by Donna | Jun 2, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
Today I will list (along with links and short annotations) some of the “collections” that we have used with our “littles.” Some of these are spiritual in nature; some were used for Bible/character reading for morning devotions (“when you rise up”); some were used for story time and other fun reading times. I am going to put all of them here, regardless of how/when they were used, so all “collections” are together. Happy reading!
”The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes”—one of our first Bible picture books; this book was one of the first story Bibles that I did with my little ones (after cardboard Bible stories, etc. for toddlers); I review it at the link given below—it is worth searching for the original one—the illustrations are so beautiful, not whimsical like the newer one: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/01/day-thirty-two-start-young-with-bible.html
“Leading Little Ones to God”—catechism for kids! Great “collection devotional” for young ones; introduces children to attributes of God, basic tenets of the faith, and more—all at a preschool level: https://www.sonlight.com/BB01.html
“Answers for Kids”—these little books are perfect creation science books for preschoolers; they are the children’s counterpart to the “Answers Book” for older kids and adults; colorful; answer questions that kids have about creation, the truth of Scripture, dinosaurs, Genesis, and more’ even though this is not divided into “days” like many of my “collections” are, you can still do an entry a day, making it a perfect “collection” for littles: https://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Answers-Book-for-Kids-Set-The-Volumes-1-amp-2,5728,184.aspx
“Case for Kids” series—these little books are the children’s counterpart to Lee Strobel’s “Case for” series for older kids and adults; while not as colorful or quite as “preschool” as the “Answers,” this series is great for answering tough questions about Scripture in a child-friendly way (more for ages six to twelve than preschool); each “entry” is a question with its corresponding answer:
https://www.lifewaystores.com/lwstore/product.asp?isbn=0310711479
“Oxford Illustrated Children’s Book of American Poetry”—We have used this book when we are studying American history, reading a poem a day during morning reading; not all of the poems are necessarily “children’s poems,” but they are illustrated and fun, for the most part:
https://www.sonlight.com/EA04.html?cat=1393
“Tales of Beatrix Potter”—while individual stories are less cumbersome to hold (and not so heavy!) and often more elaborately illustrated, we have loved our children’s “collection” story books, such as these stories from the famous children’s author; there are beautiful illustrations scattered here and there, as well as many tales, some of which are lesser known ones: https://www.amazon.com/Beatrix-Potter-Complete-Tales/dp/072325804X
“Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories”—one of my oldest “collections”; we got these from a door-to-door salesman when Joshua (now 28) was a baby; these used to be found in doctors’ waiting rooms everywhere; they are older type of character stories about children who did or did not display various character qualities; I recommend the original five-volume set—the newer, shorter ones are not as well-illustrated and a little “girly” looking with their pastel covers; while these are older stories, their topics are timeless—honesty, obedience, kindness, trustworthiness, submission, respect; all of my kids have loved these (and it isn’t uncommon for my adult kids to get them off the shelves and look through them when they are home!):
https://www.christianbook.com/uncle-arthurs-bedtime-stories/9780828010207/pd/545333
“Curious George Collection”—this one speaks for itself—over a dozen Curious George books in one volume:
https://search.barnesandnoble.com/Curious-George/H-A-Rey/e/9780618154241
“Six by Seuss”—six Dr. Seuss books in one volume, some of which we do not even have in individual books:
https://search.barnesandnoble.com/Six-by-Seuss/Dr-Seuss/e/9780679821489
“James Harriot’s Animal Stories”—this lovely book is the children’s counterpart of James Herriot’s adult stories:
https://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=1593973535
“Character Sketches”—the number one most age-spanning devotional that we have ever used; we started this with our four year olds and I still use it every week for our twelve and sixteen year olds; it is “individual entry” if you do all of the animal one on one day (about 15 mins reading) and all of the Bible one on another day (again 15 mins reading); my review of it is given at the provided link: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-136-character-sketches-review-faith.html
https://www.tfths.com/character.php
“Cloud of Witnesses”—this compilation of sixteen godly heroes is a biographical compilation written at a third or fourth grade level—good for reading aloud to younger kids and for new and emerging readers to read for themselves; introduce your children to godly heroes such as Amy Carmichael, Billy Graham, Hudson Taylor, DL Moody, William and Catherine Boothe, and George Mueller, among others; this book was written by our now-missionary nurse daughter when she was sixteen years old: https://www.tfths.com/
“Hero Tales”—this three volume compilation of godly heroes is also written at third or fourth grade level; hardcover, so a little pricier, but if you desire to read biographies “more often than not” to your kids, you will want to get this collection:
https://www.christianbook.com/treasury-stories-christian-heroes-volume-i/dave-jackson/9780764200786/pd/20078X
“Stories to Read Aloud” and “More Stories to Read Aloud”—these collections of stories are amazing; selections from Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Frost, O Henry, and more—specially arranged for children five and up—but our teens love all of these stories! https://www0.epinions.com/prices/Classics_to_Read_Aloud_to_Your_Children_edited_by_William_F_Russell
“Hey, Listen to This” by Jim Trelease—another great book of read aloud stories!
https://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0140146539
“What the Bible Is All About for Young Explorers”—
https://www.christianbook.com/what-bible-about-for-young-explorers/henrietta-mears/9780830723638/pd/23633
Punctuation note: As the author of over forty language arts/writing books, I know that titles of major works (books, etc.) should be in italics when they are typed/keyed (and underlined when writing by hand) and that minor works (magazine articles, encyclopedia essays, etc.) are to be surrounded by quotation marks. In the blog, however, I generally put major works AND minor works in quotation marks because the blog seems to lose some of its formatting, including italics and underlines at times.
by Donna | May 31, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
Today I will list (along with links and short annotations) some of the “collections” that we have used with our “biggies”—kids ages ten or so to twenty! (There will be some repeats and overlaps, but that just illustrates how wide of an age span some of the materials have!)
Some of these are spiritual in nature; some were used for Bible/character reading for morning devotions (“when you rise up”); some were used for story time and other fun reading times. I am going to put all of them here, regardless of how/when they were used, so all “collections” are together. Happy reading!
“Character Sketches”—the number one most age-spanning devotional that we have ever used; we started this with our four year olds and I still use it every week for our twelve and sixteen year olds; it is “individual entry” if you do all of the animal one on one day (about 15 mins reading) and all of the Bible one on another day (again 15 mins reading); my review of it is given at the provided link: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-136-character-sketches-review-faith.html
“In His Hands”—This nature devotional has been in our morning reading basket for nearly ten years! We never tire of it. Sometimes we take a few months off from it, then put it back into our rotation, but our kids enjoy it so much that they wouldn’t mind if it stayed in rotation permanently. This daily devotional (broken down into dates—May 5, May 6 etc.) has a little known fact in nature and applies it to a verse from the Bible or a spiritual truth. Fun facts and short snippets—win win. This book is out or print—but I highly recommend you snatch it up used. It is written by James and Priscilla Tucker.
“American Patriot’s Almanac”—This “devotional,” compiled by William Bennett and others, has become a family favorite since we got it four years ago. It is broken down by dates (June 10, June 11, etc.), and it has a short list of events that took place in America on that day in history—with one lengthy (three to five paragraphs) entry about one event that took place on that day that is especially noteworthy or inspiring. I ADORE this “collection” and wish every Christian family had it!
https://www.christianbook.com/american-patriots-almanac-daily-readings-america/william-bennett/9781595552679/pd/552679
“Wonderful Names of Our Wonderful Lord”—this devotional has dozens of entries of one page each that give a name for God, the Scripture where that name is found, and inspiration about that name for God. This is just one of many of these books (names of God) that I have used for our devotional time through the years— https://www.barbourbooks.com/(S(u3injj45v4ehri45mc2acfza))/catalog/productinfo.aspx?id=3432&Tab=Books&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
“101 Hymn Histories”—we love learning about songs, hymns, and poetry. What inspired the author? What special stories are related to a certain song—people saved, comforted, or inspired? What was going on in the hymn writer’s life at the time he or she wrote it? Books such as this one (as well as many others we have used, including “Then Sings My Soul,” “The Words Behind the Song,”and many others) have provided much inspiration for the kids and me through the years. This one (and its sequel) are special favorites to me as they have the entire hymn’s with its musical score, which I can use to at least pick out the treble clef to hear the tune if it is one that I have forgotten: https://www.christianbook.com/101-hymn-stories-kenneth-osbeck/9780825434167/pd/34165
“Case for….” books by Lee Strobel—We must teach our kids to defend their faith! Not necessarily to defend it in debate with others (though that would be amazing some day!) but to defend it for themselves. They must know what they believe and why they believe it—otherwise they will likely fall for mistruths. These books teach that and more! We use them extensively in our kids’ high school years and quite a bit in junior high. (See the kids’ counterpart in the upcoming “littles” posts.) www.leestrobel.com/store.php
“Answers” books—Again, our kids need to defend their faith. This company has books for toddlers through Bible scholars. We started out with dozens of their picture books then moved on to these more challenging, short-entry books that we have used in devotions, for assigned reading, and more.
https://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/The-New-Answers-Books-all-three,6456,224.aspx
“Case for Christ Study Bible”— I just cannot say enough good about our family’s new “read aloud” Bible for this year. It has excerpts from Lee Strobel’s books as sidebars and insets within the biblical text–so we read the couple of paragraphs about the passage that is referenced, then go right to the Bible passage (New King James Version) and read it. It is amazing! Quick enough reads for 5-10 min devos–or on evenings that we have more time, we read a couple or few of the entries. I love not having to flip from a book to the Bible, etc. We love the “Case for” books–and love them even more having the Bible passage that it refers to right there in its entirety. Great for ten to twenty year olds—and their parents! 🙂
https://www.leestrobel.com/store.php
“Great Stories Remembered” and “Great Stories Remembered II” by Joe Wheeler—one of our favorite collections of short stories for all ages—our teens love this book! (We also love and use yearly his Christmas collections story book)– www.rainbowchristianstore.com/product.asp?sku=1561798355
“One Year Book of Poetry”— This daily “devotional” contains inspirational poetry from many, many years ago to current. It has classic authors that everybody should be familiar with, as well as some lesser known. Each poem is set up in a daily, two-page spread–with the poem (or stanzas of the poem) on the left and a one page description on the right. The descriptive text introduces you to the author and gives details of the time period, the struggles the author may have been experiencing as he or she wrote, how the poem was received, etc. Many of them explain some of the more complex aspects of imagery and vocabulary. Yes, it’s a Bible/inspirational/literature lesson all in one book! I highly recommend this as an addition to your “daily” read alouds! 🙂
For purchase in hardcover: https://www.parable.com/parable/item.One-Year-Books-The-One-Year-Book-of-Poetry-Comfort-Phil.9780842337120.htm
To see inside (you’ll love this!): https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Book-Poetry-Books/dp/0842337121#_
https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Book-Poetry/dp/0842337113
“The Power for True Success”—Forty-nine essential character qualities introduced, defined, and elaborated on—beautiful coffee table book–
https://tfths.com/character.php
“What the Bible Is All About”—I used to use this handbook to read aloud whenever we were starting to read a new book of the Bible aloud together. My kids have used it in various ways throughout the years. Excellent Bible handbook!
https://www.christianbook.com/what-bible-all-about-visual-edition/henrietta-mears/9780830743292/pd/43294X
Punctuation note: As the author of over forty language arts/writing books, I know that titles of major works (books, etc.) should be in italics when they are typed/keyed (and underlined when writing by hand) and that minor works (magazine articles, encyclopedia essays, etc.) are to be surrounded by quotation marks. In the blog, however, I generally put major works AND minor works in quotation marks because the blog seems to lose some of its formatting, including italics and underlines at times.
by Donna | May 31, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
We have been asked frequently about the “collections” that we enjoy reading from during morning devotions, as well as other times of the day.
There are many reasons that I enjoy reading “collections” to my children:
1. The entries are usually fairly short. We can read from any one of our “collection” books in under ten minutes, for the most part. While I like to have a lengthy “morning reading” time (we sometimes call it Bible/Character/Creation Science reading) of forty-five to seventy minutes since we only do it three days a week (we only do it on my non-work {teaching writing to homeschoolers to test our books} days), with my “collections,” I know that I can just pick up two or three and be done reading in twenty to thirty minutes on rushed mornings.
2. It allows us to read about a variety of topics all at the same time. We run the gamut in any particular reading session (Bible character in “Character Sketches”; animal in “Character Sketches”; weather in “In His Hands”; godly hero in “Hero Tales” or “Cloud of Witnesses”); American history in “Patriot’s Almanac”; character story in “Great Stories Remembered II”; and much more!).
3. Each entry is self-contained. When we do ongoing stories, biographies, history text, etc., if one of my kids is gone, I feel like I can’t read those that day because someone will be missing out and will be in the dark when we have our next reading. With collections, it doesn’t matter if somebody is missing that day or we take off for five days to travel (though collections are extremely portable—see point four!). There is no “catching up.” This aspect also makes “collections” great for family read alouds, evening devotions, bedtime stories, etc. for Dad. If Dad is gone, we aren’t “reading ahead” without him; he missed an entry or two, but not part of an ongoing story, etc.
4. “Collections” make for great travel reading. If we bring two small collections, we have a variety of interesting reading at our fingertips. Thus, devotionals, story time, etc. can often be continued in some form while we are on the road. When my kids were younger, I would often keep an “Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories” book in the vehicle, so we had a variety of stories handy should we get detained for some reason. (I’m smiling fondly as I write this, remembering a couple of times in which we huddled under an overhang at a professional baseball game reading “Uncle Arthur’s” while the game was on hold for rain and while in a long line at Disney World gathered around our “Bedtime Story.”)
The next two posts will contain lists and links of the various “collections” that we have used with our kids for all types of reading. While we are still on “when you rise up,” I will include “all times of day” collections in these lists and specify how we have used them.
Also, I will break them up into two posts—one for “littles” (though my “biggies” often like these too!) and one for ages ten to twenty! Lastly, if you do not receive PP on FaceBook (by “LIKING” us), you might want to do so. I will be putting links, one at a time on that wall over several weeks. Thanks for joining us! Tell a friend about Positive Parenting!
by Donna | May 19, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
I have been sharing at length about our morning devotions and our kids’ personal devotions in expanding on the portion of Deuteronomy 6:7 that describes teaching God’s precepts to our children when we rise up. Along those same lines, we have, through the years, had various times of devotions, family worship, and read alouds. I would like to share a little bit about those in case some of you are still not seeing how all of this can fit in your day.
First of all, of course, teaching our children about God must be a priority to us. A priority is what we do. Thus, anything that we say is a priority but is not done consistently (“more often than not”) is not truly a priority. It is an unfulfilled wish.
Most of the time, in order to move something into priority position in our lives, we must move something else out. We must be purposeful in doing this. We must make a conscious decision to remove thirty minutes of television every evening and put in its place a reading or teaching time for our children. We must, with great fortitude and resolve, reduce our sleep from eight hours to seven and a half hours and replace that reduced sleep with something that is even more important to us.
We cannot wish that we were teaching our kids spiritual truths and have it happen. We cannot plan it in our minds and then make it so. We cannot talk to others about it, read about, or write it down on a “to do list” and see it come to fruition. It must be something that we do. Purposeful. Prioritized. Planned. Carried out.
More on this tomorrow!
by Donna | May 10, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
I am going to make a random list of things I can remember our children doing for devotions, character, discipleship, etc. I’ll try to list them in a semi-chronological order by age group. (Books that are reviewed at PP 365 blogspot are marked with asterisk.)
*Early Readers’ Bible
Bible story book and audio sets, including “Stories That Live” (not sure if those are still out there but Joshua and Kayla used to love these!); NEST; and others that I picked up at the library (those little plastic bags with book/tapes or cd’s)
*Your Story Hour audios
Doughnut Man videos
*NEST videos
Patch the Pirate audios
Felt Bible lessons
*The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes
*Uncle Arthur Bedtime Stories
*The Picture Bible
*Family Bible Library
Youth Devotional Books
Key for Kids
Bible quizzing cards
Scribing—writing out a book of the Bible in a journal
Quote-ables—writing out verses, quotations, etc. in a journal
Biographies of godly heroes
Case for….books
Case for….books for kids
Psalm a day
Proverb a day
A Gospel chapter a day
Authors our teens have read widely:
C. S. Lewis
John Piper
A. W. Tozer
Ken Ham
Genevieve Foster
Martin Luther
Amy Carmichael
Hannah Hurrnah
Joni Eareckson Tada
John Bunyan
Josh McDowell
Lee Strobel
Elisabeth Eliot
Kay Arthur
Andrew Murrey
Charles Sheldon
R.A. Torrey
Henry Morris
Gary Parker
William Durrant
Franklin Graham
David Wilkerson
by Donna | May 8, 2011
“You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:7
I am going to make a random list of things I can remember our children doing for devotions, character, discipleship, etc. I’ll try to list them in a semi-chronological order by age group. (Books that are reviewed at PP 365 blogspot are marked with asterisk.)
*Early Readers’ Bible
Bible story book and audio sets, including “Stories That Live” (not sure if those are still out there but Joshua and Kayla used to love these!); NEST; and others that I picked up at the library (those little plastic bags with book/tapes or cd’s)
*Your Story Hour audios
Doughnut Man videos
*NEST videos
Patch the Pirate audios
Felt Bible lessons
*The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes
*Uncle Arthur Bedtime Stories
*The Picture Bible
*Family Bible Library
Youth Devotional Books
Key for Kids
Bible quizzing cards
Scribing—writing out a book of the Bible in a journal
Quote-ables—writing out verses, quotations, etc. in a journal
Biographies of godly heroes
Case for….books
Case for….books for kids
Psalm a day
Proverb a day
A Gospel chapter a day
Authors our teens have read widely for devotional material:
C. S. Lewis
John Piper
A. W. Tozer
Ken Ham
Genevieve Foster
Martin Luther
Amy Carmichael
Hannah Hurrnah
Joni Eareckson Tada
John Bunyan
Josh McDowell
Lee Strobel
Elisabeth Eliot
Kay Arthur
Andrew Murrey
Charles Sheldon
R.A. Torrey
Henry Morris
Gary Parker
William Durrant
Franklin Graham
David Wilkerson
