If these past few months of quarantine have taught us anything, it’s to appreciate all the extra time we’ve been able to spend together as families. Many parents have had time to stop and reevaluate what’s really important for their family life. Despite the hardship of isolation from neighbors, coworkers, friends, and church family, we have all learned invaluable lessons. As this unique trial eases or continues, let’s hold on to these lessons and allow God to use them to strengthen our families so we can be growing stronger even in hard times.
Preparing Your Heart for the New School Year
It’s that time of year again—time to prepare for the new school year! Your next few weeks will be full of ordering textbooks, tests, worksheets. Shopping for the necessary school supplies. Mapping out the year’s schedule and determining start and end dates. Perhaps you’ve been talking to your children about the upcoming school year to mentally prepare them. Maybe they’ve started arranging their desks or other school spaces. As we make all these preparations, let’s take some time to focus on the most important way we can prepare—spiritually.
Beginning a new academic year is both exciting and challenging, and we need God’s help! So before we become engrossed in all the organizational details, let’s set aside time with our family to prepare our hearts as well as our minds. If our main goal in homeschooling is to glorify God, there’s no better way to prepare than by committing our school year to Him. [Read more…] about Preparing Your Heart for the New School Year
Making the Most of Breaks
We all need breaks—spaces of time where we step out of the regular routine and move into a different schedule, or perhaps no schedule at all. For a goal-minded homeschool parent, taking a break can lead to more stress than usual as kids have fewer tasks to occupy them. Let’s talk about a few different kinds of breaks, and discuss some tips for making the most of them.
The Adventure Break
This is the adventure you go on when you’re sick of all your usual haunts and familiar places. It’s a summer where you stuff backpacks with snacks and drinks and find all the trails you’ve never been on. Or you go to a different playground every day.
Your explorations might include visiting a nearby lake or waterfall, going horseback riding, taking a camping trip, or touring a historical site. A cave, a tunnel, a covered bridge, a rock formation, a nature preserve, a children’s museum, an arboretum—any point of interest within a day’s drive is fair game.
The best part? An adventure break often turns into an educational experience without much effort from you!
The “Anything Goes” Break
Sometimes, we all need a day or two where we do absolutely nothing useful. It’s the kind of break where kids get to do whatever they want all day long, with minimal rules. Maybe that’s extra TV or electronics while mom kicks her feet up and reads books. Maybe it’s take-out for every meal to minimize cleanup, and maybe you skip the household chores for a day or two.
The only trouble with this carefree break is that you eventually have to go back to normal, so be ready for that! Even so, this indulgent respite can be deeply refreshing and can help you appreciate your more structured way of life.
Peaceful, Purposeful Breaks
Perhaps the best summer break is a blend of adventure, activities, and rest. You can have days where you venture into the unknown, ready for anything, as well as days of quiet relaxation at home. Have some review papers and library books on hand for those hot summer afternoons. That way, your kids can keep their knowledge fresh. Puzzles, board games, Legos, water play, and art projects can keep kids busy for hours, even if you’re not feeling adventurous.
You could make a schedule for summer break. For example, some families prefer adventure in the morning and rest in the afternoon, while others prefer a day of adventure followed by a day of rest. Summer schedules differ for every family, especially if you have toddlers or babies in the mix. But the best experiences usually happen when you’re willing to bend the schedule, or toss it out altogether, and dive into a new experience with your children!
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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.
Beat the Heat Summer Activities for Kids
Summer is a time to get outside and enjoy the warm weather and sunshine. But what about those days when it’s just too hot or illness forces you to stay indoors? Here are some awesome indoor and outdoor summer activities for kids that help you beat the heat.
Mentos Geyser
This one is perfect for the backyard! All you need is a bottle of Diet Coke and some Mentos (at least half a pack). You can also use a geyser tube, which improves the effect, but it’s optional. Best of all, you are actually teaching about chemical reactions with this explosive activity! Find all the instructions for this experiment right here. And, if the kids get all messy in the explosion, you can have fun hosing everyone off.
Frozen Paint Cubes
Use an old ice tray to freeze diluted watercolors, and then let your kids have fun painting with the ice cubes as they melt! This summer activity is also great for the backyard. All you need is the ice tray and watercolors, and a large roll of craft paper to spread over the grass or patio.
Bikes and Bubbles
Maybe your kids are reluctant riders, but they won’t be any more with this summer activity! Purchase a bubble blower or use your own bubble-blowing expertise to create a haze of bubbles across a quiet neighborhood street or bike path. Your kids will enjoy riding through the bubbles over and over! For even more fun, angle a sprinkler across the path so your kids can ride their bikes through it and stay cool.
Indoor Scavenger Hunt
Design a scavenger hunt that will keep your kids busy all morning—or at least for an hour. You can use objects readily available in your home, or plant certain items for the kids to find. Create a scavenger hunt list, maybe with creative clues for them to decipher. This idea is very flexible, and setup can be adapted to fit the time and energy you have.
Indoor Laser Maze
Do you have a hallway in your home? Use painter’s tape and string or yarn to create a laser maze zigzagging across the length of it! Your kids will have fun trying to get through the maze without touching or pulling down the string “lasers.” The best part is that you can tweak the design over and over to make it more challenging and keep their interest.
Paper Plate Skating
Got hardwood or vinyl floors? Use dryer sheets or paper plates as “skates,” and let the kids skate around on them. Add interest with a little music in the background and an obstacle course to skate around. Or turn off the lights and mark out a path with glow sticks!
With a little imagination and these cool summer activities, you can beat the heat anytime!
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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.
4 Ways to Complete Hymn Studies
Have you ever thought about the origins of the hymns you sing? In addition to being songs of devotion and worship, hymns are works of literature. You can study their mechanics, structure, and artistic form just like you’d study any other poem. When doing hymn studies, you often will gain a deep blessing by the end of the hymn study. Explore four important ways that you and your kids can dive into the origins and design of familiar hymns.
Hymn Studies for the Writer’s Backstory
We don’t know the story behind every hymn, but thanks to the internet and other resources, you can usually find some facts about the writer and the events surrounding the hymn text’s creation. The stories of John Newton, Fanny Crosby, William Cowper, Frances Ridley Havergal, Charles Wesley, and others reveal the writers not as paragons of biblical virtue, but as real people whose struggles and tragedies drew them closer to God. You’ll find yourself inspired and encouraged by their stories, and no doubt your children will be fascinated as well! As you plan your hymn study schedule, consider including the stories and texts of more recent hymn writers, not just those from the Golden Age of Hymns.
The Historical Context
Context is important, whether you’re studying the Bible itself or other forms of literature and art. As you move through your hymn studies, explain to your children how people spoke during the time when the hymn was written. Perhaps they used more formal language, or pronounced certain words differently than we do today. Occasionally, with older hymns, you may encounter a word with a totally different modern meaning, and your hymn study can cover both definitions. Ask your children how and why they think that definition or pronunciation may have changed over time.
The Artistic Value
Depending on the age of your kids, you can keep this part simple or take a more literary approach. For younger kids, ask them to identify rhyming words at the ends of hymn lines. Your middle graders can point out the rhyme scheme, such as abab or abba; older kids can identify the hymn’s poetic structure (such as iambic vs. trochaic) and count the metric feet.
Ask your children to point out instances of alliteration or internal rhyme, and suggest that they circle words in the hymn that seem especially beautiful or poignant to them.
Hymn Studies for the Spiritual Benefit
One of the most rewarding parts of studying hymns is unwrapping the spiritual truths they contain. Your hymn study takes you through the process of appreciating the writer, the historical context, and the literary value, but ultimately the greatest blessing comes from the revelation of God’s timeless truth. To close your hymn study, have your kids each write down one special biblical truth they learned from exploring the hymn.
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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.