Homeschooling Preschool

I don't usually write about homeschooling because my children are very young and we haven't been doing any formal schooling. But recently I "attended" the Homeschool How To online conference and learned some very valuable things, that we've already begun to incorporate into our homeschooling.


One of my favorites that I'm going to share with you all today is a bible memorization method that was shared by the Klein family. The technique they shared has the children learning one verse a day. On their website they have published a free ebook for the one verse a day method, but I'm going to briefly discuss it here to give you an idea of how we are doing this in our family. 


When daddy gets home from work we all gather around with a dry erase board or a chalk board and we begin our devotional time. We start by writing the verse on the board then discussing it and drawing any illustrations we can think of to support the meaning. Then we repeat the verse a few times. On the following day we review the previous verse and then start on our new verse. 


On the first day we started out with Psalm 100:1. 

Our oldest (she's 3) did well with this. Although at the very beginning she kept saying "Make a joyful noise, for it is right". She was mixing the new verse, with Ephesians 6:1, which she's had memorized for over a year now. 

On the second day we moved on to Psalm 100:2.

Again she did well with this verse and after we went over it, we discussed ways that we could serve God. For a 3 year old I was a little surprised at her answers. 

Her ideas for being of service were:  Help sweep, write a letter or draw a picture for someone, help  mommy in the kitchen, make cookies for people, help someone find their shoes or coats, sing for people, read books for people, tell people about God. I was very impressed by her ideas and it made me realize that I might of been under estimating her. 

When we got to verse 3 we started to struggle. It's a long verse and she's having a little trouble repeating the whole thing. If we say the first word she can say the next part, which shows she is at least retaining it. So instead of moving on we're just going to keep working on this verse until we get it. 

In addition to doing this now we are working on learning to read with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She is loving this! And she is doing a good job with the lessons. I would of never thought of starting to learn reading before she knew all of her letters. But then I was reading a blog where a mom talked about using it when her children were 3 and having great success. So my husband and I discussed it and decided to go for it.

The most exciting change though has been our elimination of TV! We decided to just turn it off. It's been about a week and my girls haven't watched any cartoons or children's shows. They have watch animal documentaries a few times. But the TV has been off for 90% of the time. Now when the NBA playoffs are over I'm sure we'll be having the TV off even more. I was so nervous that it would be hard or that I wouldn't know what to do with the girls if we didn't watch TV. But I've found that they quickly adapted and are using their imaginations to come up with things to do. It's been a huge blessing and I'm just insanely excited to know that we are working hard to protect our children's eye and ear gates. All the while hiding God's truth in their hearts.

"I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me." -Psalm 101:3

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." -Proverbs 4:23