I recently posted a Children’s Books Shopping List for my trips to Half Price Books and the library book sales. As the Advent and Christmas seasons are swiftly approaching in a few short weeks, I’d like to be on the lookout for some quality Christmas books to add to our family collection, so I… Continue Reading
We’ve started a brand new Facebook community, Religious Affections Family Resources, for Christian families to share and discuss the best in books, music, and educational resources for cultivating beauty and imagination in our children! In this group, we plan to share carefully selected resources from around the web (and print media), link to resource sales… Continue Reading
Our library book sale is coming up this month, plus I’ve been frequenting our local Half Price Books, so I recently made myself a book list to take along anytime I’m doing book shopping. I’ve gleaned these books from Sarah Clarkson’s Read for the Heart (I explain why I like this better than Honey for… Continue Reading
August: August was back to school month for us as well as me getting ready to speak at a conference, so, while I didn’t get much read, two out of three of my books were excellent. Caught Up in a Story by Sarah Clarkson I bought this after listening to Sarah on a podcast at… Continue Reading
Today I’m here with my curriculum recommendations for first, second, and third grade. I realize that I haven’t done curriculum recommendations for kindergarten yet, and I will do a post for that soon, but I didn’t use nearly as much curricula for kindergarten as for these other grades, so I’m going to start here. I’ve… Continue Reading
This is a series to further explain the articles of “A Conservative Christian Declaration.” . We affirm the necessity of passing these values to our children through regular catechesis, in faithful family worship, and by welcoming all ages into the corporate worship of our churches (Deut. 6:7, Eph. 6:4). Children learn rightly ordered worship and have… Continue Reading
Today I’m back with another history curriculum review. So far we’ve looked at Veritas Press History, Story of the World, and Mystery of History. In this review, I’ll examine Classical Conversations history. I have been receiving Classical Conversations catalogs in the mail for some time now. (If you homeschool or would like to, I’d strongly… Continue Reading
My wife and I started family worship when our first child was very young, and I’m so glad we did. We started by calling it “Bible time” (a term we still often use), we’ve had periods of inconsistency, and our methods have varied, but the discipline of gathering together each evening for Bible reading, singing,… Continue Reading
My wife and I have tried to make Scripture memory a part of our family worship times, but we’ve struggled over the years to make this consistent. We began when our children were very young simply reciting through whole chapters of the Bible together every day, and this was actually very effective in memorizing large… Continue Reading
The new year brings renewed commitments, and hopefully one of your renewed commitments is dedicated time for family worship. I cannot stress the importance of gathering together as a family to read Scripture, sing, pray, and other profitable spiritual endeavors. Parents are sometimes at a loss as to what are the best resources to use… Continue Reading
As I am contemplating what textbooks we will use next year for our homeschooling (yes, I plan this far ahead so that I can take advantage of winter and early spring sales as I find them), I’ve been increasingly impressed with Memoria Press. I’ll be reviewing their history curriculum as part of my Teaching Your… Continue Reading
In my last post I examined Veritas Press History. Today, I want to take a look at Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. It’s another popular choice with homeschoolers (though this series isn’t just for homeschoolers), and I’ve also seen it used in Christian schools. Story of the world is written by someone with a Christian worldview and is… Continue Reading
Several years ago, I was burdened about the need to focus the attention of our children away from the materialistic influences of Christmas. That task is a daunting one to say the least in our consumer-driven society. We do not withhold Christmas gifts from our children, and we thoroughly enjoy the Christmas holidays. However, I desired… Continue Reading
Friday we announced the publication of a new Christmas devotional for individuals or families, authored by Pastor Taigen Joos. This daily devotional, which includes 25 readings for the month of December along with the full scores of 25 accompanying hymns, is perfect to purchase for your whole church family! Toward that end, we have created… Continue Reading
Evangelicals bemoan the fact that a “generation gap” exists between older and younger professing believers. But could it be that the older believers have actually created the problem? Two problems exist: Children and teenagers do not care for solid hymns or long sermons, and modern young people’s sacred music has been severely dumbed down. Which… Continue Reading
I have one more introductory post before I begin reviewing different history curricula. In this post I will give some basic criteria for a good history curriculum. Again, this series is not just for homeschoolers! In my previous posts I’ve talked about the importance of teaching children to love history and why history must be… Continue Reading
The word paradigm is used literally as a grammatical term, but it can also be used metaphorically to refer to a shared set of basic assumptions. A paradigm shift occurs when a community rejects its old assumptions in favor of a new set. The perspective of the community changes and it sees the world differently… Continue Reading
How can you get your child to love history? Or, better stated, how can you teach your child to love history? We, as parents, are responsible for instructing our children in what is worthy of love! That, among other reasons, makes the parent the child’s true and best teacher, whether or not you homeschool. Well, maybe the… Continue Reading
This week, Calvary Baptist Church is hosting its annual Vacation Bible School, so I thought I’d say a word or two about the privilege and challenges of ministering to children. The faith of a child is precious thing, and should be cultivated with the utmost care. It is my hope that my own children and… Continue Reading
Since coming as the Associate Pastor of Bethany Bible Church of Hendersonville, North Carolina, in 2010, I have seen first hand a unique ministry created by the vision of the senior pastor here, Greg Stiekes, and his wife Rena. Truly, the word “unique” is not used in vain in describing this week-long ministry to children… Continue Reading