Teaching Doctrine
by adustyframe ~ January 12th, 2009I homeschool my son for many reasons. Primarily it is due to our desire to fill his daily life with God’s word.
Many days, I’ve struggled with how much time Bible lessons take! I feel like I’m spending so much time on this and we’re not getting to the other stuff!
I stopped myself short with that thought one day. Good grief woman! A school day that spends “too much time” on God’s Word surely does not exist does it?
When I feel that struggle, i ask God to remind me the reason I do this in the first place. I want Bible lessons to be full of joy and wonder and learning. I don’t want it to be a boring duty.
Each day, we pray before we start school.
Then we review any verses James is memorizing for Awana. I don’t add any other Bible memory to our curriculum. I wish sometimes that we could do more, but Awana is something James really loves and it’s a sound structured Bible memory program so I’m leaving it as is for now.
Bible time includes any missionary learning, or writing letters to our Compassion child in Uganda. We only do this once a month or so.
We work on our hymn of the month. I change them around if I don’t want to learn the hymn they’ve chose. I want James to learn hymns we may sing in church. This month I chose In the Sweet By and By instead of Come Ye Disconsolate. Sweet By and By was a selection for last July year that we didn’t get to learn.
We read a passage from the Bible, unless the book we’re reading has Bible reading plans. Here is the list I follow. I just check off what we’ve read and when the book we’re studying doesn’t have a Bible passage, I pick up where we left of. (The link to the New Testament is at the very bottom of this page.)
Here are some of the books we’ve read during Bible time. This is not an exhaustive list, I probably forgot some of the things we used. Also, as I mentioned before, if we don’t read a book then we go through a list of Bible passages and just read straight from the Bible.
Kindergarten
A Faith to Grow On by John MacArthur
I really liked this book. It took us quite a few weeks to read through it. I appreciated how he explained big doctrines with words and illustrations that children can understand. I think that we will read this again in the future to give James an opportunity to absorb the things that were too “big” last time.
1st Grade
What Would Jesus Do by Helen Haidle
Written as a chapter book, this story reminded both of us to do the right thing no matter what. James and I had some good discussions while reading it. I wouldn’t call this deep, but it was a good conversation starter.
Second Grade
The Power of A Praying Kid by Stormie Omartian
I’ve enjoyed Stormie’s other books and found this to be a good tool to teach James about prayer. She talked about waiting for an answer to prayer. It was good for us and I think it helped James to open up to me about some frustrations he deals with as he prays for his daddy to come home.
She discussed that some prayers take years to be answered and we decided we know all about that!
We finished this book shortly before Christmas. Then I received a big box of wonderful books and found this gem inside.
Training Hearts Teaching Minds by Starr Meade
I have heard about teaching children a catechism on a conservative radio show I listen to. I was intrigued but never looked into it. This book goes through the questions and answers and has a short daily reading to discuss the question.
We just started this last week and have learned,
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Each day there is a Bible passage and a paragraph to discuss ways to glorify God and what that means. I’m really enjoying it and I like how simple each reading is.
What have you enjoyed for your family devotions or Bible teaching?
January 12th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I’m gonna have to look at the book you used in Kindergarten. While I don’t expect to homeschool my two little ones past preschool, they are so VERY SMART, and my 3 year old likes to have books read to him that are much above his level. Great find! Thanks for the tip!
Glad I could help! I’m not sure that A Faith to Grow On is necessarily K level. It’s just what we used at that point. I think that it will be good when we go through it next year too.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
My church started using a catechism-based children’s program on Wednesday nights. They felt Awana was going to far away from where they started. I learned catechism when mom homeschooled us in Japan. I didn’t think it was unusual at the time, but I still remember some of it. “Who is God? God is God.” Some of the things you learn as a child, never leave, even after almost 30 years. Wow! I’m getting old!! Keep up the good work!
Thanks:)! I’m glad to hear you remember what you learned so LOOOONG! ago;)!
January 12th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
My Daddy gave us all a plan to read through the Bible in a year. It’s about four chapters a day. Two of them are intended to be read in private while the other two you read as a family. I wasn’t sure how my children were going to take to it since their ages are 5, 3, and 18 months but just this very morning out of no where my little girl, 5, said she really liked reading the Bible with me. And tonight while we were brushing out teeth before bed she said “and don’t forget our chapters”. What a blessing!
Awww that’s so sweet! Don’t you just love when they enjoy the Bible?!
January 13th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Have u read Chronicles of Narnia with James? It’s a great series for both of you, and tons of meaning in them. I love how CS Lewis put the love of Christ and salvation for us in simple terms.
January 13th, 2009 at 6:49 am
thank you for reminding me to pray before homeschooling, the kids always prayed before starting the day at school (canadian french catholic public school)
we’ll do that today…
January 13th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Children’s Bible Hour has a series of book titled “One Year Book of Devotions…” (one for boys, one for girls, one general) that I really liked. Their radio program comes on here locally so I was familiar with them. I’m not KJO, but though I sometimes use the NKJV or New American Standard, the particular Bible version they use is kind of way out there, IMO, so we read from my son’s Bible in place of what they had listed.
You can see their books here.
January 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
“What Would Jesus Do” was the first “chapter” book I read aloud to my son. At that time the English was SO CHALLENGING for him! My daughter looked forward to being “old enough” to read it and loved every word when her turn came! We have read the “Child’s Story Bible” by Vos and “Little Pilgrim’s Progress” by Helen Taylor. Our all time Bible favorite though is “The Rhyme Bible Story Book.” Even at 14 my son still LOVES reading this to himself at bedtime. We have different “styles” of reading each–rap is popular for several. “This time Jonah WENT!” I have “Faithful Boy’s Influence” but my son hated it!!