Christmas Memory Verses

This Christmas I want C4 to memorize Scripture about Jesus’ birth. I think the experience will add to our homeschool devotion time and help her understand the Christmas story a little better. I also hope she holds the memory verses she learns close to her heart. One verse that I am considering is Luke 2:11.

11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

The scene with the angels visiting the shepherds is a beautiful picture. You can find in Luke 2:8-15. I am considering a few ways of presenting this piece of the Christmas story.

• I will present a puppet show of the scene using our Little People ™ or dolls.
• Act out the scene. I’ll have C4 assume the different roles each time we act it out. We’ll make our props, too.
• Make a diorama of the scene. I think this project will open up a conversation about each of the elements of the scene - the shepherd and their attire, where the angels are and what they look like, etc.
• Draw/paint a picture of the scene. This might make a beautiful piece of art work worthy of a frame.
• Listen to the Hallelujah chorus. We might also watch a video of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the Hallelujah chorus.
• Read Christ is Born by Layne Haacke. This book includes illustrations for the Christmas story found in Luke.

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Homeschool Visual & Kinesthetic Checklist

Are there parts of your homeschool routine that are frustrating you and your children? In a previous post I mentioned creating a visual agenda or checklist to help with difficult times of the day. I have been working with C4 to create a few checklists for a few challenging times during the day. So far C4 has found the checklist for getting ready to leave the house helpful and it has made that process less trying for us. She really likes having something to help her focus.

I wanted to share the process of making the checklists and show you pictures of ours.

• One afternoon we discussed the problems we were having with getting ready to leave the house, and I suggested that having a checklist would help. C4 agreed that it sounded like a good idea.
• We wrote a list of what she needs to do in order to be ready to leave. (shoes, coat, hat, mittens, backpack, & sit)
• We used catalogs and parenting magazines to find pictures of these items to cut out. These tend to be the most appropriate magazines to use with young children.
• I drew a line around the picture that we wanted, and C4 cut along that line.
• C4 glued each picture onto an index card.
• I had intended on putting the cards into a pocket chart, but C4 wants to manipulate the cards. So we keep them in a hanging folder on the door. She pulls them out and files through them as she gets ready to go.
• We repeated the process for the morning routine. We looked for the following pictures: the potty, brushing teeth, brushing hair, getting dressed, & eating.

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Memory Verse Meaning

In my home school memory verses are part of our curriculum. I think it is a good discipline to learn scripture so that you have God’s word in your head instead of all of the toxic things we encounter in the world. I think that children need all of the armor they can get when they are faced with our fallen world. The problem that I have right now is helping my kids to actually understand the meaning of the scripture. I have a plan, though!

• Start with a lesson about the verse using something concrete to explain the meaning. For example, this summer we learned John 15:5. I used a lesson the I found at First-School to teach the essence of the verses. We used grapes on the vine to demonstrate what it means to be the vine and the branches.
• Draw pictures, take photos, or use clip art to visually describe of the meaning of the verses. Hang the pictures next to your child’s bed so you can reference them when you recite the verses together. Make sure the pictures are good descriptors of the verses’ meaning.
• Incorporate some kind of motion to go along with the verses. When we learned Luke 15:1-7, we played a shepherd game similar to “tag”. One person played the shepherd while everyone else played the sheep and wandered around. The shepherd had to herd the sheep.
• Make up or find a song that teaches the message of the verses. Kids love to sing songs and songs that teach the meaning of scripture will help them to own it.

I hope that your memory verse lessons become more meaningful! Do you have any tips that have made understanding scripture easier for your children?

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The Leaves are Falling!

Autumn is by far the best season ever! The weather is chilly, but not too cold. The foliage is amazing, too. Then there are all of the great fall activities that we love to do like apple picking and hiking. We have focused on nature and the seasons this year, so we’ve read many books about fall so far. There is a downfall to this great season, though. The raking that needs to be done is a huge burden for us. Our yard is surrounded by our neighbors’ trees, and all of those leaves fall into our yard. That means lots of work for us in the autumn. My hubby and I decided to make a little game out of it with the kids, and it turned out to be a great teaching opportunity.

We had the kids walk around the yard and put leaves into their buckets to put them leaves into our compost pile. As they were doing this, they noticed that the leaves were not all the same. Daddy showed them what a maple leaf looks like. We have two other kinds of leaves in our backyard, oak leaves and another one that we didn’t recognize. Daddy suggested that the kids walk around the yard and sort the maple, oak, and unidentified leaves. They emptied the sorted leaves into the compost pile, and on our way back into the house, I brought several leaves inside for an art project. When we got inside, we found an interactive website at About.com to help us identify the last leaf and discovered it was an elm. Then I had the kids sort the leaves into oak, elm, and maple leaf piles. Then we used the leaves to make collages of the different types of leaves. The kids were so excited about this project from start to finish, and we all had a lot of fun!

I liked a lot about these particular activities. One thing that stands out is the kinesthetic nature of the work. The kids sorted the leaves in a very active way by collecting them in the yard, and then they re-sorted them when we got inside. I was able to show the kids how they can research on the internet as well. I also like the visual and tactile piece that came with making the collages. The kids manipulated the leaves in order to make their collages, and touching the leaves in this way gave them a clearer picture of the shape of each type of leaf. They also have these art pieces to refer to now to remind them what the different types of leaves look like. In the end, they will remember how to identify these leaves particular leaves in the future.

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Mallard Math

We have practiced our math skills in a variety of ways through Make Way for Ducklings. There are a few mathematical possibilities in this particular book that you might find helpful if you are also working on this particular lapbook.

Since there are eight ducklings in the book, we have practiced counting the number eight. Since my kiddos are kinesthetic learners, I need to incorparate manipulatives into our math work, and a great manipulative for this particular lesson is plastic Easter eggs. First, we sorted the eight eggs by color and counted how many eggs there were of each color. We compared which color we had more and less of. We also dabbled in addition and subtraction by adding one more egg and removing one egg. After all of that manipulative work, we made a counting book with the numbers 1-8. It’s a graduated page book. On each page the children drew the amount of eggs that correlate with the number on the page. Creating this book is also a great way to address the unique the needs of kinesthetic learners since there is a lot of interaction involved - turning the pages, drawing the eggs, counting the eggs, and coloring the eggs. My children needed a bit of guidance with staying focused on the task, but overall, this was a hit!

We also used the song “Five Little Ducks” to talk about counting backwards from 5. We used it as a finger play while I a read a great picture book of the song, Five Little Ducks illustrated by Ivan Bates. They really love this song and adding a kinesthetic piece to it just makes it more engaging. Having the visuals (pictures) also makes the song more interesting. Lessons are so much more dynamic when you weave multiple disciplines together.

Get cracking on your math skills, homeschoolers!

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Sharing the Gospel with Drama

A drama of the song Everything by Lifehouse

Have you wondered how to share the Gospel better with your children in your home school? Do you struggle with how to make really big ideas more meaningful and understandable for your kids? Many Christian homeschoolers want to do a better job with this very thing. I know that I do. Then I saw this drama done to the song Everything by Lifehouse, and it struck me that I can use this kind of tool with my children.

This drama brought me to tears! It completely encapsulates the whole of the good news. It embodies the struggle that I know that I have between wanting worldly things and needing spiritual things. I forget that Jesus us my savior sometimes, and this is such an amazing way of showing what that really means. I love the part where Jesus is shielding the girl from sin and bearing the burden for her. What an amazing visual!

As a homeschooling mom, I have struggled with how to share some of the big concepts in the Bible. Ideas like salvation and sin are really difficult for young kids to grasp, and my kids ask questions that get at the heart of these concepts. My sweet child sounded just like Paul when she described her struggle with sin. She told me that God wants her to what is right, but sometimes she can’t do it even though she wants to do it. Paul tells us:

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Romans 7:19

The idea is right there for her. Since she is already thinking about these ideas, I want to give her something concrete to make sense of it all, and a drama similar to this in a more age-appropriate format would be helpful. The lyrics to the song are simple, but truly amazing, and I would definitely use it with the drama. You can find the lyrics at MetroLyrics. Maybe a multisensory approach to sharing the Gospel will bring my daughter closer to accepting Christ! That is truly awesome to me!

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