Before I step off the cliff called individual curricula plans for each of my four children, I want to share how we study the Bible in our home and school since it is the one facet of our day guaranteed to be profitable.When the children were all very young, I used a devotional book written specifically for small children called, Leading Little Ones to God, by Marian Schoolland. Although a delightful book that served me very well for years, it is now a book the older ones know very much by heart. And, as they are now eleven and eight years old, respectively, I recognize their need to be weaned from the milk of children's books in order to cut their spiritual canine teeth on more meaty portions. Today, I primarily use the Bible alone for Bible study. How ingenious is that?!
Here's how it happened:
Two years ago I threw in my hat for a book called Suffer Little Children, by Gertrude Hoeksema, of which I could find no sample page anywhere on the internet. This was such a gamble for me, since I really hate to waste my limited monetary resources on books I know I cannot use. Cha-ching! and praise be to God, it was and is a winner! This study covers at least one chapter of the Bible for each extensively outlined lesson, being chock-full of historical, social, and geographical information that my secularly-raised pea-brain just doesn't own. So, we read the Bible and then each child narrates the portion assigned to them to read aloud, after which the little ones get to put in their two-cents. Fabulously, my older children are being well-fed and my younger children are learning to practice self-government while gleaning, like Ruth, the leavings of God's Word, until we can later snuggle up together with Mrs. Schoolland.
I should mention that the book for which I provided a link is recommended for Grade 2. However, I did get a peek at the books for Grades 4-6, which cover the same respective time periods, but they were too pointed and preachy for me, outlining connections in lieu of allowing the children to discover connections themselves. Although I believe strongly that my children should gain all the knowledge and wisdom they can from the Bible, and if it was their only source, they could not go wrong, I don't want them to lose the joy and desire to harvest it for themselves. Using the Grade 2 book allows me to read over the outlined lesson, highlighting the points I want them to catch, and lead my children gently to that particular field with their spiritual scythes. Plus, this gives me the freedom, when there are items with which I may not wholeheartedly agree, to just ignore those small portions of the lesson altogether.
And although it is a rare workbook that finds its way into my home anymore, my children and I really enjoy the one which supplements Suffer Little Children, probably because workbooks are rare and we only complete one workbook page each week! That's right! One. Each week and first thing in the morning, we cover four lessons, Monday through Thursday, by reading the Bible, busting out with the workbook page on Friday. These pages contain what you might expect: matching, true-false statements, and map-work. (((Yawn))), right? But my kids love to show what they know and these are no fru-fru lessons. And if they are able to complete the workbook page without the help of referring back to the chapters covered that week, they listened well indeed!
Plus, twice each week, in order to encourage my children and give us all a lovely break, we listen to the particular chapter over at this website for the English Standard Version of the Bible. We just love the reader's voice, and it is not a rare day when we get a chuckle over how we were pronouncing someone's or somewhere's name all wrong. What great resources we have as homeschool families for His glory!
Oh! If you're still interested, on Thursday I'll share with y'all how I make the memorization of Scripture and the Shorter Catechism all easy-peasy and the importance of singing hymns in the home and school!
As Tigger oft says, "Ta-ta for now!"
I am interested in hearing about scripture memorization and how you make it easy! That is one area that we are lacking. I'll admit, I am not good at memorization myself, so its been hard to teach them.
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