As many other homeschoolers do, we start our day with devotions. This has been the most fun to our day…spiritually rewarding, interesting and fun! We’ve been known to get so immersed in our Bible study, that we forget the time and realize we should be in the middle of math!

When my children were toddlers, my son was very sick and we did not go to church anymore. I bought the Betty Lukens flannelgraph set and proceeded to use that to teach Bible stories to my children. I’d start with the first story of the Old Testament, gradually working our way through the Bible, trying to work in the Christmas and Easter story seasonally. Of course, Noah’s Ark was one of our first stories. While Noah and his family were rocking around with the animals on stormy seas, I spent time on that point. We talked about how we got scared during thunderstorms and tornado warnings (at the time we lived in the middle of tornado alley). We talked about how Noah and his family must have felt. We talked about how God had not abandoned them. God used that story, and a small German print of an angel helping 2 children safely cross a bridge during a storm, to teach my 3yod to trust God during a storm. Our nighttime wakings to calm our children during storms had ended.

In the last couple of years, I put away the flannelgraph, since I felt my children were ready for more meat. They get excellent Bible teaching at our church, and they were ready for this next step. About that time, we added Tapestry of Grace to our curriculum, which includes Bible survey throughout year 1 while studying Ancient World History. Last year we practically read through most of the Bible, learning in context with world history and literature and geography and our understanding of the Bible exploded. Last spring we summarized the New Testament by reading the book of Luke and Acts. This year, as we’ve been studying Year 2 Middle Ages to the birth of America, I have decided to pick up with Paul’s letters sequentially, as he wrote them to the various churches. So far we have studied Galatians, I and II Thessalonians, James and I Corinthians. Sometimes we spend time on one verse and other times we take a quick survey through a chapter, depending on how the Spirit leads us. 14yod had just completed James in her Sunday School class when we started James, but to her surprise, there were some new points that I had been taught over the years that were new to her. In turn, she shared some of her excellent notes on what she had been taught in class. She asked if she could write notes on the white board to share some of what Mr. K had taught in James. That was a thrill to have dd teach/share during our devotions.

The green ink is mine and the purple ink is dd's.

When newletters from various missionaries come through the e-mail, I save them for our devotions. Yesterday morning we got a tour through Thessalonika from a brother and sister in Christ, whom my children got to meet a year ago. The missionary influence is huge in our church, so my children are used to that. But to have been invited to share a dinner as this missionary couple were passing through our town last year, was novel to our children.

Here are some of the pictures they sent.  This is Thessalonika...

Here is the Roman Forum, where Paul may have preached...

Here is Mount Olympus...

We always end with a hymn. Last year when we did the Ancients, I pulled Scripture and a weekly hymn that would point us to what God had to say in view of the week’s study of the culture. For example, when learning about the blood-letting Mayans, we studied verses about the necessity of the blood of Christ to save us from our sins. That was followed by a hymn, such as "Are You Washed in the Blood?" I had always taken verses and hymns on Christ shedding His blood for granted. Juxtaposing Christ’s work with the Mayans’ pointless blood-letting, allowed me to see Christ’s effective work for me in a more meaningful way.

This year, since we have been studying Church history, we have been pulling out hymns from the Middle Ages to learn. Some we already knew, we just didn’t realize the origins! We are using Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories by Robert J. Morgan. In glancing ahead, I have seen that it doesn’t tell the entire story of the poignant hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". Nevertheless, this book lists the hymns sequentially so that is a good starting off point, which can lead to further research.

Now that Christmas is nearing, we are using a book I purchased a couple of years ago, Come Let Us Adore Him: Stories Behind the Most Cherished Christmas Hymns by Robert J. Morgan…hmmmmm, the same author! I just saw that! LOL These are also listed sequentially. We started yesterday and I am turning it into a guessing game. If the song is known, I think I’ll read the story behind it and then play the notes and have them name that tune! Today’s tune was unknown, but I knew they could figure out the composer. I gave the year and then played the tune. We talked about how it’s not a familiar tune. Nevertheless ds noted there were elements to the tune that reminded him of "A Mighty Fortress is our God" and guessed Martin Luther! Correct!