CHRISTEPHI

He's still working on me To make me what I need to be It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars How loving and patient He must be 'Cause He's still workin' on me This is a song I heard often growing up. I don't remember if my mom had it on a record or cassette or if she just sang it to us, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. ( Listen here ). As my kids grow and develop, they hit stages where they really want to try out their newly discovered faculties. Sometimes this results in some pretty uncomfortable moments where they're each pushing at and picking on the other -- one to try out a newfound knowledge, the other rejecting input and desiring space to be their own person, etc.  It seems to be really hard for them to see each other as a work in progress rather than as an already complete -- and faulty -- individual. In pondering our goals and focus for the new year, God laid it on my heart ...

This time of year many people begin to celebrate the Advent of the Christ.  My kids love the activities, the calendar, the Christmas books, and the pageantry of it all. But yesterday I asked them why we celebrate Advent. Why is Christmas different from any other famous person's birthday? And what  was  the message the angels gave to the shepherds anyway? Our celebration of Advent is the simulation of the waiting, the longing for, the intense anticipation of the coming of the Messiah.  Christmas is more than just "Happy Birthday, Jesus." It's the fulfillment of that long-ago promise by God to send the Seed, a Savior to the world.  The angels didn't say, "Dudes, check out the cute tyke that was born tonight!"  No, they announced: Unto you is born this day a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord ! Babies are born every day of the year, but this was a special birth. This was the birth of the long-awaited Seed promised to Adam, the Messiah who cam...

Okay, let's cut to the chase on this one. This book is AWESOME! I love it. You will too. So go buy it! The end. What? You think I should tell you why it's so awesome? Okay, fine. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. It's based on Scripture. It has the most gorgeous illustrations. I'm a total sucker for books with excellent artwork. It is meant to be shared by parent and child. Cuddle time! It helps little kids learn their ABCs. Each page has a picture of God's creation that begins with the letter featured on that page. The name of the plant or animal pictured does not appear anywhere on the page, leaving room for the reader's intelligence. I've been known to hug books that treat their readers as intelligent beings. The creature from the previous page can be seen in the background of the next page. I adore details like that! It helps kids identify both the capital and lowercase forms of each l...

" The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever " (Isaiah 40:8, NLT). We are assured that the words God has spoken and caused to be bound together in the volume we call the Bible will never cease to exist. That is not true, however, of a single printed volume of Scripture. Paper-and-ink Bibles can undergo some pretty serious abuse in their service to us. In college, I carried my Bible everywhere I went. At first I had the thick teen devotional Bible I had used all through junior high and high school, but I soon set it aside in favor of a much slimmer volume that didn't take up as much space or weigh as much. I hadn't owned it very long when disaster struck. The reusable water bottle I also carried everywhere I went had the lid screwed on crookedly and when I tossed it in my backpack with everything else, it slowly leaked until the entire contents of my bag were soaked through! I was so upset that my nice new Bible was al...

While it wasn't a bad week in our homeschool, it was a slightly disorganized and disjointed week.  We got everything done and had pretty good attitudes, but it just didn't feel like things ran smoothly.  Here are a few snippets of our week. Monday was a dreary, gloomy day.  In order to get some good light for reading, Miss M dragged her bean bag chair and giant teddy bear to the back door.  She sat there cozily reading a second Happy Hollisters book! Miss M's favorite way to learn a new memory verse is to write it on the white board and then erase a word at a time, reading it between each erasure and filling in the missing word. She gets so tickled when she gets towards the end and there are only a few words left. "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock" (Matthew 7:24). We learned about what it means that Jesus is our Rock and how we can build our lives on ...

I mentioned in this post that we will be using the Scripture Memory System from Simply Charlotte Mason. I am not, however, using their suggested list for first grade.  I’m sure their list is great, but I already had a few ideas about what I want Miss M to learn this year, so I came up with my own list.  I formatted them the size of 3x5 index cards and printed them on cardstock.   And now that I’ve done the work, you don’t have to! At least not if you use the same verses we are. Scripture Memory Verse Cards – pdf 52 verses New American Standard, unless otherwise indicated grouped in a somewhat logical manner numbered to indicate the order they are to be memorized in (in case the baby dumps the whole box, right?) If you find any mistakes or have any suggestions – like the “page” numbers; I didn’t think of that till after I had printed and cut mine apart! – let me know! The rest of our Bible curriculum this year will be reading through the Student Disc...

I have very fond memories of the cursive letter banner that was posted around the top of the walls in my fifth grade classroom.  I thought it would be fun to make something similar for our homeschool classroom (a.k.a. our kitchen). I decided to include a Bible verse for each letter.  At this point it's mostly for my own benefit since Miss M doesn't read yet.  They serve as great reminders to help her memorize these important bits of Scripture while her little mind is still a sponge.  (It saddens me that my memorization skills are not what they were when I was a kid!)   The fun part is I saved my work in a pdf file for you to use too! Just click the image above to download the file.  I laminated mine before sticking them around my kitchen walls with ticky tacky.  (The laminator is a new toy!)  Enjoy!