In our recent history lessons we talked about creation and how everything came into being.  We are a Christian family and we believe in creation and that God is the creator of all things.  After talk about the six days of creation, I went on to explain a little about evolutionary theory.  While in mid-sentence of explaining that some people believe we come from the pond scum, my oldest burst out laughing.  It was absolutely incredulous for him.  Pond scum?  Huh?  How bizarre.  He thought I was kidding and I had to pause and persuade him that real people out there do believe in naturalistic evolution.

What’s interesting to me is that many of us were educated in the public school system where the theory of evolution is taught as the ultimate truth.  As such, Christians often wrestle with “reconciling” what they are taught in government/secular schools against what the Bible teaches.  My son, on the other hand, didn’t have this challenge.  Having a clean slate, so to speak, the clarity of his mind was able to comprehend the absurdity of evolution.  This is fascinating to me.  A child can comprehend the impossibility and the incredulous nature of evolution whereas far more educated and “mature” people can’t (or won’t).

In the subsequent lesson we learned about dinosaurs.  We believe that dinosaurs once roamed the earth with humans, meaning dinosaurs and humans coexisted.  This is contrary to the popular and prominent understanding that dinosaurs were the only creatures on land and that they did not coexist with humans.  The Bible said that God created the sea, air, and land animals on fifth and sixth day of creation, wouldn’t the dinosaurs be included?  Man was created on the sixth day so this means both dinosaurs and man coexisted.  This is another fascinating truth.  Again, I explained that many scientists believe that dinosaurs existed by themselves and not with humans.

My oldest piped up and said, “Yeah, I know.  That’s what all my dinosaur books say.”

Then I posed the question, “If your dinosaur books said one thing and the Bible said another, what are we to believe?”

He promptly said, “The Bible is the only true book in the whole world so the Bible is right.”

I was so proud!  Even though I had expected him to tell me that the Bible was right, I certainly didn’t expect him to say that the Bible is the one true book in the whole world.  Ain’t this the truth?!!

I know some Christian parents are afraid to teach evolution or even have books with evolution idea in their home.  Even though I don’t subscribe to evolutionary theory, I believe we should teach our kids about it (as much as we should warn them about other false beliefs of the world around us).  We shouldn’t hide this from them because to do so, it’d be very shocking to their system should they learn it from somewhere else.  We shouldn’t be afraid of teaching or mentioning evolution because when we are diligent and faithful in teaching our children the ultimate truth, i.e., the Bible, they will see that anything that goes contrary to the truth in the Bible is not true.  We need not be afraid that we’ll have to “defend” the Bible — it can do a great job of it by itself.

I’m very glad to have such discussions with my children in our home school, and I hope to have more discussions of this sort in the future.

Our home school is in full swing since last Monday and the children are enjoying the new schedule and the new curriculum.  One of the not-so-new things we’ve implemented is circle time.  I first learned about circle time from Kendra’s site Preschoolers and Peace and immediately I took to it though I took the time to slowly implement it.  Currently Kendra is running a post that’s all about circle time and if you leave a comment, you just might win a copy of her Circle Time e-book.

Circle Time is simply a time where we gather in a circle (more like a convoluted circle or oval) to start school.  Obviously, you don’t need to sit in a circle, but you should sit in a way that all the kids can see mom.  During this time, you go through various subjects that you’d like to cover with all the kids (baby to 8 years old in our case).

For this school year, our Circle Time is as follows:

Start off with a hymn

We select a hymn of the week and sing the same song every morning.  Currently we’re singing “On Christ the Solid Rock.”  I play the hymn on the piano and the children are gathered around me to sing.  Those who can read are given a hymnal to sing along.  The non-readers just sit and hum the tune.

For those who can’t play the piano or other instruments, you can certainly sing in a cappella.  If you have trouble following a tune, you can use Susan Beisner’s Listen While We Sing CDs as your piano accompaniment.   Most familiar hymns are on those CDs, and the arrangements are consistent with the Trinity Hymnal.  We’ve found Ms. Beisner’s CDs to be a wonderful resource for family worship, background music, or home school use.

Memorize Bible Verses

Next, we read a chapter from Susan Hunt’s ABC Bible Verses and memorize the Bible verse from that chapter.  After the verse is mastered, we go back and review all the previously memorized verses.  The method I’ve employed in memorizing the verses with the children is to say the verse to them once and have them repeat after me.  Then I work with the oldest one to master the verse, followed by the next oldest, and so forth.  The baby is exempt in this case (for now!).  This method works well because my oldest can readily memorize a verse while the younger ones aren’t as skilled.  So, by the time I work with the youngest, she has already heard the verse many times.  Often she’s able to recite the verse back to me as soon as I call on her name.

Prayer

I pray with the children using a prayer box.  In this box I keep a deck of index cards.  Each day we pick two people to pray for.  I write the person’s name on one side of the card and in the back I write a specific prayer concern and date.  We are currently working through a big list of people.  Eventually we’ll cycle through all the people in our prayer box.

Chinese

We’re using “Chinese Made Easy for Kids” for our Chinese curriculum.  I go through about one lesson per day.  Everyone is to practice saying the words, and only the oldest one is required to learn how to write.  I typically work with the oldest one after Circle Time to write his Chinese characters.

History Lesson

We use Mystery of History (Volume 1) by going through a lesson each day.  Everyone listens and asks questions.  After the lesson, only the oldest one is required to write a summary of the lesson on an index card, which is filed in a index card binder for later review.

Our Circle Time lasts about one hour, which is just the right time for our kids.  Any longer would make the children antsy.

After Circle Time, I work with the two oldest on math, reading, writing, grammar, and spelling.  The younger ones are free to play in the meantime.

This system seems to work well for us.  We’re pretty flexible with our schedule which is why there’s no specific time associated with each subject.

I’ve been feeling beaten down of late.  Each day with its unique and some not-so-unique challenges make me grow weary.  There were days where I went to bed feeling dejected and not looking forward to another day of challenges.  Let’s face it, taking care of five little ones, homeschooling, and managing a household are just hard.

Rather than wallowing in depression, I’m reminded of God’s mercies being made new for each day:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

(Lamentations 3:22-23)

God is faithful and even though we mess up, his mercies are extended for another day to make amends.  Whether you’re feeling beaten down by your work, school, home life, or whatever, God’s mercies are renewed day by day.  This is the truth we can trust in.

Lois has been working on Scripture memorization with the kids lately, using Susan Hunt’s excellent book, My ABC Bible Verses, which teaches a new verse each chapter that starts with a subsequent letter of the alphabet.

The most recent verse starts with the letter ‘B,’ from Matthew 5:9:

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.

By way of background, our 3-year-old daughter Calissa tends to be last in line during memorization time, so by the time it gets to her, she sorta has already picked up on the verse because her 3 older siblings have had to recite it clearly.

This evening, over the dinner table, Lois decided to quiz just Calissa on “Matthew 5:9.”    Calissa said in response, “Blessed are the cheesemakers for they will be called sons of God!”

“Cheesemakers?!” we said.

At which she giggled knowingly and added, “Matthew 5:9!”

But she didn’t stop there.

She pointed at her oldest brother Matthew… then pointed at each of her other siblings, and then said,

“Andrew 5:9!”

“Emmie 5:9!

“Bethany 5:9!”

Finally she finished triumphantly, “Calissa 5:9!”

Silly girl.  What a rascal!