First things First

This is the last post in the Virtual Curriculum Fair 2016. 
My previous posts are 

• Making a home of Book lovers
• Learning Multiplication Tables
• The Icing and the Cake: a Method of Studying History

This week's topic is Seeking Beauty: The arts and everything that adds beauty to our World. 

This year the Virtual Curriculum Fair is hosted by Laura @ Day by Day in Our World, Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses and Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset. 

My topic for this week is about the most important things in life which add true beauty: spiritual things. We like to start our home education day with 

• prayer
• reading from a book about the Bible
• Bible memorisation
• singing

We do read from the Bible itself at family worship and in the evenings but for this particular slot, we use a children's book about the Bible.

When the children were preschoolers, we used

• 365 Bible stories by Carine Mackenzie. We found that this book lasted less than a whole year as the children tended to want more than one story.
• the New Testament series by B. Ramsbottom. I've just linked to one but the others are on the same website. 

As they grew, to reception age, we used these plus

• titles about individual characters from Christian Focus. These are in two series: Bible Wise and Bible Time.

Once, the children were around six, we read

• Leading Little ones to God by Miriam Schooland.
• The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos.

We have used the Bible Roadtrip before and I am hoping that we can start using this again, in September.

For Bible memorisation, we use

• Trinitarian Bible Society memory work
• Memory work set the children in Sunday School. They usually have a passage to learn in the autumn.
• Verses that we decide to learn.

We sing hymns that we sing in church and particularly ones that the children may not know well but, as well, often use our church children's hymnbook. As with any hymnbook, there are some that are sung far more often so we try to have a mixture of hymns that are well known and those that are not. We use a music edition and this definitely helps with singing less known hymns. If you are unable to play even a little then it is worth trying to find a recording to use to sing along. 

It is all to easy to be diverted from the most important things in life and this certainly applies in education. Having a habit of starting the day with the Lord and His Word helps to focus my mind on the most needful things and we pray will direct the children to the Lord.

Please visit the other blogs who are taking part in this week's Virtual Curriculum Fair. Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses - Seeking Beauty Through the Arts
Yvie @ Gypsy Road -Painter Song
Sarah@ Delivering Grace - First Things First
Laura @ Day by Day in Our World - Add An Element of Beauty with Fine Arts in the Homeschool
Lisa@ Golden Grasses - What Are We Fighting For?
Annette @ A Net In Time - Art, art, and more art
Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset - The Sounds of Music
Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break - Music and Other Beautiful Things

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