Bible in everything?

 


I am frequently asked about the way we home educate. We are not a workbook or classical method family, so this confuses people as it is what the are familiar with. I am not an unschooler, in my opinion that is too lax and breeds problems. I am delight-directed and a bit traditional at the same time. The questions seem to mostly center around how I integrate so much Bible into our day. I have read a lot of homeschool books on this and that method and none of them really struck a chord. They had great ideas and philosophies, but seemed to not really ring true to what I felt the Lord wanted for His children to be educated. At one point, I gave in and spent a big chunk of change to buy the book Heart Of wisdom Teaching Approach by Robin Sampson. After reading it, I can honestly say that I was already doing a lot of the ideas in there regarding Bible focus and such. But- there was some great material for making the teaching of scripture accessible through your entire school time. I found that helpful.
In our home, my children finish their responsibilities for the morning and then read their Bibles for 15 minutes before they can have breakfast. Then we begin the more official school time. School means lots of Bible. Bible reading, study and copywork. School also means we use a writing program, language arts, math and some science. Writing and science are sporadic.
When we read the Bible, I stop and interject. It is part of the whole studying process- for us at least! I also re-read parts again right after interjecting so we get more in the flow again and also for them to hear it again with the new insight they now have. Sometimes I ask their opinions or thoughts first, but mainly I go with flow of it. God led. If you read the Bible with your family, you will sense His leading and it will work for your family however He moves it along.

We take notes during Bible time, but it is harder for my 8yr old. It is a struggle often and I need to help him with what is relevant. He does love going back and reading his notes. We get out our timelines I bought of world history and Biblical history and we get out other resources, too. Whatever seems to "fit".

I guess it should be said that if you were to use a specific curriculum, it would be your GUIDE or just a TOOL. Curriculum is really not necessary and I find the suggestions do not make a good fit for us, but they do give me ideas and the curriculum as a whole keeps me on track with a general guide.
For example, we did not make an outline of the Old Testament for lesson 1 in our curricula. We made index cards for each child and numbered them to keep track of the order they put them in. We got out the Biblical history timeline and found out the actual order of events. We put the actual order number on each index card to see how we did.
They were excited to see how they compared to the correct order and were really into studying the family tree that stretched through the timeline.
So, as you see, whatever the plan was, it can be tweaked in many ways and still get the same or similar result.

Just settle into your groove and let God take the reigns. He is the one who led you to homeschool and wants what is best for your children even more than you do.