to correctly form sentences and paragraphs, capitalize words, and use punctuation.

Biographies are a great way for middle schoolers and high schoolers to learn. Many biographies are written in a story-like form, which makes them fun to read. You could have your child look for Godly character traits, and compare and contrast them to Biblical figures. If your child is reading a historical book, have them research that time period. Have them find examples of compound or complex sentences in the book, or a list of similes, or even diagram a sentence from the book. Have them do a presentation on the book - a movie poster, a cereal box, or video a commercial.

The ideas are endless!

**If you are looking for a curriculum that does all of this for us, I suggest Five in a Row. There are 3 different levels {Before FIAR, FIAR, and Beyond FIAR} with the ideas and lessons planned for you.

Linking up with Meg and Cristi at Blogging Through the Alphabet.

Junior High Junction: Spiritual Growth for Middle Schoolers

Hi, and welcome back to the Junior High Junction! If you linked up last week, thank you! I enjoyed reading through all of the posts geared toward our junior highers!

This week, I'm going to share a little bit about spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is very important for everyone, but this age group - our preteens and early teens - it is vital. This is the age your child will start asking questions, dealing with doubts and unbelief, and working out their salvation. It is so important that your children have a firm foundation that they can stand on, something they can cling to during these tumultuous years - and especially as they turn into young adults. Spiritual growth is just as important to a Christian as physical growth is to a child.

There are {I believe} 3 major keys to spiritual growth:

Bible study is one of the most important parts of spiritual growth in any believer's life, but especially for our preteens and teens. The only way to understand the scriptures, to know what God commands us to do {and not to do}, and to appreciate the redemptive story is to study the Bible. Reading it is one thing; studying it is quite another. The difference should be explained to your child, and then we should show our children the difference. Here are some ideas to put this into practice:

• Take a few days to study the Bible with  your child and introduce them to some good study habits.
• Buy them a brand new notebook or journal and a highlighter to use for their Bible study.
• Show them where your Bible commentaries, concordances, and dictionaries are in your home. If you don't have any, please invest in some. They will be worthwhile for you and your family.
• Let them peek into your Bible journal or study notebook.
• Make or print out a Bible reading plan for them {here is the one Mikaela will be using}.
• Teach them the HEAR method of Bible study - HIGHLIGHT, EXPLAIN, APPLY, and RESPOND.
• Help them to set a specific time for Bible reading and study, with a beginning and ending time. This will help them not to rush through it or spend too little time in the Word. A good time would be 20-30 minutes a day of study.
• Have them make a goal of scripture memory - one new verse a week, five a month, or fifty for the year. Have them keep index cards and a chart so they can see their progress and keep practicing.
• Make sure they have time during the day just to read the Word - no studying necessary, just time to enjoy the beauty of the scriptures.

Prayer is essential in the life of a believer. Prayer also seems to be a difficult thing for pre-teens and teens. In my family, we pray aloud together almost daily. We just started doing this about a year ago, and the difference is remarkable. I pray first, and then we take turns oldest to youngest. It gives the younger ones a chance to hear how to pray. At first, they repeated a lot of the same phrases I did, but now they don't! They seem to understand what to pray for and how to ask God for things. I also encourage my kids to pray often throughout the day. Having your child set a specific time for prayer would be helpful, especially because kids get busy and forget! Say, 15 minutes when they wake up in the morning and 15 minutes before bed, your child can turn off all electronics and put away all distractions, shut their door, and pray. Fifteen minutes may seem like a long time, but once you start praying, it literally flies by!

Teach your child how to pray. Jesus gave us a perfect example in Matthew 6:5-15. First, He tells us what not to do when we pray, and then He not only tells us what to do, but gives us a sample! Have your child write this out or type it and print it out and hang it in their room or glue it into their Bible journal.

Give your child a small notebook, or have them use the last ten or so pages in their Bible notebook, to use as a prayer log. They can write the name of the person or thing they are praying for, the date they start, and any answers they see God give them. They can even use this when they pray, as a guide. {Intercessory prayer is powerful!}

Prayer may be awkward for them at first,  but they will learn to pray and listen for God's voice. Have them take 5 minutes a day to clear their minds and invite God to speak to them.

Obedience is our response to God to His gift of salvation. We need to teach our kids how important obedience is to our spiritual growth. This is not just obeying the 10 commandments; this is learning to become sensitive to the Holy Spirit's promptings and warnings.

Our children need to understand the Holy Spirit's role in our lives. They need to know that being obedient to God is a lifestyle. When we walk in the Spirit, we please God. When we yield to our flesh, we sin and bring destruction upon ourselves.

We need to teach our kids how to have an obedient attitude - when they complete their chores, when their little siblings ask to play a game, when they feel God prompting them to talk to the kid sitting all alone at youth group, when they see an elderly person that could use a strong arm to guide them, when their friends are talking about going to see the new movie that they know doesn't glorify God...you get the idea.

Being obedient brings glory to God. Our children should strive to bring honor and glory to God in everything they watch, listen to, read, and speak. If our children learn now to listen to and obey the Holy Spirit, it will be a lifelong habit that will yield much spiritual fruit.

I know there are many, many more things that will bring spiritual growth, but I also want you to make sure your child knows that doing things will not get them to heaven - only a relationship with Jesus will.



Now for the Link-Up! {And congratulations to Lori Hooten, who won the giveaway last week!}

An InLinkz Link-up

 

 

7th Grade Week in Review: Jan. 11-15, 2016

This week, Mikaela worked on Khan Academy every day. She requested an actual textbook and workbook for math, so after some research, I ordered her The Principals of Mathematics, which is a math book from a Christian perspective. As soon as it gets here, she will begin working in it!

She worked in her Easy Grammar and Daily Grams, as well as her Spelling Time Journal, daily. She did a lot of review of predicate nouns and adjectives.

In science, she read about the planets and the earth's rotation. She drew some pictures and wrote some interesting facts in her Fun-Schooling Journal.

In history, she learned about the Oregon Trail and the difficulties the pioneers faced traveling westward. She is also reading "Bound for Oregon" as part of the literature portion of America the Beautiful. She mapped the Oregon Trail and filled in her timeline.

She has been working on her jewelry and started making these adorable tassel key-chains. We are going to add them to her page {KKs Korner  - look at the top of my blog for her page} soon. Check it out - there are so many cute necklaces she hand crafts.

She has been reading "The Scorch Trials" in her spare time and loves it. She thinks the books are much better than the movies {they are!}, but she still loves the movies.

She has also added some recipes to her Do-It-Yourself Cooking Tips and Ideas book and played around with her Chocolate Pen, making some cute chocolate molds.

 How was your week?

HOD: Bigger Hearts for His Glory: Unit 17

We completed Unit 17 in Bigger Hearts for His Glory this week. Mercie is in 2nd grade, and Eli is in 5th grade. Here is our week in review.

In history this week, we read about Daniel Boone. The kids really like listening to the crazy stories about his life in the wilderness. We wrote a little about his life and drew a picture of him swinging from a grapevine {which is how he escaped from Indians once}. As you can see, we used our journals for some of this!

They defined vocabulary words, added to their timeline and made a notebook page.

In science, we read about the parts of a root and made a notebooking page. We also used our journals to draw pictures of bacteria and parasites that eat dead wood, draw a squirrel and do some copy-work.

Our poem was called "Under the Trees", and the kids illustrated it.

Mercie worked on addition and subtraction in math, and Eli worked on Khan Academy on several different math concepts. He likes skipping around, and he is doing great in math, so I let him work on whatever he feels like.

Mercie worked on nouns and verbs in grammar and her Fun-Schooling Spelling book. Eli worked on IXL, and had some spelling pages in his journal.

They both work on Cheerful Cursive several times a week and are really doing well.

Eli got his Bible Journal in, and he and Mercie worked in those. I really like these journals, because they have room to write verse, prayer requests, things you are thankful for, and pictures to color and read the scriptures. It gives them room to think and ask questions.

 

Next week, Mercie and I will be using Five in a Row. Eli will continue in Bigger Hearts. He is doing great, but she is bored with it. She is on the young side of the placement for the guide, and I feel like she is competition with Eli {who is 3 grades above her} every day. He doesn't have as much difficulty as she does because he is older, and I feel like he could expand on some subjects. I don't want her to feel like she's always trying to compete with him, and I really want her to enjoy schoolwork. I explained to her what FIAR would be like, and she was so enthusiastic that I ordered it.

Eli, Mercie, and Silas had karate Monday and Wednesday. Eli and Mercie got two green stripes on their white belts! Eli and Mikaela had Bible Drill this week, and Mercie, Silas and Titus had Team Kid. We had a fun and busy week that flew by way to quickly.

How was your week?

 

BFIAR: The ABC Bunny & Link Up

 

This week, Silas, Titus and I rowed the book "The ABC Bunny" by Wanda Gag. We really enjoyed reading this book, and since Silas has learned all {and memorized most} of his uppercase alphabet, it was a great review! {Silas is 5 and Titus is 3.}

 

On Monday, we read the book and talked about what a "gale" and "hail" were. We then made "rain in a glass"! I filled a glass with water, sprayed shaving cream on the top, and Silas dropped "rain" {water colored with blue food coloring} on the cloud. When the cloud got heavy enough, it "rained!" He thought that was the neatest thing!

 

 

We also read the story of Creation in his Bible storybook. We made a simple creation chart by dividing a paper into six squares, writing the numbers 1-6 in them, and drawing what God made each day.

 

 



On Tuesday, we talked about the insects in the book {and some that weren't in the book!}. We made an ABC snail with stickers and googly eyes {because who doesn't like googly eyes?}.

 

 

 Then, we worked our Melissa and Doug insect puzzle. It's a little simple for Silas, who is 5, but he and Titus both had fun naming the insects and working the puzzle. 

 

 On Wednesday, we talked about the different animals in the book. I found a printable that had all the animals in the book on it. We read the book, and he looked for the animals {I let him hold the paper with the pictures}. Then, he wanted to cut and glue them to another page, which is what he did!

 

 

 

On Thursday, we read the book again. We also read "Bunnie's ABC's", a Golden Book. It had different animals for each letter, and he really liked this book. It went along great with the ABC Bunny. Then, I had him use our alphabet stamps to stamp the ABCs in order around the edge of the paper. He colored, cut and glued a bunny to the center.

 

On Friday, we will read the book and hop like bunnies!. We will review our ABC's, the six days of creation, and the animals we learned about in the book.

 

This was a cute book and a fun row to do!

 

In math, he practiced simple addition and number bonds. He also used his Count and Color for Boys to review how to write some numbers.

 

In All About Reading, he learned the letters "m", "n", "o", and "p". We practiced matching the uppercase and lowercase letters. He used our pattern blocks and alphabet cards to make the letters.

 

We had a great Before Five in a Row week! How was your week?

 

The featured post this week is: "Mom's Heart: Goodnight, Moon".

 

 

 

Mom's Heart

 

Thank you for linking up last week! I can't wait to read this week's link ups!



 

An InLinkz Link-up