Presidents

It is really fun to teach Will facts because he “soaks” up any information he is fed!  I recently borrowed a book from the library on famous and influential children who have shaped our world in positive ways.  I have also been taking out books on the lives of famous Americans.  Weeks later after reading about one of the presidents, I was amazed that Will was still able to recall that Kennedy’s first name was John.  Will was also able to tell us that George Washington was our first president, Obama is our current president, our country is the United States, and Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery.  I am starting to really get excited about homeschooling him next year!

Jericho, Goliath, and Gardening

It’s interesting how everyday situations create the perfect opportunity to teach life lessons and spiritual truths.  Perhaps, the very best ones are learned this way.  Recently as we were putting in a garden, we saw first hand how important it is to be aware of “teachable moments” with our kids.  As our family was digging small holes and carefully places the seeds inside, I began to teach the boys about our early American history.  It was fun to share how the Native Americans, Samoset and Squanto helped the pilgrims learn how to grow gardens in the American soil.

I then went on to share how God compares our hearts to types of soil.  I asked Will questions concerning how well he thought a seed would do if it was planted with a bunch of rocks; we then compared that to a “hard heart” that is closed to truth/”seed of eternal life.”  We spoke of what a seed needs to grow and compared that to Spiritual truths — how we need God’s Word, God Himself, “pruning” in our own lives, encouragement, etc… to flourish and thrive.    We talked about the plants that wither when heat and drought come.  We compared that to our lives — when we “wither” when adversity comes our way (e.g. persecution, criticism, hard times leads to “losing faith”).  It was neat to see how Will clearly understood spiritual truths from seeing their application to our daily lives.

Another lesson we recently discussed was during our family devotional reading of the Battle of Jericho.  We read about Joshua’s conquering of Jericho through God’s help and of Joshua and Caleb’s response to Jericho versus the other spies.  We went on to apply Jericho to areas in our lives that need to be conquered (e.g. pride, anger, selfishness, unkindness, impatience).  Each of us went around the table and named something that we need to have conquered by God’s help.  We then talked about how God can help us tear down those “Jerichos” in our lives and give us freedom!  The boys immediately grasped the truths of this lesson and shared their “Jerichos”.  Later when conflicts arose, we were able to refer to the Bible lesson and to ask the boys if they were conquering their “Jericho” or allowing “Jericho” to conquer them.

A similar lesson was also studied and applied from the life of David and the familiar story of his battle against Goliath.  Again, Goliath was compared to our own areas of sin and how we need to go in God’s strength and use the right weapons to defeat our spiritual giants.  It was neat to hear the boys of their own volition mentioning these lessons in later events.  God’s Word is definitely powerful and practical!