Kids of Courage

One of our main family goals this year has been learning to love and pray for God's people all over the world! A valuable resource has been the Kids of Courage website and magazines.

We have used the China, India, and Israel (Gaza and West Bank) activity books during our studies and they have been informative, age appropriate and memorable!

Each downloadable activity book/guide is a little different in its set up, but they share basic similarities. They have a brief history of the country, discussions about religion, stories of persecuted families and children, information about language, and activities to make your study of the country a memorable one.

The stories aren't "easy" to hear, but they are told in an age appropriate manner. The activities are fun and created to help you remember to pray for the persecuted church in that country.

I highly recommend these activity guides! We have made use of them to varying degrees whenever we can. My girls still talk about some of the stories we heard and remind me to pray for the people in these countries.

The books have clearly been an effective tool in achieving our family's goal.

Happy Birthday Jesus

Our homeschool bible class had a Happy Birthday Jesus party. We had a great time!

The organizers were faced with a dilemma as they discussed what to do. Most of these kids know the nativity story inside and out. In fact, many can recite it directly from scripture. The organizers really wanted to put a different twist on the party for the kids. They focused on what the kids can give Jesus for Christmas...their hearts. They did a great job!

First, we made ornaments. I was thrilled because I treasure the ones my kids made in the past at preschool. It was so nice to have some homemade keepsake ornaments for this year. The outside of the ornament reads, "What does Jesus want for Christmas?" The "doors" on the front open up and a picture of the child is glued inside.

Then, the children gathered for the Christmas Story. They were each given a character to add to the Nativity scene as the story was being told.


Next, we played an unwrapping gift game. A mystery gift was wrapped in many many boxes, so when the music stopped, the child holding the gift got to unwrap a layer. Inside the final box was the answer to, "What does Jesus want for Christmas?" It was a mirror.


The teacher had planned a Christmas play. Scripts had been emailed and parts assigned. The students took a little while to rehearse while their siblings listened to a story in the other room. K and several other little girls were the heavenly hosts.


K and one other angel had speaking lines. She was so excited!


After singing, "Happy Birthday Jesus", we ate cupcakes which were decorated as presents.


My adorable son didn't want the icing on his hands. He refused to eat the cup cake without a fork! Silly little one.

That is his Poppy with him. I am so thankful that family lives close by and is willing to support our homeschooling activities!

It was wonderful spending time with other kids focusing on the true meaning of the season!

Bible Study

Tuesday has become a favorite day for all of us! It is bible study day and we love it.

This bible study has been a HUGE blessing for our homeschooling year. I knew it was going to be great, but I truly didn't realize how wonderful it would be.

For a long time I had looked into women's bible study's during the day, but the timing didn't work out, or they didn't have childcare for children under 2. I had been particularly interested in BSF (bible study fellowship) for the amazing children's program I heard about, but the childcare didn't include children under 2.

It's been a long time since I haven't had a child under 2.

I knew this year was going to be impossible (so I thought) to find a bible study because I had to have childcare for a little boy under 2 as well as a big girl who "should be in school all day". At least most studies assume that and don't have anything for homeschooled children.

Thankfully I live in a AMAZINGLY active homeschool area! And this year a very large community church up the road added a bible study for homeschool students that takes place during the Tuesday morning women's study!

That means mommy goes to study.

D (age 22 months) goes to childcare.

T (age 4) goes to childcare.

K (age 5) goes to bible class.

We all LOVE it! Every classroom has their lessons and memory work. On week one, we were given a schedule of bible stories for each classroom. Even little D colors a sheet and hears a little story each week.

T and K come out of their rooms bubbling over with excitement about their lessons.

I have been quite thrilled with the homeschool bible class. The kids are given 1/2 hour to do independent homework as everyone arrives. K is able to get phonics and handwriting done! Then they have a bible story, using the Veritas Bible Cards, Genesis through Joshua, which are exactly the resource we are using at CC!!!! (love it!) K also has craft time and game time at class. This allows her some time to play the "traditional school yard games" such as sharks and minnows and freeze tag.

Believe it or not, I worry that she'll "miss out" on games like that, so I am thrilled she is playing them! (oh the things we worry about...)

K is given homework each week, including memory work. Right now she is memorizing the books of the Old Testament for class. She also receives a few optional worksheets. And the teacher is fabulous about emailing the sections of the bible to review and read.

AND, I love my study! The group clicked well on week 1. The study is in-depth and goes beyond the "come back with all of these retorical questions answered" type of study.

We love Tuesday in this house and I pray that the church is able to continue this for a long time to come!

(if you live in my area, email me and I'll give you the exact church and information for next year!)

ABC Bible Verses

We have continued to work through the ABC bible verses by Susan Hunt.

We are keeping track of our verses on a poster that hangs in the kitchen. Each week we try to create a visual reminder of the verse to add on our poster. This way we have all of our previously learned verses easily accessible to us.

B - Blessed are the peacemakers

We created a happy face/sad face that is fastened to a piece of paper with a paper fastener. Because peace makers work to make others happy and the environment around them pleasant, we turned our frowns upside down.

C - Children obey your parents in all things.

We used the analogy Lisa Whelchel described in her book, "Creative Correction". She explained to her children that when they obeyed her, they remained under her umbrella of protection. But when they chose to disobey, they chose to step out from under the umbrella and there could be consequences that she couldn't prevent. This is similar to our obedience to God which keeps us under the umbrella of His protection.

The girls drew themselves under the umbrella with a smile and outside the umbrella with a frown.

D - Do everything without complaining or disputing.

I explained to the girls that complaining and disputing were signs of a heart that was unhappy and ungrateful. We need to pray for happy hearts that are thankful. We decided together that if anyone complained, they had to immediately say something they were thankful for. And honestly, it has been quite effective.

If they complain about dinner, they need to thank mom for something on their plate. If they complain about a job, they need to say something they are thankful for about our home. If they argue with a sibling, they each share a reason they are thankful for that sibling.


And in case they forget some of the things that made their hearts happy and thankful, each girl filled in a list. We can pull it out and refer to it if needed. This helps them remember some of the things they are thankful for.

On our poster, we just added a heart and colored it to make it "happy".

Our poster looks like this so far and we are going to add a small "trigger" each week so that we can review our verses.


This week will are going to continue with the next verse:

E - Even a child is known by his (her) actions.

I am going to put a wallet picture of each of them on a rectangle. They will list some of the qualities that God tells us His children should be known for. We'll add the rectangles to our poster.

A soft answer turns away wrath activity

I was a middle school math teacher.

Teaching preschool/kindergarten does not come naturally. I live on goo.gle, Enchanted Learning, blogs, and a variety of other online sources to come up with ideas.

But occasionally, I don't find a thing. Which happened this week.

Our bible memory verse was from Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turns away wrath." There is a devotion that goes along with it in our book, but I wanted an activity to drive the point home.

After searching goo.gle, blogs, and all sorts of sources, I gave up. Then suddenly, in a moment of inspiration I designed my own activity and it worked so well. So for all you goo.gle searchers out there seeking an activity for Proverbs 15:1, I have one for you to consider. And sadly, it is the only one you might find for now...

Materials: sandpaper, glue, cotton balls

1. Cut a piece of sandpaper for each student. Have them rub the paper on their arm and talk about how it feels. Clearly, it doesn't feel good. Do they want people to come up and rub their arm with that? No!

2. Explain how our wrath is like that sandpaper. When we speak in an angry tone and use angry words, they feel like that sandpaper. No one wants to be treated that way.

3. Then rub their arms with a cottonball. Talk about how it feels. It feels much nicer. (In fact, my girls loved it!)

4. Explain how the soft cottonball is like our soft words. When we are gentle and kind to someone it feels good to them.

5. Explain that this verse tells us that when someone "rubs our arm with sandpaper" we can "rub their arm with cottonballs", meaning that we can use soft words to turn away their wrath.

6. End by gluing the cotton balls on to the sand paper, which takes a "soft word" and "turns away wrath".

The final product was carried around by my daughters that day. The kept rubbing each others arms with their "soft words".

Our soft words: