A New Lesson

School is in full swing, and I finally have some schedules made up. Since I work outside our home, it is difficult to fit in everything I want to, and we have to pair down a lot.

One thing we am not willing to "put on the shelf" until next summer are Ty's Bible lessons. He went to a religious preschool, where they read a Bible story every day and went upstairs to Chapel every week. It was nice to know that he was learning lessons of faith while I was working.

And then, last year he went to public school. Need I say more?

So, we will be continuing our Bible studies throughout the school year. Right now (while the weather is so beautiful) we'll be doing a lesson 3 days a week, though they will likely be daily when winter comes.

We recently finished a pretty long unit on the Ten Commandments. Most of the activities were ones I made up on the fly. I posted the Commandments and some of our worksheets & drawings on our pantry door. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't know all of the commandments. I am happy to say that I now know all ten! (So does Ty.)
That was such a great success (Ty didn't complain about this lesson once), that I decided to create another unit to focus on a verse that I recently learned.

~Galations 5:22~
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

I was looking through the concordance of my Bible for all the places that the word patience was used, and I tripped & fell face-first into this one. I do struggle with some of those sometimes...

Anyway, I took the Commandment papers off the pantry door and put up a big paper tree:
As you can see from the photo, we've already begun with "love." This will be a 9-week unit, with each "fruit" being studied for a week (i.e. 3 days). I've got three copies of each fruit: 1 will have the virtue printed on it, 1 will have the definition printed on it, and 1 will have ways that we can show that virtue. This tree is going to be full by the time we're done... it will bear 27 fruits all together!
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And since I have to mention both my little guys here, I'll share with you our new discovery. Our 17 month old loves coffee (with a little milk & sugar). Matt was drinking a cup over the weekend, and Wild Thing asked for a drink. Matt gave him a taste, thinking that he would make a face & be done...
...so imagine our surprise when Wild Thing smiled, nodded his head "yes," and signed, "more!"
I was especially shocked, since, no matter what I do, I cannot cultivate a taste for the stuff.

Aren't kids awesome?