First I have to say thank you for your emails and comments and prayers and tweets and Facebook comments the other day. I appreciate you more than you could know. And I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who blows it BIG TIME as a mama.
In God's perfect ways, he's used it to clear the air and Audrey and I are connecting and talking better than we have in a long time. He is good!
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The girls worked so hard at school yesterday. They really buckled down and persevered and were diligent--and I'm so proud of them. And told them so a lot.
(Here's that Spiritual Mothering thing coming into play--It's not enough to THINK it, we've gotta SAY it when it comes to encouragement!)
When we started school back in August, our Bible curriculum started us reading through the book of John together. And instead of just reading it, we've really been studying it together.
(blurry--sorry!)
The girls have done a couple of things with John:
- They've kept an outline, summarizing the sections we've read in their own words (and learning about outline form along the way).
- They've kept a list of all the names of Jesus found in the Gospel of John--there are a bunch!
- They've followed all the action on a map of Israel and learned to read the text carefully for clues about when and where things happen.
- They've learned to pay attention to repeated phrases and ideas in the text. ("I tell you the truth" is a big one in John, along with the phrase "his time had not yet come." When the girls saw "his time had come" they knew immediately something big was about to happen.)
And all the while, they've been reading out loud, working on tone and inflection and pronunciation and all that good stuff.
Well, we finished John last week. The lesson plans have us starting 1 Samuel now.
So yesterday, I taught them a little bit about the book--the context, its place in Israel's history, the kinds of stories it includes. And instead of outlining the book, we're going to do something a little bit different.
Instead of reading each small section together each day, the girls will be using the day's section for their quiet time and making notes in their journals.
I'm so excited about this!
At the beginning of each week, I'll list each day's reading so they can find it quickly and easily. And I listed the kinds of things they should be noting.
We're going with answering WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW. They'll note any questions they have about the text, and write out any verse that stands out to them that they want to remember.
They know that because 1 Samuel is a narrative, they may have more than one WHO in a story. (Hello, chapter 1: Elkanah, Hannah, Penninah, Eli, Samuel!) They can pick one or more than one. I left it up to them so it doesn't get overwhelming.
This is all familiar to them from the time I spoke at their chapel last year about being Bible detectives. But no mustache yesterday! Confused? Go check out this post.
Then during our Bible lesson, they'll ask their questions and we'll search for the answers together. (Why did Elkanah have more than one wife? What does it mean to be weaned?)
Before they know it, they'll be experts at inductive Bible study method!
They started yesterday and did a great job. It was fun to see that they chose different WHOs for chapter 1 and so they were great listeners when it came time for them to share with each other what they'd written down.
