Fruit of the Spirit: Patience

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We continued our Fruit of the Spirit unit this past week talking about patience, which I defined for the boys as “waiting without complaining.”  There were two Bible verses we focused on:

“Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God…” Philippians 2:14-15

“Be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2

Ian knows the first one well already from a song (see our iPod playlist below), and I was surprised how much he enjoyed the lesson all week.  I guess I thought it would come across as nagging, but that must be from my own childhood baggage (*grin*).  I must have been an impatient little girl, because I remember countless times when my mom broke into song:  “Have patience, have patience, don’t be in such a hurry…”  Quite the catchy tune.

Even if you don’t think you’ve ever heard the Music Machine album (I had the vinyl as a kid, but we do have a CD now), if you’re from my generation you’ve probably heard the song on it about patience.  It must have been a favorite, for most of my friends seem to know that one.  It tells the story of a snail called Herbert, who in his younger days was a little too speedy and wreaked havoc as he crashed through spider webs and collided with crickets.  But his wise father taught him a little ditty that helped him mend his ways and take his time crawling through life (though it made the ants mad and the beetles, well, “they would fume.”  The point of the song is that when you start to get impatient with other people, remember that not only is God patient, but there are times when other people have to wait for you as well.  (We watched this video on YouTube for more about Herbert.  If you like it, check out the newer version with modern animation on from the DVD set Character Builders.)

Ian loved the song, and I decided it would be fun to spend some time with snails up close.  So one morning we went out snail hunting.  The day was already hot and dry so it wasn’t as easy as I’d anticipated, but at last we managed to find three little friends to join us for our morning lesson.  We put them on dark paper so we could see the slimy dotted trail they left behind them.  The boys were fascinated!  We talked about the different parts of the snails anatomy to squeeze in some “official” learning, but mostly we just had fun watching them.  Ian set up races (a great chance to practice patience!), had fun redirecting them whenever they’d get close to the edge of the paper, and really would have liked to keep them around a lot longer, but alas, Mama wasn’t really keen on that idea.

  

For more Bible connection, we also discussed the story of Simeon, the man who waited to see God’s promised Messiah (see Luke 2:22-35).  It was a story Ian had never heard before, which made him curious and therefore very attentive.

For literature, we read the book The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss (part of Before Five in a Row).  I asked Ian why he thought I had chosen that book to go along with our lesson. We had planted seeds a while back in anticipation of doing this book, so he had no problem connecting it to patience.  We were rewarded for ours by seeing our little green shoots and lots of roots!

Here’s what was playing all week for our “Listening Lesson”:

It will be two weeks before I write about our lesson on “Kindness.”  There’s lots of stuff going on around here (visitors, vacations, and of course, 4th of July), and since we’re halfway through the Fruit of the Spirit, it seemed like a good idea to take a break!

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