Category Archives: Bible lessons

The Power of the Word

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“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Recently we had a morning that got off to a really rough start.  If I recall correctly it was a battle over me wanting to start school and Ian wanting a second bowl of cereal after he’d already left the table and gone to play on his computer.  At least that was how it started.  It ended up with dramatic wailing, angry screams and lots of tears (all on his part–somehow I managed to keep my cool).  Even once he had “stopped” and sat down to work, the sniffles and subtle moaning with each breath continued.  Suffice to say I was not moved by this pathetic display.  (Of course, since he gets his dramatic flair from me, I understood where he was coming from and exactly what he was trying to accomplish.  However, my understanding did little to curb my irritation.)

I had some errands to run before lunchtime, so I really wanted to get through our schoolwork, and this drama had already taken up precious minutes.  I try to always start our day with prayer and Bible, but part of me really just wanted to jump into our math, the one subject that we can actually get “behind” in if we skip a day.  (With most of our subjects I just move along to whatever’s next each time and don’t worry about how fast or slow we’re progressing.) However, I decided to hold fast to my convictions, and I had Ian pull out his Bible and turn to Psalm 100, which we’re reading every day and working on memorizing this month.P1020190

He began reading, but he kept skipping words (out of laziness? seeing if I was paying attention?  I’m really not sure), lapsing into “baby talk” (a habit we’re trying to break), dissolving into tears again, etc.  I just kept taking deep breaths and trying to speak in a patient, pleasant tone (purely by the grace of God, to be sure) as I told him to “try again, in a normal voice, reading carefully.”  Eventually he did just that (I think we had to start it six or seven times), and I was amazed.  The power of the Word of God was so evident as he read.  His voice calmed down, the sadness left, and a peace fell in the room.

When he finished Psalm 100, he obviously felt better.  I told him that reading the Bible often helps me when I am feeling upset and had him turn to Psalm 23, which he memorized a while back.  I wanted him to make the connection between the passages we’ve memorized and the written word, since some of them have been in his heart since before he was able to read.  He’s not quite a strong enough reader to just sit down and read through these psalms in the ESV, but because they were familiar, he was able to work through them.  (I’ve made a point of having him memorize the ESV version so he’d find the passages just as he’s learned them once he started reading.)

His demeanor continued to be transformed as he read the words out loud, so after he completed Psalm 23 I had him turn to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, the only other long(ish) passage he knows.  P1020149By the time he had finished, we were both ready to move on to his memory verse cards.  (Each week I print out his verse in as large a font as can fit the whole verse on one page.  On Monday he cuts it into word “cards,” and then every morning he puts the verse in order.  As he manipulates the words each day, he not only gets reading practice but also firmly plants the verse his heart.)  He often dawdles through this work, but that day he got his verse in order faster than ever before.  The peace I saw on him was a remarkable change.

The experiences we had that morning made me think a lot about our Bible time each day.  It usually consists of something related to whatever story we’re going through in our evening family devotions (using Long Story Short by Marty Machowski), as well as reviewing our memory verses (using the Scripture Memory System from Simply Charlotte Mason). Now that Ian is getting better at reading, however, and after seeing the transformation that took place when he got into the Word, I want to make sure he is spending time reading out of his Bible each day.  I still feel like there’s a place for Bible story books, but I want to make sure I am helping my children develop an appreciate for the “real thing.”  For now, we’ll continue reading Psalm 100 each day until it is memorized, and then perhaps we’ll work on another psalm or start going through Proverbs.

I am so thankful that God has given us the Bible.  There really is power in the Scriptures, not just to learn about God and his interactions with man from the beginning of time, but to come face-to-face with him.  “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Posted in Bible lessons, Kindergarten

One Year into Long Story Short

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I’ve been feeling kind of bad that I haven’t posted anything about our Bible lessons in a long time.  It’s not that we haven’t been doing them, but rather that there hasn’t been much to write about.  We’re doing less “extras” and pretty much sticking to the book these days (though I have also been trying to be on top of having out the pieces for the flannel board set because all my children, especially Ian, really enjoy being able to play out the story through the week).

It’s been one year since we started using Long Story Short by Marty Machowski, and I’m still just as excited about this book as I was when we began.  It is so simple to use, and it has been such a great tool for Eric to lead us in family devotions every night.  It doesn’t require any preparation; we just sit down with LSS and the Bible and start reading.  Ian loves the fun little introductory stories. (This boy is all about fun).  Elijah loves the structure of each devotion. (He points out the little symbols frequently: “The book means we read; the hands mean we pray.”)  I love the way Machowski includes even lesser known stories (like our story this week about the bronze snake Moses made in the wilderness that provided a way for the people to be saved after God allowed poisonous snakes to plague the camp after yet another round of grumbling and complaining), and that he uses each one to point us toward Jesus.  I’m amazed at the theology my young children are able to discuss after the repeated exposure through this book (like Ian being able to describe what a “mediator” does).

There are 78 weeks’ worth of devotions in the book, but since we took a few weeks off for holidays (doing devotions specific to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter) as well as losing a few weeks when we moved this spring (and couldn’t find the box with our book in it!), we’re now on Week 42 after starting last August.  I’m guessing we’ll finish up with the book sometime next year in late spring/early summer, and then we’re looking forward to going straight into its companion book, Old Story New.  It has another 78 stories so it should keep us going for almost another two years.  Then we might just start all over again, since everyone will be at a new level of understanding!

For now I’m continuing to use the weekly story as the basis for our homeschool Bible lessons, though after this year I might have Ian read through the Bible at a quicker pace, possibly following the Ambleside Online Bible reading schedule).  Here’s what we do each week (in addition to reading the selection from the ESV each night):

Monday: I have Ian read the story in an easy reader version.  Which book I use varies depending on which stories are included, but I usually look first in The Beginner’s Bible (the ORIGINAL version, by Karyn Henley, which is the easiest for him).  Other easy versions we have are the Day-By-Day Begin to Read Bible (also by Karyn Henley) and The Young Readers Bible.  If the story we’re on isn’t in any of those, I can usually find it in the Day-By-Day Kid’s Bible (again, by Karyn Henley).

Tuesday: We get out the flannel board set.  I tell the story first, and then I have Ian tell it back to me using the board.  He usually does this several times on his own throughout the week.

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Wednesday: We do our “listening lesson” (usually in the car), using the passage from the from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible (or the ESV audio drama) from Faith Comes By Hearing as well as any songs related to the week’s story (and our “hymn of the month”).  We usually listen to this more than once a week, but Wednesdays are park day with our co-op so I have a lighter workload scheduled and we’re guaranteed to be in the car.

Thursday: I read the week’s passage from the King James Version to help the children become familiar with the sound of the language. (Obviously we’re not KJV exclusivists, but I recommend reading the essay “Why the KJV?” on the Ambleside Online site for more on why it makes sense to include it in our homeschooling.)

Friday: We had gotten out of the habit of doing Bible Notebook pages, mostly because I was feeling low on creativity and some of the stories are more obscure so I didn’t have any luck finding other ideas out there.  So what I decided to do this year is have Ian create his own pages.  He draws a picture of part of the story (not one of his strengths, so this provides him with an opportunity for drawing at least once a week) and then comes up with a sentence to write about it.  It’s simple and doesn’t require any prep work on my part.  The only downside is that Elijah’s not quite ready for even just the drawing part of it, so he gets left out until I come up with some brilliant idea that can include him.

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Just having this basic framework helps me to ensure that we’ll be in the Bible every day as part of our school time, as well as doing family devotions every night.

All that to say that Bible is still a big focus for us, but I probably won’t be posting much about it unless I come across some great resources that I want to make note of to go along with certain stories.

Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Parenting Resources

Long Story Short: The Tabernacle

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I was kind of surprised when I realized we were going to spend a whole week on the Tabernacle as we journeyed through the Bible with Long Story Short by Marty Machowski.  However, as we went through the five days of devotions (plus one reading the story in The Gospel Story Bible, also by Machowski) I realized what an important concept it is to understanding the Old Testament.  The Tabernacle was God’s dwelling place among His people, a foreshadowing of Jesus as Immanuel, “God with us.”  Sure, He had interacted with individuals before, and He had shown His power to the people through the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and His provision for them in the desert, but this was more than that.  This was His actual Presence being with them.  What a powerful thing!  Imagine living in the camp of the Israelites and seeing God’s magnificent tent there in the midst of the thousands of other tents that housed the people, knowing that the almighty Creator of the universe was dwelling there with you.

This week’s devotions probably would have been really hard to get through without the use of visual aids.  If the kids were a little older, I would have been tempted to buy a model of the Tabernacle to put together, but instead I decided to get a Tabernacle felt set for our flannel board.  Unfortunately, one piece was too big for our boards!  So we headed off to the fabric store for some black flannel and made our own big board.  It ended up working out well because we could have two boards out, for both the outer courtyard and the inside of the tabernacle.

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The other resource we used, which I highly recommend, is the Rose Guide to the Tabernacle.  It is not a children’s book, but it is a wonderful resource for personal study, and there are many pictures that are helpful explaining this passage of Scripture to children (or anyone!). We used the felt pieces and/or the Rose Guide every night.  It was so beneficial for the boys to have something tangible to hold and look at as we read through long descriptive passages of the tabernacle and the high priest’s garments that might otherwise have been hard-pressed to hold their attention.

I didn’t have the energy to come up with anything elaborate for the boys’ Bible notebook pages, so I printed up dot-to-dot on a page with our Bible verse.  (Note I did not say memory verse.  We’re not that together yet!  I really want to get back to memorizing Scripture with the boys, but I’m considering going a new route, not connected to our Bible stories, and we’re not up and running.)  However, the week flew by without us ever doing the page.  Will we ever get to it?  I’d give it a 50/50 chance.  I’m trying to let things go and just move on.

Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Preschool, The Gospel Story

Long Story Short: The 10 Commandments

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We just finished up a great week (plus a few extra days!) on the Ten Commandments.  Even Elijah (3 1/2) worked diligently toward memorizing them, and both boys enjoyed the various activities we did throughout the week in addition to our nightly Bible Time with Long Story Short by Marty Machowski.  We broke out our flannel board set for the first time since our move, and all three kids enjoyed playing with it throughout the week.  I’ve put it on a low table in our schoolroom where they can all reach it, and pretty much every day I caught a glimpse of at least one of them acting out the story with the little felt figures.  (Okay, so Arianna just liked collecting the people and carrying them around, but she’ll get there.)

I really considered buying a 10 Commandments Project Pack from CurrClick, but since I only planned on spending a week on the topic I decided to just stick with activities I could find for free online.  BibleStoryPrintables.com has a lot of fun ideas to print (and in our case laminate so I can reuse them with the younger children).  I pretty much stuck with printables from their site so that the wording would be the same on all our activities.  I used the bookmarks as a reading tool.  They print four on a page, so I printed out one set and laminated them.  Every day at lunch time, each of us got one (even Arianna) and we read through them together.  We worked on memorizing two commandments each day.

I also printed out the sequencing cards and number cards for a matching activity.  (There’s a typo on “adultery,” but I just used a black marker to fix it.) The boys really liked using our pocket chart to have the cards all out in front of them.  We just worked on putting them in order and matching the pictures with the written commandments, but they’d also be great for playing a memory matching game.

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The last thing I printed out was the file folder game.  The game board has typos on “misuse” and “adultery”, but it was pretty simple to fix them by opening the image in Paint, cutting and pasting the letters into the correct places, then copying the corrected image into Word.  (I also found a second game  from The Catholic Toolbox, but I’m saving that one for when my kids are a bit older.)  Next time maybe I’ll plan ahead more and use some of the activities from Oriental Trading Company related to the ten commandments.

After several months’ hiatus, we finally added a page to the boys’ Bible notebooks.  I looked for a new idea, but I just couldn’t find anything I liked as much as the one I did with Ian two years ago (see my post “Train Up a Child (10 Commandments pt.2)“) so we just did it again.  I forgot Elijah’s not a big fan of finger painting, however, so we barely got this one out of him.  He does really like numbers and putting things in order, so after the first day he enjoyed pasting on the commandments.

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Each day we watched one of the episodes from the Kids’ Ten Commandments DVDs.  (There are five episodes, each covering two commandments, so it worked perfectly with our schedule.)  The boys REALLY liked these videos.  They do a wonderful job illustrating each of the commandments through a story about a young Israelite boy living in the desert.  Highly recommended!

Our “Listening Lesson”

Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Preschool, The Gospel Story

Long Story Short: Moses

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I hesitated to even write this post, since we did very little during our study of Moses from birth through the Exodus outside of reading each night from Long Story Short or The Gospel Story Bible by Marty Machowski.  This season reinforced how much I appreciate the depth of these resources.  Machowski points out both the obvious and more subtle connections of the Old Testament stories to Jesus, and he presents them in such a way that even my boys, only 3 and 5, are able to understand and articulate.

The reason I did decided to go ahead and do a short post about the several weeks we spent on this section of Exodus is that I want to keep a record of the resources I’ve come across.  Because we were caught up in the chaos of packing, moving, and settling in, we pretty much just stuck with picture books and videos to supplement our Bible Time reading every night.  So here are my lists, plain and simple:

Picture Books

Videos

We finally got back to our “Listening Lesson” during Week 33 “God Provides Food and Water for Israel.”  Here’s what was on our playlist:

Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Preschool, The Gospel Story

Long Story Short: summary of our weeks on Joseph

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Contrary to what my recent blogging record implies, we’ve been plugging away at our Bible lessons as usual.  I continue to be so thankful for Marty Machowski’s Long Story Short.  During a season of minimal schooling, I am confident our children are still getting a steady diet of Bible knowledge thanks to the thoughtful devotions in this book.  I haven’t been doing a lot of extras, just our nightly devotions and a “listening lesson” for during the day, which we primarily use as we drive around town.  Even so, as we’ve gone through the last few weeks on the story of Joseph’s life, both boys have learned a lot, and Ian especially has it firmly engraved upon his heart.

The more we read about Joseph, the more in awe I am of how God works in our lives.  It really is an incredible story.  God took something horrible (broken family relationships, near murder, selling a brother into slavery and deceiving their father) and used it to save countless lives during the famine that came years later.  And one of the pivotal events of the Bible, the Exodus, wouldn’t have happened Joseph (and later his family) hadn’t gone down to Egypt.

The story lends itself to so many discussions, and we often used our extra night (the book includes 5 devotions each week, plus we do one night in The Gospel Story Bible, also by Machowski) to read through what the Bible said about pride, trust, forgiveness, etc.  I used Parenting With Scripture to easily look up verses on each topic, but a Child Training Bible would also be a good tool.  (I just didn’t want to take the time to flip through all the verses to pick out which ones to read with the boys, so Parenting With Scripture was handy because the verses were all laid out on one page.)

Go-Along Books The story of Joseph is found in most children’s Bible storybooks.  We read it in several over the weeks we spent on the story, but I also really liked this book: Joseph by Brian Wildsmith.  It is a thorough retelling of the story, accompanied by beautiful illustrations.  Ian especially liked the hieroglyphics (thank you, Little Einsteins, for introducing them!)

Bible Notebook I have to admit, we haven’t been working on a memory verse, but we did talk about Romans 8:28 so I put it on our Bible notebook page so the boys could review it whenever they look through their books.  For the craft, I considered repeating what we did the last time Ian and I talked about Joseph, but I didn’t want both his notebook pages to be the same.  Instead I just had them color on coffee filters and then use an eyedropper of water to help the colors spread out.  We cut out two wedges for the arms and then bunched the rest up for the coat and glued them on top of people we drew.  Ian thinks they look like dresses.  I have to agree.   At least they’re colorful!

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Multimedia

We watched several related videos over the course of our study:

  • Joseph: King of Dreams DreamWorks took a few liberties with the story (mostly about the timing of Rachel’s death, how long Joseph was in prison, etc.), but overall our whole family enjoyed watching this together and comparing it to the biblical account.
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat While the cover of the DVD touts it as the “classic family musical,” THIS IS ONE TO KEEP THE REMOTE HANDY ON!  We completely skipped the scene with Potiphar’s wife because the costumes were so inappropriate.  There were a few other scenes that had some questionable costuming as well but I let them pass because it wasn’t as obvious and Ian didn’t seem to notice.  It’s really too bad, because the music itself is very family friendly (with the exception of Potiphar’s wife saying, “Come and lie with me, love,” but since that’s pretty much what the Bible records, I’m not going to complain).
  • Veggie Tales: The Ballad of Little Joe Ian has seen this one before, but I don’t think he’d ever realized it’s (loosely!) based on the story of Joseph.  This time he definitely caught the similarities.

I had so many things to use in our “Listening Lessons” to go with Joseph.  I broke it down and tried to only use the ones that specifically applied to the part of the story we were focused on each week.  Here’s a summary of all the things we listened to:

Ian and I closed out our time on Joseph by going to a live theater performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (one we had been assured was appropriate for kids).  It’s a fast-paced show, so it kept his attention the whole time.  We really enjoyed our special “date” together! Oh well.

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Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Preschool, The Gospel Story

Long Story Short: Jacob and Esau/Jacob’s Lie

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Over the last couple weeks, our devotions in Long Story Short by Marty Machowski have been about Jacob and Esau.  These are some of those stories where the Bible just tells us what happened without passing judgment on the main characters, which leaves us with a bit of explaining to do when it comes to teaching our children.  The stories are found in Genesis 25 and 27, and in them you’ll find multiple instances of lying, parents playing favorites with their children, and a mother encouraging her child to deceive his father at the expense of another child.  What do we make of all this? I think the answer comes in the chapters still ahead of us.  Jacob was the one through whom God would keep His promise of a Savior, but he wasn’t chosen because of his own righteousness..  Jacob may have been deceitful in this story, but as he gets older, God works in his life and changes him (though he too plays favorites with his children, and that brings plenty of drama of its own).

Since there are only five devotions for each week in Long Story Short, we spent one of our extra nights reading the story in The Gospel Story Bible (also by Machowski) and the other going through Bible verses about honesty (which Eric looked up easily in Parenting With Scripture by Kara Durbin–see my review from last year).

Go-Along Books

We spent a lot of time focusing on how not to follow Jacob and Esau’s example.  Two books I love are We’re Very Good Friends, My Brother and I  and Brothers Forever by P.K. Hallinan.  They’re very similar, so I wouldn’t recommend getting both, but I think every family with two or more boys should read at least one of these.  (I think the first one is my favorite.  I actually bought a second copy after our first got a bit of damage because it’s one I really want to keep around.)  Reading these led to some good discussions on how brothers should treat each other, which then led to a discussion of our memory verse (the “Golden Rule”): “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Matthew 7:12.

Bible Notebook

For our notebook page on this story, I adapted this idea for making a painting/print of the twins.  Then instead of coloring the men, we just glued hair onto Esau (which we had saved from the boys’ haircuts the night before).  It was messy(!) but the boys really got a kick out of using their own hair.

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Activities

I was surprised by how many activities flowed naturally out of these stories.

The first week (Genesis 25:19-34) we compared the descriptions of Jacob and Esau (physical appearance, occupations, personalities, etc.), looked at the difference between Daddy’s “hairy” arm and Mommy’s “smooth” one, and fixed lentils to go with dinner like the stew Jacob traded for Esau’s birthright.

The second week (Genesis 27) we talked about the “5 Senses” and looked for the part each played in the story.

  • Sight (Isaac’s eyes are “dim” and he can’t see well enough to know who’s who.)
  • Hearing (Isaac remarks that “the voice is Jacob’s,” which confuses him because of what his other senses tell him.)
  • Taste (Rebekah prepares goat meat with special spices so it will taste like Esau’s hunting catch.)
  • Smell (Jacob wears Esau’s robe, which leads Isaac to comment, “See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.”
  • Touch (Rebekah covers the smooth skin of Jacob’s hands and neck with the goatskin so he will feel hairy like Esau.)

In addition to discussion, here are some of the 5 senses activities I found: trace and color pages at Making Learning Fun, a mini-book at Kidzone, page at Homeschool Share.

There are some activity pages at DLTK-Bible related to the story as well.

We also used spent time in prayer during Bible time blessing each child.

Multimedia

Both boys enjoyed reading/listening to The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule Kindle edition (also available in paperback).

Our “Listening Lesson” was a big hit this week (though I’m not sure why).  Ian requested it at least once a day:

Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Preschool, The Gospel Story

Long Story Short: God Provides a Wife for Isaac

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Last week we jumped back into our Bible lessons with the Long Story Short devotional by Marty Machowski.   I am amazed at what our boys have learned since we started going through this book in August.  Even though it sometimes seems like Elijah’s not quite old enough to listen and participate, when questioned, we discover he’s absorbed an incredible amount.

This week we read the story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24.  It’s a beautiful story of God moving to work out all the details in response to prayer.  Abraham gave his servant a challenging assignment in sending him far away to find a girl willing to come back to Canaan, but the servant went to God asking for His help in finding a wife for Isaac, and “before he had finished speaking” (verse 15), along came Rebekah, who quickly fulfilled the sign for which the servant had asked.  Throw in the fact the she is “very attractive” (verse 16), and that Isaac loves her pretty much immediately, and you’ve got a romantic story worthy of a chick flick.

Extra Activities

In addition to our nightly devotions, we found a lot of extended learning opportunities:

Camels

Abraham’s servant took ten camels along with him on his journey (verse 10).  Elijah enjoyed singing about them to the tune of “10 Little Indians.”  We enjoyed learning about camels  from a 99-cent Kindle Book 14 Fun Facts About Camels as well as from a lapbook at HomeSchoolShare .  (We didn’t do the lapbook, just enjoyed some of the information in it.)

Wells

The whole concept of a well is pretty foreign to these modern American boys.  I found this Thirstin’s Water Cycle Adventure page from the EPA site really helpful for explaining what a well is and talking about the water cycle.  (I also liked this water cycle website.)

Marriage

The Person I Marry: Things I'll Think About Long Before Saying "I Do" (Bright Future Books)We discussed marriage in our culture versus arranged marriages.  I don’t remember how it came up, but I had a great opportunity to talk about how love is a choice we make about how to treat the other person, regardless of our feelings.  We also talked about how Abraham sent the servant far away to find the right girl because the women in Canaan worshipped other gods, and importance of marrying someone who knows God.  Marriage may seem like an odd topic to talk about with preschool boys, but I want to plant seeds so they will be able to make wise choices, and this Bible story provided a logical connection. I really like the book The Person I Marry by Gary Bower.  One day at lunchtime I read it to the boys and we talked about some of the pages.

Bible Notebook

100_8609Our Bible notebook page wasn’t necessarily about Isaac and Rebekah, but focused on how Isaac (and his family) trusted in God to provide the right wife.  For our Bible verse, I used Proverbs 3:5-6 (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”)  I found a free clipart image of a childlike bride and groom and put white circles over the faces.  Then I printed out pictures of the boys faces and question marks for them to paste on the circles.

Our “Listening Lesson”

Here’s what was playing on our iPod as we drove around town:

Posted in Bible lessons, Long Story Short, Preschool, The Gospel Story

My *plans* for Advent

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This week I’m scurrying about to finishing prepping for the Advent activities I have planned for December.  Since we put our Long Story Short devotions on hold before Thanksgiving and are planning to do Truth in the Tinsel starting next week, I was at a loss as far as how to fill our evening Bible Time this week.  Then, at long last, the answer arrived in the mail. Old Story New is Marty Machowski’s sequel to Long Story Short, going through 78 stories of the New Testament and pointing to the gospel through each one.  As an introduction to Advent, I decided to use the first week from Old Story New, on “The Birth of Jesus Foretold.”  (Then it will go on the shelf for another year or so while we finish up with Long Story Short.)  That should take us right through the last day of November, and then we’re diving in!

For the last couple years the boys have enjoyed opening the doors on our wooden Advent calendar and sticking the magnetic pieces on the picture of the stable.  This year I’m planning to do that each morning and to also read from Advent Storybook: 24 Stories to Share Before Christmas.  I also plan to make our Truth in the Tinsel ornaments during the day and then present them to Daddy each night, using the readings for Bible Time. (The boys can’t wait to start this. They’re enjoying falling asleep to the glow of the 4-foot tree with colored lights I set up in their room, and they’re eager to decorate it!)

Finally, we have SO many Christmas books, I was afraid they would all end up in a basket and we would never get to most of them because the boys would keep choosing only their favorites.  So I decided to present them with one each day, which we will read before putting it into our basket.  My sister-in-law’s family introduced me to the idea of cloth gift bags, so I plan use one to let them “unwrap” a book each day in December.  Many of our books coordinated with the topics from Truth in the Tinsel, so I wrote up a list of all twenty-four days and selected books that would be appropriate.  For some days there weren’t any good matches, so I used those as a chance to get in some favorites that wouldn’t fit anywhere else.  For a couple days I included two, either because they were simple board books or because I couldn’t decide.  (Yes, I am a bookaholic, though I only purchased a few this year.  Most were treasures I’d picked up at used book stores, gifts, books I bought last year, or oldies either from my childhood or passed on from Grandma’s Kindergarten after retirement.) I haven’t even read some of the new ones yet, but I’m excited to share them all with my children this year.  Here’s what we’ll be reading up through Christmas (books in parentheses have nothing to do with the topic of the day):

  1. Light – The Light of Christmas by Dandi Daley Mackall and A Star for Jesus by Crystal Bowman
  2. Kingdom – (The Legend of St. Nicholas: A Story of Christmas Giving by Dandi Daley Mackall)
  3. Zechariah – (The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston)
  4. Gabriel – (Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson)
  5. Mary – Baby Jesus is Born by Juliet David
  6. Mary/Elizabeth – Mary’s Treasure Box by Carolyn Walz Kramlich
  7. Song – Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones
  8. Sun – (The Light of Christmas by Richard Paul Evans)
  9. Joseph – Jacob’s Gift by Max Lucado
  10. Dream – (Mouskin’s Christmas Eve by Edna Miller)
  11. Jesus’ Name – Jesus, Me and My Christmas Tree by Crystal Bowman
  12. Census – The Innkeeper’s Daughter by Jill Briscoe
  13. Bethlehem – Oh Come, Little Children by Anita Reith Stohs
  14. Stable – This is the Stable by Cynthia Cotton and Tell Me the Christmas Story by Joni Walker
  15. Manger – Christmas in the Manger by Nola Buck and The Last Straw by Paula Palangi
  16. Clothes – “The Christmas Spider“ by Marguerite de Angeli, in an anthology called I Love Christmas (The spider’s web covers Baby Jesus. I think it’s a similar story to The Little Spider by Sigmund Brouwer)
  17. Sheep – The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
  18. Angels – Christmas Angels by Crystal Bowman
  19. Shepherd – The Littlest Shepherd by Ron Mehl, Jr.
  20. Temple – Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt
  21. Star – The Christmas Star by Marcus Pfister
  22. Wise Men – We Three Kings traditional carol illustrated by Gennady Spirin
  23. Gifts – Baboushka and the Three Kings by Ruth Robbins
  24.  Cross – The Candymaker’s Gift: The Inspirational Legend of the Candy Cane by David and Helen Haidle and J is for Jesus by Crystal Bowman

Just as a final note: these are my plans.  This is pretty much all we’re doing for school through Christmas, aside from some Christmas music.  Knowing how things go, this probably won’t all happen the way I’m envisioning it.  But I have a plan, and that’s always a good place to start, right? 🙂

Merry Christmas!

UPDATE: Each year I’ve tweaked this list a little as I’ve found books that fit the daily themes better.  Also, as my kids got older, our library grew and I divided the books for older and younger ones.  For more age-specific suggestions, check out my posts “25 CHRISTmas Books for Preschooler” and “25 CHRISTmas books for Older Children.”

Posted in Bible lessons, Parenting Resources

Bible Time: Thanksgiving Devotional

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We’re taking a break from our normal nightly devotional and instead use our Bible Time to focus on the holidays through a Scriptural lens.  Last night we started using a Thanksgiving Devotional  I wrote for this week and thought I’d share it in case any other families could be blessed by it.  I only wrote up six days because I’m sure we’ll take one night off (we’re celebrating 2 nights in a row with different parts of the family).   It’s nothing fancy (maybe next year I’ll expand on it a little), but I’d thought I’d share  anyway.

In addition to Scripture passages, I used three books from our Thanksgiving collection (see below), but they’re not essential.  You could easily just use the Bible readings each night.  (I used the ESV, which uses “steadfast love” for the Hebrew word “chesed,” which we talked about the first night. Other than that, the translation shouldn’t matter too much.)  One night does talk a bit about the Pilgrims, but any basic book about their story (or just telling the story yourself) would work.

    

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Posted in Bible lessons, Parenting Resources
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