What to do with the Little Ones - Family Devotions

I plan to do a series of short blogposts on what to do with young children. These will serve both to help out others just getting started at homeschooling, but also help to remind ourselves to do these things with out little ones, even as our older girls get busier as they enter the high school years.

The first subject is Family Devotions.

In a Christian home, it should go without saying that reading the Bible to our children is the most important part of our homeschooling. However, sometimes with our younger children we are not quite sure where to start. Some passages seem too difficult for our children to understand. While I would like to encourage you to just "read the Bible" with children of all ages, there are some Bible reading plans we have found helpful with our young children.

Penny Gardner has put together a very helpful list of Bible "episodes" designed to give the children a good overview of the stories of the Bible. You can find it here.

Rod & Staff put out a lovely Bible story book which also has a companion
colouring book. We have used these at home, and in church Sunday school classes. These books are available in New Zealand from Geneva Books, and are very affordable.

Another important aspect of our family devotions has been learning a Catechism. We believe it is important to teach our children the truths of God's Word from an early age, which is when memorisation is so easy for them! Children as young as 2 years old can start learning the answers to the First Catechism, which is available as a little booklet, and is also free on the internet here. Our Sunday school has recently started using a curriculum called Show Me Jesus which is designed around the First Catechism. This includes short lessons with colouring pages, and review of the catechism questions each week.

 

Yet another great little book for teaching about the truths of God's Word through stories is Big Truths for Little Kids by Susan Hunt and Richie Hunt. This book tells about a Christian family who seek to witness to a neighbouring family, while learning biblical truths along the way. The book also utilizes questions from the Westminster Catechism.

Reading the great stories of the Bible and teaching your children catechism when they are young will give them a great start to later understanding of the truths of God's Word, enabling them to apply them to their lives.

Homeschool Meme

My new blogging friend, Chelle, at Last in Line, has tagged me for a homeschool meme. By the way, please have a browse through Chelle's blog. Chelle is a kiwi homeschooler using many of the same resources I am using with my children. I was thrilled to find her on the internet!

Here are the meme questions:

1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyed:
The first "homeschooling" book I ever came across was Karen Andreola's book: "A Charlotte Mason Companion". This is a great indroduction to Charlotte Mason's methods and how you came implement them in your home.

2. One resource you wouldn't be without:
I think right now I would have to say the brilliant writing course by Andrew Pudewa: Student Writing IntensiveThis course takes all the mystery out of writing for our family.

3. One resource you wish you had never bought:

Hmmm, I am having trouble with this one. I am usually very careful about what I buy. We did try out Mystery of History, but after having already used Story of the World, we just went back to that.

4. One resource you enjoyed last year:

We enjoyed using Discovering Great Artists as a springboard for out art lessons.

5. One resource you will be using next year:

Well, it's not next year yet, but my oldest girls have just started working through Dr Jay Wile's Exploring Creation with General Science. So far they are enjoying it.

6. One resource you would like to buy:

I would LOVE to buy an e-book reader, for all those out-of-print or hard-to-find or just-too-expensive classic books that we have yet to read.

7. One resource you wish existed:

Some sort of reference for New Zealand poetry and literature suitable for children.

8. One homeschool catalogue you enjoy reading:

I have been browsing through the Institute for Exellence in Writing's catalogue, and would love to be able to buy some of their history-based writing lessons and poetry lessons.

9. One homeschool website you use regularly

Ambleside Online. This is a great resource based on the methods of Charlotte Mason and includes booklists for every grade in every subject area.

10. Tag six other homeschoolers:

1. Melissa, from Bugs, Knights and Turkeys in the Yard

2. Nancy, from Sage Parnassus

3. Narelle, from House of Bogwitz

4. Laura Lou, from Wasted Textbooks

5. Mel, from Sweet Blue Sky Days and

6. Jeanne, from A Peaceful Day (Jeanne's lucky - she's already done the meme, so I've linked you directly to her blogpost :-)

If I haven't tagged you, feel free to join in anyway, it's always great to read about what other homeschoolers are using and love.

Vive Les Roses!

We have just finished learning about the French Revolution in Story of the World 3: Early Modern Times by Susan Wise Bauer.
One of the extra reading suggestions was "The Man who Painted Flowers" by Carolyn Croll.


It looks like a lovely picture book which I would love to purchase at some stage. Carolyn Croll has several of her lovely illustrations on her blog, which is well worth a look at.

I did however come across a very similar sounding book on
trademe. It is called "The Man who Painted Roses, the Story
of Pierre-Joseph Redoute". So I snapped up this book for just $2, thinking it was bound to have some of Redoute's paintings reproduced in it. I was a little disappointed when I received it as there were no pictures, other than on the front cover. What I did discover however, was a wonderful story of Redoute's life.


Redoute was born about 30 years before the French Revolution, into a family of painters in Belgium. His father longed for he and his brothers to grow up to be famous landscape or portrait painters. They were encouraged to leave the family home at the age of 13, and travel the country learning from master painters, earning their bed and board by assisting the master painters and by painting the odd potrait or religious painting for the local people.


Redoute learned much from this experience, but he never really wanted to paint portraits, he love flowers! He was constantly distracted by their beauty and began to sketch every flower he could along the way.

Eventually Redoute married and settled in Paris. Pierre-Joseph and his wife, Marie-Marthe, had two daughters, Josephine and Adelaide. Through the help of his older brother, Antoine-Ferdinand, and the contacts of various well-known French botanists, Redoute went on to be the official painter for Queen Marie-Antoinette, the Empress Josephine (first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte), the Empress Marie-Louise (second wife of Napoleon) and Queen Marie Amelie. If you can keep up with all the Maries, Louises and Josephines in the story, you are doing well!

Redoute published many botanical books on roses, lilies and many other flowers of the world. He lived a full life and died at the age of 81.

I learned more French history in this book than I have ever known!

Snow!

The snow in our backyard on Monday night.

The snow was a bit deeper to play at a friend's place, closer to the hills!


We have been enjoying snow in our neck of the woods this week! Apparently it has been 35 years, some say even up to 80 years since snow has fallen in our town! We didn't get a lot at our house, but we took a drive around the local area and found some deep snow to play in.

On the Dunes

... where we spent our weekend.

Guest Post at Educating Mother

I have a guest post up at Educating Mother today, where I have shared about a few of our sewing and quilting activities.

A White Kiwi!

Check out this beautiful little WHITE kiwi chick. It hatched just this month at Pukaha Mt. Bruce. It is officially a brown kiwi!