Book Review: Training Hearts Teaching Minds

Our family does a family devotional each evening before bed.  We have all the children finished up with needs for the evening so that we can all pay attention.  We are usually all piled up on the couch together and my husband assigns who will be the reader each evening.   Others will be finding Scripture and reading along, but Dad will have told the child the night before if he/she will be the reader for the next night.  They get sooooo excited when it's their turn.  Even the 4 yr old "reads".  We just read it quietly and she follows, repeating aloud. 

This year, along with our academic books, we ordered Training Hearts, Teaching Minds, by Starr Meade, as our family devotional. It is based on the  Shorter Catechism.  I have never been a catechism-y kind of person.  But, this one got rave reviews so I thought I'd try it out.  Each week delves deeper into one question from the Catechism.  The question and answer are stated and each day's devotional message and appropriate Scriptures are divided up into short daily readings.  There are 107 weeks worth of devotions.

As we begin our devotional time, we review the previous questions and answers.  The children love this!  We call on a different child to give the answer to each question.  We are not down to exact wording and they  are doing very well at it.  Then, we go on to complete the day's reading and the Scripture passage(s) given and discuss how they relate and how we can relate it in our lives.  We pray together as a family, as well, before bed.  And Dad tells who will be the Bible reader on the next night. This is not some in depth theological debate time.  It is simply a time that we draw our family close together and share truths of God's Word.  Nothing fancy.

We love this tool!  It makes it almost too easy to get family devotionals started for your family.  I would enthusiastically recommend it.   And for 2 years' worth of devotionals for right around $10, it's quite the bargain as well.  I think the ages of comprehension for our family are closer to the 8 and up range, but we have our younger ones learn to sit in on teaching and hear the Word.  It's good for them--Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ ( Romans 10:17)! 

One of My Favorite Memories

from childhood is VBS during summer vacation.  I was always sooo excited.  I actually enjoyed the week of structured activities in the middle of the carefree-ness of summer.  I loved the whole thing: chapel, saying the pledges, learning the songs, the crafts, snacks and even the hokey presentation for the entire church at the end of the week.  I loved it all!!!   And now my kids do, too!!

Four days last week, from 9-12, my children were at VBS having a blast.  And making memories.  This was the first year that they were all eligible.  And the last. Next year, my oldest will no longer be eligible.  So, I guess you're wondering what I did with myself.  I cleaned one day.  Two days I shopped.  One day I went to the library.  I had a great time, but I'm really, really glad they did, too.  The end of the week pool party was another treat.  My daughter got a chance to chat with another  homeschooler that she didn't speak to all week, and found a friend.  They've already emailed and chatted on the phone since then.  I love it.  I pray regularly that my children will will have good friends wherever we are. That is a blessing to my mama-heart.

Polished Cornerstones/Plants Grown Up - Co-ed Style: Teaching Skills

We have been out of the formal schooling loop for several months now. All have been craving a little more structure--none wanted to give in and admit it.  So, I had to take the reins and  get this horse back on track.  We started back to school last week.  Many areas went well. Others caused me a little bit of concern, as I mentioned here.   This week, it seemed appropriate to work on teaching skills, since we're in that frame of mind.  We are working a plan for doing things co-ed as much as possible and leaving any gender-specific activities for more appropriate times.  Here's the plan (btw, we school Tues-Sat, due to my husband's work schedule) for our upcoming week:

Day 1: Scripture reading, discussing and copying.I am so sure that I will have exactly three volunteers to help organize activities for my preschooler to do while I homeschool the others.  Who doesn't want to be the one to make the rules?????

Day 2: Scripture reading, discussing, copying (working through the list of passages). Perhaps someone different from day 1 can be the helper on that project.  Also, my 3rd and 5th grader will begin helping in this area this year by checking each others' math papers. Hopefully, I can explain that along with corrections, they should find something encouraging to share about their sibling.

Day 3: Scripture reading, discussing, copying.  This one could be soo fun.  I will have the two older ones write up Bible quiz questions to ask the family at mealtimes.  They really are trivia buffs. :)

Day 4: Scripture reading, discussing, copying.  We will have a few of the children tell Bible stories to the others, using visual aids --they're all pretty creative so I have no doubt this will make for a few Kodak moments.

Day 5: Scripture reading, discussing, copying.  We will make our own instructional videos on a skill or job that they do.  

And hopefully, somewhere along the way, we can squeeze in the making of an educational cassette tape for another sibling, containing things they are learning and that is appropriate for their age. 

Those are my activity choices and my plans for the week!!  Can't wait to read what others have done! 

Life After Homeschooling

there life after homeschooling? What will I do with all that free time? Whom will I then nurture? What will my husband want to do with some extra time?

You know the saying, ' the days are long but the years are short.' It's soo true. Some days, it seems like I will never, ever, ever get through the ABC's with some of my children. In the same day, I am amazed at the complexity of other children's lessons. And I know that very soon, like tomorrow, I will look back and wonder where all the littles that ran around here went. Is there something I can do to prepare for that? Where is my heart? What am I called to do at that point in life?

I'm writing this blog to remind myself what it's like to be where I am now. So that when I am in the "older women" category (Titus 2), I can see through the eyes of the ones coming behind me. I want to be the lady who calls up a mom of little ones to give her a few hours to run her errands while her little ones are well loved on by someone who will care for and pray over them. Someday, I hope I get the chance to allow a younger wife to spill her heart regarding the difficult times in the early years of marriage and be there to let her know that we all had to start somewhere and His Grace will get her through and pray with her. When my years of homeschooling are done, I want to be the one encouraging others in their journey and maybe even lead them.


Yes, I want to have time for myself and for more sewing and more time to go out with my husband. And I'll have plenty of time for those things. But I really want to continue to give and to nurture the younger women coming up behind me, whose path I have also traveled. I don't want to get into "retirement mode" so much that I cannot follow Biblical mandates. Titus 2 does not give us an option on this. I think it's kinda like God's mentorship program, but without the fancy title. It is the command for Biblical womanhood. My heart is to continue giving to those whom I can bless, in whatever stage of life I am.

Doorposts Plants/Cornerstone Co-ed Version Part 2

In my quest to study through the Doorposts books for young ladies and young men, I have decided to try it co-ed style for now.  Here is a little more about our week with the topic of Prayer. If you missed the first 2 days on Prayer, you can find them here.

Day 3:  Read through a few more of the listed Scriptures. I printed out a picture and a short biography of a missionary.  We talked about what their needs were as well as things that weren't mentioned for which we could pray.    We, once again, worked on memorizing the Lord's Prayer several times.  Also, we created a weekly prayer rotation.  For example, praying for our government leaders on Monday, our church and its leaders on Tuesday, etc...  I think this keeps the focus on praying and loving and serving others and helps with Me Syndrome. 

Day 4: We read through a few more of the suggested Scriptures (each topic has a very generous list of Scriptures for study, copying and memorizing).  In our time, I have had one person (of reading ability) look up a Scripture and read it aloud and that verse(s) will serve as that child's copywork.

Worked further on memorizing the Lord's Prayer.   Discussion topic today is Why pray??

We prayed using the two lists we have previously created during this study.

Day 5:  Again, each child finding and reading aloud  a Scripture from the list.  Also, working on memory work for this week.  Today, we discussed praying for our future: future spouses, children, jobs, endeavors of all kinds, ministry, just our life path in general.  I had the children write a prayer for their future, targeting some of those specific areas and encouraged them to keep it handy to remind them that there is no such thing as too early to start praying about the days ahead.

This is the conclusion of our week with the topic of prayer from the Doorposts products.  We have not, by any means, completed all of the activites available.  They are intended to be presented as a "buffet" (I think that's how Mrs. Forster describes it).  We are to choose the items that most suit  us and use them.  These are the activities we have chosen but you will find many, many more in the handbooks themselves at http://www.doorposts.com/ .   This is in no way a paid review or anything even close to it.  It's just my ideas on how to best use these tools for our family and I am just sharing it as I would if you were sitting in my home.  I love the tools offered by the Doorposts company and they have been a huge blessing in our home !!!

Update:  This was a neat, tidy post with great ideas for the perfect week.  We did not accomplish everything perfectly....those were MY plans...the Lord had other plans, but they all work out for the Good, right??

Doorposts Plants/Cornerstones Co-Ed Version

I do just love all of the Doorposts materials that I own.  For a while now, I have wondered how I will go about doing all these activities with the girls and all of the other activities with the boys.  And so,  I have put it off.  I felt a little discouraged and totally avoided these resources on my bookshelf.  Oh, I would take them off occasionally with renewed inspiration that I could do it.  It wasn't until recently that I pulled them off the shelf with a  sparkle in my eye.  I had was gonna put a twist on it..and get 'er done!  Thus, we have  (drum roll) Doorposts Co-ed edition!!  There are a few things that will be gender specific, but many things are studies that are appropriate for both ladies and gentlemen .  My idea is to take the items aimed specifically at the girls and use those ideas during our weekly 'girl date' and make suggestions to my wonderful husband on those specific things for the guys to chatter about while they do...whatever they do.

This week, we've been working on prayer.  I have noticed that many of the activities that are in both books are similar, if not the same.  There are definitely a few differences, but nothing that can't be tweaked.
So, here's what I did for:
Day 1:
(this all takes place around our table at some randomly chose, inspirational time of day)
Looked up several Scriptures and discussed prayer.  Talked about prayer as a means of building a relationship.  Deep discussions here.   And, we took to the model prayer to learn what the Bible says about it.  During this portion, children are coloring a page from here.  We practice learning the Lord's Prayer several times.  We create a prayer chart to keep track of requests and their dates as well as answers and their dates. It's not fancy..really.  When we went through a few of the things that were important to them to pray about, we posted it on the fridge.  It is easily visible so that we will not forget it.  The older children copied the Scripture that they looked up and read aloud earlier.  We prayed..for our family, the requests on the chart, and whatever came to mind at the moment.

Day 2:
(this takes place in our living room on the sofa..nothing formal...children are not necessarily sitting up straight)
We read a few more of the Scriptures listed to find out new things that the Bible says about prayer, along with their discussions about what that means. More discussion on prayer being the backbone of building a relationship with God.  It's all very spontaneous...no lesson plans. Just going with whatever comes up and the revelation that comes at the moment through the Word and the Holy Spirit.  We read through a prayer from a book of prayers.  I used The Power of a Praying Parent to pray a prayer of protection over my children.  They were enthusiastic to hear specific things, word-for-word from the Scripture for them. During the course of this time, we reveiwed the Lord's Prayer 2 or 3 times, as that is what we are working on memorizing for our Scripture memory this week.  We did not get around to the copywork , but each child should copy the Scripture that they were assigned to look up and read aloud at the beginning.  I'm ok with not getting every single box checked off..what I'm really aiming for is understanding.  And lastly, one child prayed for the things on our list we made on day1 as well as for further prayer requests mentioned.