by Donna | Jul 7, 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 really are going to move out of the “when you rise up” stage of “teaching them diligently”–honest! However, we have found that if you get the first hour or two of your day down the way you want it, you will have a much more successful day later on. Also, success in the morning motivates us to more success later in the day–success breeds success!
So, we have gone over and over the “faith in the mornings”–private devotions, listening in the mornings, family devotions and read alouds, and more.
The other area that we like to tackle following faith in the morning is character training via chores and responsibilities. We did an entire month of chores, morning routines, chore charts, and chore schedules last year, so I encourage you to go to the blogspot, look in the index under chores, and have at it.
For today, I am going to post the link for the “age appropriate chores.” Summer is the perfect time to establish new chore schedules, morning routines, and more!
Chore Resources: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-113-114-resources-for-chores.html
Age Appropriate Chores (starting here with littles for several days): https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-115-age-appropriate-chores-for.html
by Donna | May 4, 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
Over the past nearly year and a half of this blog, I have talked about how we developed morning routines for our children different times. (Go to PP 365 at blogpost and click on one of the “contents” links—schedules, chores, charts, etc. for more help in the “morning routine.” The morning routine will change your life! )
Once our children were old enough (ages three or four) to change out of their pj’s; tuck their pj’s under their pillow; put dirty clothes in the hamper; “make” their bed (i.e. lie in it completely covered up from head to toe and wiggle out of the bed while trying to leave the covers/sheets intact then smooth it all and fluff the pillows!); brush their teeth; and put their books (that they “read” in the mornings while waiting to be gotten up) away, we incorporated “personal devotions.”
For the little kids, this meant setting the timer for five minutes while “reading” a picture Bible/story Bible. I say “reading” because most of our kids were late readers rather than early readers, so they simply “studied” the pictures of these Bibles, often reciting the stories from memory or making up the story all over again aloud or in their heads. As the children grew, their “personal devotions” grew with them.
Just like the morning family devotions, we always kept the personal devotions short enough to actually do. (I have learned the hard way that if something is too difficult or lengthy for the time slot that it is put into, it will seldom stick.) Since we homeschool our kids, they usually have “Bible class” in which they complete Bible curriculum; read certain assigned discipleship type books; and/or read Bible with Mom during school, so the personal devotions were what each child wanted or needed through the years (as they matured in their walk with the Lord)—with some input/direction from Mom and Dad as needed.
Thus, these personal devotions could be as simple as a chapter a day from Psalms or a prayer journal/Bible scribing time that they themselves chose to do that maybe took thirty or forty-five minutes. In a couple of days, I will give some ideas for kids’ morning personal devotions for various age groups.
Thanks for joining us as we seek to teach faith and character “when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up”!
by Donna | May 13, 2010
Morning reading—for us, this is like our “school devotional extended.” We have this morning reading time after morning routines and morning chores—three or four days a week (“more often than not”). Because it is devotional and school, I like to do a variety of things:
1. Character reading—this usually involves Bible too (see below for Character Sketches)
2. Chapter books—we are going through a series of American history biographies—we have done biographies in morning reading for twenty-five years!!!
3. Creation science—we always read from Answers in Genesis and other materials together
4. Bible or Bible stories (depending on ages, etc.)
5. Poetry—we added this two years ago, and I love it!
6. Nature devotional—been doing these for years and years
7. Literature excerpts—I assign whole books to the boys (one chapter book per week unless they are lengthy, in which case, they may read the same book over a two week period), but I like doing excerpts and shortened ones with them aloud
8. Character stories—we have done a variety of these—right now we are doing one my one of my favorite Christmas story authors (Wheeler, see below)
Below are the current titles we are using, along with their authors and links. The books listed are ones I do now with my boys, ages 11, 15, and 17. I am capitalizing the titles because I cannot get the FB blog to underline or italicize consistently—not trying to “yell” at you!
1. Character studies—reading about godly character of Bible people and how character qualities are shown in the lives of animals—CHARACTER SKETCHES, Volume III—published by Institute in Basic Life Principles (one semester book) https://tfths.com/character.php
2. Short literature excerpts, an outstanding way to introduce classic literature to kids ages eight to fourteen (or even older—Jonathan and I love them!)—CLASSICS TO READ ALOUD TO YOUR CHILDREN—compiled by William F. Russell (one semester book) https://www.amazon.com/Classics-Read-Aloud-Your-Children/dp/0517587157
3. Nature devotional—IN HIS HANDS—A NATURE DEVOTIONAL-—by James and Priscilla Tucker (year long book)—out of print—if your kids like animals, nature, and trivia, I recommend you try to get this book used!
4. Bible “story” book for older students and adults (followed by listening to the portion covered in here on audio cd from the regular Bible)—THE STORY OF STORIES—THE BIBLE IN NARRATIVE FORM –by Karen C. Hinckley (one semester book) https://www.amazon.com/Story-Stories-Astounding-Adventures-Revelation/dp/0891096701/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273634406&sr=1-1
5. Creation science book—ASTONOMY AND THE BIBLE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS by Donald B DeYoung (one semester book) (sample chapters at https://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/399.asp ) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080106225X/ref=cm_rdp_product
6. Biography—MERIWETHER LEWIS: EXPLORER by Janet and Geoff Benge (one month book) (contains links to other books in the Heroes of History series) https://www.christianbook.com/heroes-history-meriwether-lewis-edge-map/janet-benge/9781883002800/pd/00281X
7. Christian poetry (for older children and adults)—THE ONE YEAR BOOK OF POETRY—published by Tyndale (one year book) https://www.tyndale.com/X_Products/details.php?isbn=978-0-8423-3712-0
8. Short Christian and character stories for all ages (older children and adults primarily)—GREAT STORIES REMEMBERED by Joe Wheeler (might be out of print, but still has sellers on amazon) https://www.amazon.com/Great-Stories-Remembered/dp/1561794597
Tomorrow, I will post some suggestions for “morning reading” or “devotional reading” for four to ten year olds.
by Donna | Mar 31, 2010
“I woke my little brother up GENTLY, and we wrestled a little before Mom came and took us into her bed to snuggle. Mommy and Daddy’s bed is so warm, it must have some kind of special heater in it. Mommy says it’s warm because they’re so in love. Does love really make things warm?
Mommy read us our LITTLE EYES BIBLE, and I knew all of the answers when she asked the questions at the end. I let Josiah answer the really easy ones, so he would be happy. Mother read us our blessings, then held us close and sang Josiah’s favorite song that Mommy made up: ‘Precious Baby.’ Josiah said that song is Jakie’s now, but Mama said it is still ours, too.”*
If you have four children or more, you are probably very aware of how helpful older children can be with the younger ones. We trained our older children thoroughly in child care (parenting classes with us; babysitting training through the Red Cross; reading aloud family living books; listening to teaching tapes about relationships; etc.)—and they enjoyed helping with the littles. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that when my small ones first got up in the morning, they did not want Brother or Sister. They wanted Mom!
So my plan to have an older child each take a little and help him or her with morning routines, chores, grooming, etc. soon backfired on me. It worked out okay at that moment most of the time, but my putting the littles off until I was done with some critical subject in school (which I tried tackling right off the bat) came back to haunt me about nine or ten o’clock when I had demanding toddlers and preschoolers who did not appreciate being “scheduled” later in the morning!
Thus, I revamped the schedule (I did that a lot in the past twenty-five years!) so that the babies, toddlers, and preschoolers had me first thing in the morning.** As the excerpt today shows, once the littles got up, I usually did something with them right away. We would often do our own little Bible/character lessons or reading before they even did their morning routines. I found that by nursing, rocking, reading, talking, singing, etc. to the six and under crowd right off the bat, they were more cooperative in their morning routines when the older kids helped them or dressed them, etc. –and they played more contentedly longer in the morning while I did other things (i.e. schooled the older kids).
Preschoolers and toddlers do not require large amounts of time as much as they require well-placed periods of time. “Mommy time” first thing in the morning for just a few minutes gave me a better morning with the other kids—and a more productive morning as well.
We have done our first thing in the morning time different ways through the years—sometimes I had the youngers wake up to morning reading times. This gave them a chance to wake up gradually, snuggle longer, and not have to rush into the day.
I also placed morning reading time directly after the morning routine time. This gave the kids incentive to get their morning routines done as diligence and promptness on their morning chart yielded more reading time with Mom.
Experiment with your preschooler’s and toddler’s schedules to see what works best in your scenario. (I found that what worked best often changed with the number of children, the personalities of them, the season, etc.) But see if more “Mommy time” first thing in the morning doesn’t make your entire day go more smoothly.
*For the complete story of “Jonathan’s Journal, follow this link: https://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-seventy-eight-introducing-jonathans.html
**Keep in mind an earlier post in which I suggest that parents, not children, determine when little ones go to bed and get out of bed.
by Donna | Apr 30, 2018
The scene was a common one for this “young mama” (then!) of five children ten and under (so far!): I worked my tail off all day long and still felt like a complete failure. My husband came home from a typical twelve hour day to my cries of “I didn’t get anything done today that I needed to do” and “I just don’t understand why I can’t get more done as long as the day is and as hard as I work.”
And once again, he answered with sweet words that pointed me to prioritizing, something that I was still in the process of learning: “Did you rock and feed the baby?” I nodded yes.
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