in a journey through our day.
What do you do after you finish learning time?
Usually, we have some fruit and a drink for morning tea and read the chapter of proverbs that corrosponds to the date.
Why?
I find a bit of fruit and something to drink mid morning goes a long way to keeping little ones hydrated and less cranky!
Proverbs is a "how to" book for living life and has a handy 31 chapters that matches up with the dates quite nicely.
You'd be amazed the conversation that starts when reading proverbs with little ones.
You'd be amazed how much MUMMY learns about life from reading proverbs!
I want to establish and maintain a habit of opening the Bible every day for myself and for each member of the family.
Reading the Bible together means we come accross all sorts of words and concepts that need discussing and learning. We don't try and learn EVERYTHING each chapter has to offer every day, we just take a great big mouthful and chew on the Word together. If that isn't learning, I don't know what is!
How?!
We grab some fruit from the kitchen and the older ones set the table while I make up a jug of drink. We eat, drink and read - discuss sometimes - then pack up. All up, the most time this usually takes is 20 minutes.
Sometimes a particular proverb will be especially applicable ("an honest answer is like a kiss on the lips" was a catch phrase in our house for a while!) so we may discuss it, other times we will just read through with me explaining words or phrases they may not understand.
What about you? How do you feel about reading scripture as a family? Why do you feel that way? What, time of day do you read scripture as a family?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bible. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The second step...
in a journey through our day.
What do you do after you finish singing?
We pray.
Why?
Prayer connects us with God and establishes a two way conversation through the day.
We are establishing a pattern of prayer in our children's lives for them to continue into adulthood. While it is their choice to continue the pattern or not, it is easier to continue the pattern than to have to establish one from scratch.
It reminds me to check in with Him if I haven't already done so in the morning. It especially reminds me to pray FOR my children.
I can model prayer for the children, showing them that I need to take my self to the foot of the cross, ask for forgiveness and strength and direction.
Listening to my children pray gives me insight into where they are at emotionally and spiritually and helps me tap into their inner workings.
Spending time being quiet each day, even if only a few minutes, can help teach children self-calming techniques. A habit of daily quiet time has been linked to numerous health benefits.
Explicit teaching of an attitude of reverence and worship on a daily basis makes going to Church and other places where this attitude is required (i.e.weddings) a whole lot more fun for all of us! It also helps teach a respect for those around them.
Having this time when I expect them to follow direct instruction (i.e. kneel down, bow heads, close eyes etc.) tends to set a bit of a pattern of obedience for the day. A pattern that MAY be interrupted later in the day of course, but a pattern none the less!
How?!
We already prepared ourselves at the end of our singing time by singing "I have knees that bend by my chair..." and "Into My Heart". I will often, but not always, take time between these two songs to review my expectations during prayer times. This is done in a fun, light hearted manner. For example, I will play a game show host and ask them in my special "game show host" voice what we need to do with our hands, eyes, feet etc. during prayer time. Or I may ask one of the older ones to demonstrate to Anna or Christopher what they need to do during prayer times. They love to show off their knowledge and establishing CLEARLY that they know what they should do and I know that THEY know that I know what they should be doing means that stepping outside of these guidelines can be dealt with as defiance in the manner that our family deals with defiance. We don't make a big deal with this, and most of the time it is quite fun. I take the stance that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
*note*: we do pray at other times when not using our "prayer stance" and we talk often about how God can hear us any time, anywhere. We do talk about how when we pray together, it is good manners NOT to distract other people and how keeping an attitude of prayer can help us to concentrate.
When we have finished singing, the children will pray one at a time. Their prayers vary from "Dear Jesus, thank you for the whole world. Amen" to long and complex prayers that can go on for a while! Christopher usually repeats his prayers after me but is getting to the stage where he adds his own bits too. I finish our prayer session by praying for each of us and Daddy and anything else that has been on my heart (being mindful of little knees!) and then we say the Lord's Prayer together.
Next year I would like to start using some resources I collected from Preschool Sunday School Central
What about you? How you work prayer into your children's day? Why do you do things that way? What, if any, resources do you use to teach your children about prayer?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
What do you do after you finish singing?
We pray.
Why?
Prayer connects us with God and establishes a two way conversation through the day.
We are establishing a pattern of prayer in our children's lives for them to continue into adulthood. While it is their choice to continue the pattern or not, it is easier to continue the pattern than to have to establish one from scratch.
It reminds me to check in with Him if I haven't already done so in the morning. It especially reminds me to pray FOR my children.
I can model prayer for the children, showing them that I need to take my self to the foot of the cross, ask for forgiveness and strength and direction.
Listening to my children pray gives me insight into where they are at emotionally and spiritually and helps me tap into their inner workings.
Spending time being quiet each day, even if only a few minutes, can help teach children self-calming techniques. A habit of daily quiet time has been linked to numerous health benefits.
Explicit teaching of an attitude of reverence and worship on a daily basis makes going to Church and other places where this attitude is required (i.e.weddings) a whole lot more fun for all of us! It also helps teach a respect for those around them.
Having this time when I expect them to follow direct instruction (i.e. kneel down, bow heads, close eyes etc.) tends to set a bit of a pattern of obedience for the day. A pattern that MAY be interrupted later in the day of course, but a pattern none the less!
How?!
We already prepared ourselves at the end of our singing time by singing "I have knees that bend by my chair..." and "Into My Heart". I will often, but not always, take time between these two songs to review my expectations during prayer times. This is done in a fun, light hearted manner. For example, I will play a game show host and ask them in my special "game show host" voice what we need to do with our hands, eyes, feet etc. during prayer time. Or I may ask one of the older ones to demonstrate to Anna or Christopher what they need to do during prayer times. They love to show off their knowledge and establishing CLEARLY that they know what they should do and I know that THEY know that I know what they should be doing means that stepping outside of these guidelines can be dealt with as defiance in the manner that our family deals with defiance. We don't make a big deal with this, and most of the time it is quite fun. I take the stance that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
*note*: we do pray at other times when not using our "prayer stance" and we talk often about how God can hear us any time, anywhere. We do talk about how when we pray together, it is good manners NOT to distract other people and how keeping an attitude of prayer can help us to concentrate.
When we have finished singing, the children will pray one at a time. Their prayers vary from "Dear Jesus, thank you for the whole world. Amen" to long and complex prayers that can go on for a while! Christopher usually repeats his prayers after me but is getting to the stage where he adds his own bits too. I finish our prayer session by praying for each of us and Daddy and anything else that has been on my heart (being mindful of little knees!) and then we say the Lord's Prayer together.
Next year I would like to start using some resources I collected from Preschool Sunday School Central
What about you? How you work prayer into your children's day? Why do you do things that way? What, if any, resources do you use to teach your children about prayer?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A walk through our day
I want to walk you through our day What! Why? How? style!
What do you do to start each day?
We sing! We start each day with family worship and the first part of that is always singing.
Why?
Lots of reasons!
First and foremost we do this to worship God and get our hearts and heads right with Him.
To write Eternal Truths on their hearts. While we sing various praise songs, scripture songs and hymns they are learning about God and how we relate to Him. God thinks songs are so important, He dedicated at least one book to them in the Bible!
We also sing together because it is hard to stay mad with someone you are singing with (scientific fact I'm sure!). Whatever scuffles have occurred as we started our day can be let go as we hit the "reset" button. If there have been no scuffles to smooth over, it still draws us closer together.
Lung capacity, blood oxygenation and heart rate are all improved by SINGING. This aids in improving concentration levels and productivity. True story!
Singing is wonderful speech therapy. While we haven't had any issues with speech difficulties (unless you count teaching how to keep quiet!) in this house, singing does serve to improve the kid's grasp of the physical actions of speech. They are exercising their speech muscles and controlling their breathing, clearly forming words and having a go at sounds that they may usually avoid in their normal speech.
Singing uses both the Left and Right brain, exercising it completely and creating neural pathways that will be used for language, math and all those other "academic" ventures. The link between math and music has been clearly made by scientists and it is pretty obvious when you think of all the patterns etc. we find in music.
How?!
We take it in turns to choose one song each, starting with the oldest child - youngest child then finishing with Mum. My choice is usually our Hymn of the Week. I randomly select a hymn that I know that I'd like to teach the kids (some weeks are more random than others, sometimes there is a hymn that fits in beautifully with another aspect of our life or schooling, other times it is just luck of the draw).
We always finish with two songs to prepare us for prayer.
The first is "I Have Hands" which ends with:
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have hands that fold in prayer,
when I talk to Jesus
Then in our "prayer stance" we sing Into My Heart
If I were to give ten tips for family worship with preschoolers and toddlers they would be:
1. Use the KISSS principle – Keep it Short and Simple, Sweetheart! One song and a prayer done well has far more impact than a twenty minute session which leaves everyone in tears – including Mum!
2. Keep things predictable. Have worship at a fairly predictable time. After breakfast works for us, everyone is awake and fed and linking it to a feed time means we don’t forget. We don’t forget to eat very often in this house! Also if little ones know what to expect, they will be more likely to cooperate.
3. Have REALISTIC expectations. You are not going to have the Von Trapp family singing harmony in your lounge room. Expect there to be disasterous days. Expect to be singing solo for the first year or two of worship (I did!). Expect to have to teach your children how to behave during worship. Then you are less likely to be disappointed!
4. Realise that teaching and training your children is in and of itself an act of worship. It is hard to feel worshipful when you have to stop “Jesus Loves Me” ten times to administer correction, but correcting and teaching your children IS an act of worship.
5. Stick with it. If you are having worship as a part of the rhythm of your home, it is because it is important to you. Focus on the long term, the ETERNAL, benefits of family worship. It makes it easier to start family worship yet again when it resulted in tears the previous five times.
6. Personalise it to suit your family. At the moment, we have one song each, our pre-prayers songs, family prayer and The Lord’s Prayer. Totally different to what we did last year and I dare say it will change again next year. Do what works, and if it doesn’t work, change it.
7. Have clear expectations. Before worship starts, tell the kids what you want them to do with their hands, feet, eyes, mouth etc. during singing time. Eventually, get THEM to tell YOU and their other siblings what the expectations are (firstborns especially love this in my experience!) then when those things are NOT done, it is clear defiance and it can be dealt with in the way your family deals with defiance. There will be no space for argument or compromise and kids respond to clear boundaries.
8. Include them in choosing songs. This gives a feeling of ownership. At the moment I could quite cheerfully NEVER sing “The Wise Man Built His House Upon A Rock” OR “Whose the King of the Jungle” but we sing them every day because the boys love them.
9. Don’t expect to see fruit straight away. My kids still go mute during worship, then the other week while he was wandering around the back yard Farm Boy belts out “How Great Thou Art” at the top of his lungs. It gets written on their hearts, even if you can’t see it.
10. Make A Joyful Noise! Find a reason to laugh during worship. “I have fingers that tickle, tickle, tickle” is a verse of our pre-prayer song and it always makes us laugh. You can take a moment to tell the kids one reason you are thankful for them, one thing that makes them special. Whatever it is, make worship a pleasure, not a chore!
What about you? How you start your schooling day? Why do you do things that way? What, specifically, do you do?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
What do you do to start each day?
We sing! We start each day with family worship and the first part of that is always singing.
Why?
Lots of reasons!
First and foremost we do this to worship God and get our hearts and heads right with Him.
To write Eternal Truths on their hearts. While we sing various praise songs, scripture songs and hymns they are learning about God and how we relate to Him. God thinks songs are so important, He dedicated at least one book to them in the Bible!
We also sing together because it is hard to stay mad with someone you are singing with (scientific fact I'm sure!). Whatever scuffles have occurred as we started our day can be let go as we hit the "reset" button. If there have been no scuffles to smooth over, it still draws us closer together.
Lung capacity, blood oxygenation and heart rate are all improved by SINGING. This aids in improving concentration levels and productivity. True story!
Singing is wonderful speech therapy. While we haven't had any issues with speech difficulties (unless you count teaching how to keep quiet!) in this house, singing does serve to improve the kid's grasp of the physical actions of speech. They are exercising their speech muscles and controlling their breathing, clearly forming words and having a go at sounds that they may usually avoid in their normal speech.
Singing uses both the Left and Right brain, exercising it completely and creating neural pathways that will be used for language, math and all those other "academic" ventures. The link between math and music has been clearly made by scientists and it is pretty obvious when you think of all the patterns etc. we find in music.
How?!
We take it in turns to choose one song each, starting with the oldest child - youngest child then finishing with Mum. My choice is usually our Hymn of the Week. I randomly select a hymn that I know that I'd like to teach the kids (some weeks are more random than others, sometimes there is a hymn that fits in beautifully with another aspect of our life or schooling, other times it is just luck of the draw).
We always finish with two songs to prepare us for prayer.
The first is "I Have Hands" which ends with:
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have knees that bend by my chair,
I have hands that fold in prayer,
when I talk to Jesus
Then in our "prayer stance" we sing Into My Heart
If I were to give ten tips for family worship with preschoolers and toddlers they would be:
1. Use the KISSS principle – Keep it Short and Simple, Sweetheart! One song and a prayer done well has far more impact than a twenty minute session which leaves everyone in tears – including Mum!
2. Keep things predictable. Have worship at a fairly predictable time. After breakfast works for us, everyone is awake and fed and linking it to a feed time means we don’t forget. We don’t forget to eat very often in this house! Also if little ones know what to expect, they will be more likely to cooperate.
3. Have REALISTIC expectations. You are not going to have the Von Trapp family singing harmony in your lounge room. Expect there to be disasterous days. Expect to be singing solo for the first year or two of worship (I did!). Expect to have to teach your children how to behave during worship. Then you are less likely to be disappointed!
4. Realise that teaching and training your children is in and of itself an act of worship. It is hard to feel worshipful when you have to stop “Jesus Loves Me” ten times to administer correction, but correcting and teaching your children IS an act of worship.
5. Stick with it. If you are having worship as a part of the rhythm of your home, it is because it is important to you. Focus on the long term, the ETERNAL, benefits of family worship. It makes it easier to start family worship yet again when it resulted in tears the previous five times.
6. Personalise it to suit your family. At the moment, we have one song each, our pre-prayers songs, family prayer and The Lord’s Prayer. Totally different to what we did last year and I dare say it will change again next year. Do what works, and if it doesn’t work, change it.
7. Have clear expectations. Before worship starts, tell the kids what you want them to do with their hands, feet, eyes, mouth etc. during singing time. Eventually, get THEM to tell YOU and their other siblings what the expectations are (firstborns especially love this in my experience!) then when those things are NOT done, it is clear defiance and it can be dealt with in the way your family deals with defiance. There will be no space for argument or compromise and kids respond to clear boundaries.
8. Include them in choosing songs. This gives a feeling of ownership. At the moment I could quite cheerfully NEVER sing “The Wise Man Built His House Upon A Rock” OR “Whose the King of the Jungle” but we sing them every day because the boys love them.
9. Don’t expect to see fruit straight away. My kids still go mute during worship, then the other week while he was wandering around the back yard Farm Boy belts out “How Great Thou Art” at the top of his lungs. It gets written on their hearts, even if you can’t see it.
10. Make A Joyful Noise! Find a reason to laugh during worship. “I have fingers that tickle, tickle, tickle” is a verse of our pre-prayer song and it always makes us laugh. You can take a moment to tell the kids one reason you are thankful for them, one thing that makes them special. Whatever it is, make worship a pleasure, not a chore!
What about you? How you start your schooling day? Why do you do things that way? What, specifically, do you do?
Leave a comment or blog about it and link back in the comments!
Come back next week for the next step in our walk through our day.
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