Devotional & Personal Gospel Study

In our home school, we follow the pattern set in my home when I was being homeschooled, and we have a devotional each morning.   There have been lots of times when I've tried to shorten this, or take it out of our school day, but over the years I've realized that this is the largest reason that I home school my children - so I can have time with them each day to teach them the gospel. 

“Our children should be indoctrinated in the principles of the Gospel from their earliest childhood. They should be made familiar with the contents of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. These should be their chief textbooks, and everything should be done to establish and promote in their hearts genuine faith in God, in His Gospel and its ordinances, and in His works. But under our common school system this is not possible.”

--Wilford Woodruff, Messages of the First Presidency, Jun. 8, 1888

There are lots of parts of our school day that I still need to do better at, but we have found a devotional schedule that really works for our family.  It does take a fair amount of time, and that's why I've been tempted many times to neglect it, but the feeling in our home during devotional is something I really treasure.  

Here is our schedule.  We really do it just like this.  This is one part of our day that is a constant. We actually have it on a  "three week" schedule - this is necessary to make sure everyone gets a turn to do each thing. But the blog was trying to be difficult when I tried pasting the three week schedule in, so you just get to look at "week 1".  The other weeks are the same, just different names, songs, scriptures, etc.

	Week 1
	Mon	Tue	Thu
Opening Hymn	"The Books of the Old Testament"
Led by	Aliysa	Jace	Courtney
Opening prayer	Jace	Courtney	Spencer
Storied Scriptures	(Mom reads / everyone draws)
Pledge of allegiance	Courtney	Spencer	Mallory
Patriotic Song	"My Country 'Tis of Thee"
Led by	Spencer	Mallory	Zach
Poem of the Week
Recited by	Mallory	Zach	Andrew
Memorization	Zach	Andrew	Abby
Scripture recitation	Genesis 1:1; Moses 1:39 (seminary)
Talk & testimony	Andrew	Abby	Taycie/Mom
Conference connection
Closing Song	"All Things Bright and Beautiful"
Led by	Abby	Taycie/Mom	Aliysa
Personal gospel study
Journals

We do devotional on Wednesdays also, but that is the day that my older children are at seminary and piano lessons, so I just do it with the younger children.  On Fridays, we are planning to quiz each other on our scripture mastery and scripture facts on the way to our gymnastics classes.

Most of this schedule is pretty self explanatory, but here are notes about some of it:

We use the Church website's music page as an accompaniment for our opening hymn & closing primary song.  I choose songs that go along with the scriptures we are memorizing.

Storied Scriptures - this is where I read to my children from the Old Testament, and they draw a picture in a scripture sketchbook of what I am reading.  We use the "storied scriptures" schedule from this LDS homeschool site  We often discuss what we are reading as we go along.

Memorization - I encourage each of my children to be memorizing something that they can share in devotional when it is their turn.  This is also when we practice parts for the primary program, or have them practice performing something that they are learning in outside classes, etc.  

Talk & Testimony - This is when someone gives a short spiritual thought or talk, and then they bear their testimony.  It is true that often "a testimony is to be found in the bearing of it". (Boyd K. Packer) so that is why I have them bear their testimony.  It also helps them not to feel embarrassed to share it outside of our home.  

I often remind my children to notice how they feel when someone is bearing a testimony, or to notice how they feel when they say the things in their testimonies.  I'll ask them "how did you feel when you said that you know that Jesus lives?"  

This is just a personal preference, but I don't let them start their testimonies with "I'd like to bear my testimony..."  I think that phrase is often a vain meaningless repetition. I really do not mind when I hear other people say it at church (I'm just happy that they want to bear their testimony), but I'm trying to get my children out of the habit.

Conference connection - I started this when I felt that we needed to review the conference talks more often throughout the year.  My intent was to choose a conference talk, and do a short object lesson, or tell a story from the talk, and then share a few quotes from the talk.  

More often, though, we usually just watch a "Mormon Message" on my laptop & discuss it.  These short videos are excellent!  I've been brought to tears many times while watching them.  We recently watched the one about "flecks of gold", and I felt a feeling that that is kind of what I am doing in devotional - just helping my children feel the spirit day after day.  It was a great reminder that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass".  

Personal Gospel Study - After devotional, I send each of the children into a different spot in the house with their scriptures & other gospel study materials (like "Preach my Gospel", Personal Progress or Duty to God books, The Picture Bible*, Church magazines, etc.)  We set the timer for 30 minutes, and they study.  I've asked them to pray first, then read the BofM for at least 5 minutes (they also read for 5 minutes as part of their morning chores), and then choose what else they want to study.  

I sit on the couch with the littlest ones and read from the Illustrated Scripture Story Books, and other scripture books, then help them with their journals (they dictate, and I write, then they draw a picture of what they wrote about.) The 30 minutes passes way too quickly, and everyone is always reluctant to stop studying.  

I will say that this part of our day (children's personal scripture study) is something that took a long time to implement.  We've been good about family scripture study & prayers for a long time, but over and over, I kept feeling that if I wanted my children to have testimonies of their own, then I needed to make sure they had quiet time each day to study the scriptures.   

“Do you want to feel the love of God more powerfully in your life? Do you want to feel more in tune with His Spirit? Do you want to have the heavens opened to you daily?  There is a way you can feel a daily renewal of God’s everlasting love and drink from “the fountain of living waters” (1 Nephi 11:25). It follows a pattern set by the Prophet Joseph Smith when he went to a grove of trees early one morning in 1820 seeking answers to his questions. I speak of a morning devotional time spent in prayer, meditation, and scripture study. If you have a devotional every morning, even if only for a few minutes, you will be deeply blessed. I know this to be true.” -Opening the Heavens, By Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi, Of the Seventy

*A note about The Picture Bible:  My husband read this book with illustrations that look like comic-strips when he was young, and he knows the Bible stories so well.  He absolutely loves the Old Testament, and he credits this book with helping him learn to love it.  It stays quite close to the King James Version of the Bible, and while it cuts out a few rougher parts of some Bible stories, it doesn't "dumb it down" for children.  

Journals - Technically, we meet back in the school room for journal writing time after the 30 minutes, but lately several of my children have been taking their journals with them during scripture study time & just writing in them then.  I like to be with them so they can ask for spelling help, but we may try having the older ones just write in them during study time, we'll see.  

So, that is how we start our school day.  The academic subjects come next. 

The Ideal Schedule

Here's our school schedule, as planned:

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu
8:30	Mallory's kid class	Zach's kid class	BAJ at seminary	Devotional
8:45			C-Leave for piano
9:00	Devotional		Financial Peace Jr.	Personal Gospel Study
9:15
9:30	Children's Personal Gospel Study			Journals/spelling
9:45				Writing & Workbooks, math
10:00	Journals & Spelling
10:15	English  (grammar lesson, workbooks, writing)		Get ready for iFamily (dinner in crock pot)
10:30				German (JCSMZ), Chinese, Typing, & blog (A)  Little ones lessons & read alouds
10:45	Math		Sandwiches/soup
11:00			Leave for iFamily
11:15	Bean soup/salad	Chic. soup/Salad bar
11:30	Clean up	Clean up		Bkd potato bar/chili
11:45	Kid classes: Courtney, Aliysa	Kid classes: Spencer, Jace		Clean up
12:00			iFamily classes (12-5)	Abby & Andrew's kid classes
12:15
12:30	Readers	Readers		Readers
12:45	Quiet Study time (iFam assignments, reading, music) Ages 7 & younger-quiet time on beds			Quiet Study time
1:00
1:15
1:30
1:45	Bathrooms	Laundry & read-alouds		Laundry & read-alouds
2:00
2:15	Veggie plate	Muffins	Granola Bars	Snack sandwiches
2:30	Read-alouds			Read alouds

I'd love to say that it goes like clockwork every day (ha ha).  Of course, it doesn't.  But this plan helps me to get a lot more done than I would otherwise.  It gives us something to shoot for.  This morning we spent a lot more time on our first "kid class" than planned, just because we were really enjoying it and learning a lot.  However, I believe in Charlotte Mason's philosophy about the value of keeping lessons short, interesting, and focused.  That's why we plan only 15-30 minutes for some subjects.

8:30 - 3:00 seems like a really long school day, but in all actuality, this includes all of their subjects, plus learning about the gospel, writing in journals, eating together, reading together, and even some housework. We're actually only spending around 3 hours a day on the "academic" subjects.

Fridays we go to gymnastics, and the kids do their gospel study on the way there.  We bring some learning activities, games, or "homework" to work on while we're there.  My older children also get to do baptisms at the temple that day, and we're planning to start going to the library on Fridays also.

We try to have some "outside time" every day, either right after read-aloud time, or after dinner.  I am a sane mother when I get a daily walk (the kids ride their bikes, rollerblade, or bring scooters).

Some mornings we don't get going on time, and that's okay.  The beauty of home school is that we can make it work for whatever is happening in our home, with our family, on any given day or week.

Kid classes

This year, we started a new part of our homeschool day.  We call it "kid classes".  Each of my children got to choose a subject that they wanted to learn about.  It was amazing to see the breadth of subjects that are covered in what they chose:

Aliysa wanted to learn about the country Tonga (geography!).  When we first started school, we didn't get to her class that day, so we decided to make it into a Family Home Evening Lesson that evening.  We located Tonga on the map, and read some of this article from lds. org:
A Land of Believing People
and visited this blog from parent's of Bob's brother-in-law, Britt, who served a mission to Tonga:
http://hawleydayz.blogspot.com/

Aliysa is in love with this country.  She has decided that she must visit there, live there, or marry a Tongan. :)

Jace decided to learn about Marine Life (Biology! Science!), so we purchased this book that I've wanted for a long time: Exploring Creation:  Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day

We started on it today, and each of our children drew pictures of marine animals in their nature notebooks while I read the first lesson.  I love that these books are Faith-based.  We're going to go through this book and do the experiments, and complete the lessons throughout this year.  We're also planning on re-watching the Planet Earth video segments about the oceans, rivers, etc.

Courtney chose to learn about engineering, specifically electrical engineering.  We chose this book:
Engineering For Every Kid

We've just begun reading this, and we'll be starting the experiments this week.

Spencer chose to learn about Ancient Greece and Rome, which worked out perfectly since we were planning on studying ancient history this year.  We have lots of books for a history unit on this topic, but the one we started with is: Augustus Caesar's World

Mallory kept kidding around whenever I would ask her what she wanted to do for her kid class.  "I want to learn about inflatable pigs!" she kept insisting.  Finally, I decided that we would turn that into a class.  I purchased some inflatable farm animals, a book about plastic, and surprised her the first day of school by handing out inflatable pigs, reading the book about plastic, and watching a YouTube video about how inflatable jump houses are made.  I won't link to the video, because there was one inappropriate comment made by the hosts of the video (luckily it went right over all my children's heads).  We actually learned a lot - pretty fascinating to learn about something you might never even think about otherwise.

Zachary, our astronomy buff, wanted to learn about black holes.  We bought a book about black holes, and read it with a grain of salt.  We've realized that there isn't really a lot that is known for sure about black holes.  Really, it is a lot of theories.  (My Dad doesn't believe most of any of the theories, we're looking forward to talking to him about his own theories about black holes).  We're planning to schedule a fieldtrip sometime next month to the BYU-I planetarium to watch a show about black holes.

Andrew wanted to learn about "choo choo" trains, so we got a book about trains, a coloring book, and a cute set of plastic trains.  Today we got out his train set that has been packed away in the attic for a while and the children played with it for hours.

Abby wanted to learn about hummingbirds.  We've had a hummingbird feeder up for a while, and she thinks the birds are ever so neat.  I found a fun book about a mother hummingbird, "First Flight", a Mother Hummingbird's Story".  We have really enjoyed reading this book together.  We also got some hummingbird stickers (which taught us about 17 different kinds of hummingbirds!  I never knew there were so many!), and we've drawn pictures of these hummingbirds in our nature journals.

We start our day with one "kid class" so that everyone wants to get to school on time.  Then, after lessons (theoretically), we do two more kid classes.  Mallory, Courtney and Aliysa are on Monday, Zach, Spencer, and Jace on Tuesday, and then Abby, Andrew, and I get to do ours on Thursdays.

For my "kid class", I'm going to do the "Financial Peace Jr." (Dave Ramsey) course with my younger kids.  We haven't gotten to that class yet, though. 

Starting these "kid classes" has given our home school a spark, and renewed everyone's love of learning.  It has given everyone something to look forward to.  It is a non-stress way of learning that makes it easy to incorporate writing, art, reading, and so many other subjects into our day.

2012 School Schedule

This is our daily school plan for this year:

"Kid class" or Art 
Devotional

Personal Gospel Study

Journals

Spelling

English Lesson

Workbooks

Writing

Math

-Lunch Break-

Kid Classes

Readers

Quiet Study Time

Laundry & Read-alouds

Music Practice

Each day we are getting more and more of this schedule completed.  In future posts, I'll explain each of these subjects in more detail.

Weekly Poem

Our poem that we are memorizing this week for school is by an unknown author:

"All the water in the world,

No matter how it tried,

Could never sink the smallest ship

Unless it got inside.

All the evil of the world,

And every kind of sin,

Can never harm a human soul

Unless we let it in."

First day of school

 We started school on Monday.  Yes, it was Labor day, but we were all too excited to wait another day.

 While we were doing school, the Muhlestein's showed up with the perfect back-to-school....

 ...homemade crayons!

 Yum!  (We thought they were real crayons at first!) 

I had really lowered my expectations for our first day of school, just because we'd had such a crazy summer schedule.  I thought it was going to take forever to get back into a good school schedule.  So, I set two goals for the day - be patient, and talk kindly.  

Our first day actually went so well! I was amazed.

After a super morning doing school, we did enjoy our labor day by going to the lake with our friends, the Seeley's. 

 HI ALIYSA!!!

 And ended the evening with a delicious dinner - curried chicken, couscous, salad...

...and a family home evening treat - grapes with Zoi honey flavored Greek yogurt.  If you've never had this type of Greek yogurt, you might not want to try it.  Because, you'll never be happy with any other kind of yogurt.  Zoi is...indescribably delicious.  

School 2012

We are getting so excited for school to start!  This year all of our children were able to get into classes with our weekly homeschool group.  Here is our schedule for iFamily this year:

Tasha	Aliysa	Jace	Courtney	Spencer	Mallory	Zach	Andrew	Abby
Teach Personal finance	Advanced acting	Personal Finance	Science Alive	Boys Sewing	(Babysit for Mom)	Book Bugs	(Play quietly in Mom's class)	Music to the core
			Project Knitting	Narnia	Love of Music	M&M	M&M	M&M
Teach Nature Study	Chemistry	Chemistry				Nature Study	Nature Study	Nature Study
			Sewing		(Nature Study)
				Geography	Music Around the World	Music Around the World
	Worldviews	iShakespeare
			Teach Creative Corner		Spanish		Creative Corner	Creative Corner

I am teaching a personal finance class for junior-high and high-school aged students, using the Dave Ramsey course.   I am also so excited to be teaching a "nature study" class for little ones up to age 8.  We will be going outside every week, and learning about insects, seeds, flowers, clouds, etc.  Registration for iFamily was crazy this year (we need a bigger building and more classes!).  I had around 50 children wanting to sign up within a few minutes.  I was able to split the class, use another room, and find another mom to take the second class.  So, now there are around 60 children and their moms looking forward to nature study!

All of the kids will also be taking gymnastics each week, and going to do baptisms at the temple each week after gymnastics. 

This year we're starting a new thing in our home school - called "kid classes".  Each child gets to choose something they want to learn about, and then they get time during homeschool to have a "class" on that subject.  Any of the other children can join in if they are interested, but if they aren't, then they can go study something else during that time.

The topics our children chose are: Aliysa-Tonga, Jace-Marine life, Courtney-Engineering/electricity, Spencer-Ancient Rome & Greece, Mallory- still deciding, Zach-Black holes (he is an outer space buff), Andrew-Choo Choo trains, Abby- (she took about 1 second to decide what her "kid class would be)  "Hummingbirds!  That fly around in the sky, and are so pretty, and drink from our hummingbird feeder!  Then I want to learn about butterflies! And then..."
Aliysa is looking forward to school this year. She'll be in a play this spring as part of her advanced acting class, she'll be having a great time learning about Chemistry at iFamily and at home, and her worldviews class will give her a great opportunity to learn and grow.  In addition to iFamily classes and gymnastics, she is taking a community class at BYU-I about "Writing and illustrating children's books".

She is quite interested in writing books.  (We're hoping she'll come up with something a little more marketable than her recent endeavor - a child's book about a tapeworm that gets cut in half by a boy's shovel.  He goes on with his life and eventually meets up with another worm, that turns out to be his back end, grown in to another worm.  Her illustrations for that book were darling - it was such a cute little tapeworm. (!)  I honestly don't know where she comes up with these things.)

Jace has been working lots this summer doing yard work for neighbors, and helping Bob remodel the triplex. He is on the 9th grade football team, so he practices with the high school team now.  He just finished "2 a day" practices.  It was grueling, 4+ hrs a day, but he survived it and is looking forward to his first game next week.  He is also taking German, working to earn his Eagle Scout award this year, and will be taking driver's ed.  He was hired to be an assistant at gymnastics this year, so each Friday he'll be helping in all the classes.  He is looking forward to his Shakespeare class - the women who teach it are incredibly talented.  Last year's production was excellent! 

Courtney taught a preschool this summer, which she enjoyed and learned a lot from.  She continued with piano lessons this summer, and is quite diligent about practicing.  She is also teaching herself to play the violin.  She is helping her friend Keziah teach a class at iFamily for preschool-aged children called  "Creative Corner".  She'll also be taking Science Alive (studying Galileo), Project knitting (she has such a fun teacher, she loves her knitting class!), and sewing from her sewing teacher who she adores.

Spencer has been Bob's right-hand man this summer, helping to remodel the triplex we purchased.  He is such a hard worker!  When he's not working, he spends a lot of his time playing in the river with his friends.  He also started his first year of "Grid Kid" football, with Bob as his coach.  Their first game is tomorrow.  Spencer surprised me by choosing "boys sewing" over a science class at iFamily this year (he loves math and science), but he told me that he loved his sewing class so much last year, that he has to continue with it this year.  He is also taking "Discovering Narnia", where they will read all the Chronicles of Narnia, write papers about them, discuss them, and look for the symbolism and meaning in the books.  His geography class looks like fun, they'll study US geography first semester, then World geography the 2nd semester, and end the year with a Geography Bee.  Spencer has been enjoying his last year of Cub Scouts - he has great leaders who've helped him earn all 20 of the Weblos badges, plus earn his arrow of light, and work on his Faith in God award.  He is learning German again also with our fun teacher, Brother Breckenridge.  

Mallory is excited to be taking a "Love of Music" class where she will learn to play the recorder, plus learn about different instruments and some music history.  She will help with my nature study class too, and take Music around the World where they study different cultures through music and dance and other activities.  She is taking a fun Spanish class as well as learning German here at home.  Mallory will be involved with a "Liberty Girls" group (girls her age) again this year.  They are reading the book "Understood Betsy" this semester, and they get together twice a month to discuss the book and do fun activities that go along with it.  She is also taking piano lessons from Courtney.

Zach continues with his two main interests - sports and outer space.  He reads his space books over and over, and excitedly looks for constellations.  It is so fun.  He is excited to take classes at iFamily:  Book bugs - where they read a children's book, then have activities to go along with it, "Music and Movement" which is basically a 1/2 hr. music and dance party for little ones, nature study, and Music Around the World.  He has been joining in a bit with German class as well.

Andrew will be taking Music and Movement, Nature Study, and Creative Corner.  He is still my cuddly little guy, who always wants to be with me.  He loves writing, reading, and is so excited for school to start because he gets to learn about "choo choo trains". 

Abby is just as cute and talkative as ever, and has all sorts of plans for "school".  She spends a large part of her day in pretend, imaginative play with her dolls.  She is always tucking them in for a nap, nursing them, or putting them in the shopping cart or stroller.  Taycie is happy when Abby is pre-occupied with her dolls, because when she isn't, she is trying to haul Taycie all over the house.  (Abby is undeterred by Taycie's loud protests.).

We are excited for this upcoming busy school year!!  I'm not ready for our summer evening walks to end, but I am ready for more of a structured schedule.