On our bibleprinciples elist I was asked for the nitty-gritty of our days. I’ve placed parts of that answer over here, to not make that post way too long, especially the details of our family worship times. As I noted in that post, every single thing isn’t done every single day, but this is our typical pattern, and what we work toward daily. Here’s how we teach when we lie down and rise up.
I like to begin our day the night before – remember God said it was “evening and morning the first day….”
Our evening family time consists of: Family discussion about the day and upcoming things, a chapter from a family read-aloud – “life changing literature”, a Psalm (or more than 1), and prayer together – including prayer that God will pull it all together! Usually each family member prays each night.
We are currently reading the Crown and Covenant series by Douglas Bond. It is historical fiction telling the stories of the Scottish Covenanters. We many times read “Rare Collectors” from Lamplighters. Last year’s highlight was the Kingdom series by Chuck Black.
We begin the morning with each person doing their own devotions – Bible reading and prayer. A Bible reading schedule that has us all reading the same chapters is awesome, but it doesn’t always work that way. Little ones can use a tape/CD or mom or older person can read to them. We encourage the children to journal their devotions. Little ones can draw. The older ones can follow the pattern set out in our Redeeming the Time forms – Read, Rewrite, Relate, Recite.
When we come together we have a Family Altar time: Opening with Prayer, Worship (singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs), Wisdom-Proverb of the Day, Scripture Recitation, Catechism study, Daily Prayer Focus – we pray for different areas each day, and each person writes a daily journal of what God is teaching them through Life and Learning studies. The little ones are required to be a part of all this, they can draw pictures of “what God is teaching them.”
Our older girls and I used to read 5 Psalms and the Proverb of the day each morning. We can’t get that much in anymore. So we do our Psalm at night, and many times only 1, but I figure we will still get through the book of Psalms at least once, maybe close to twice a year.
I will also say about this morning time, I believe music is very important for “physical” and spiritual reasons. Music (well at least certain forms) opens our hearts to God and also our minds to learning. Well balanced music helps our brains make connections between those creative and orderly parts of our brain and helps us remember. We begin with psalms and hymns to “enter His gates with praise” and play low level classical music through most of the day, at least as we get the day, and our brains, going. This is a good time to do music/ instrumental practice also – they usually snatch a few minutes each, in between their clean-up chores, and practice longer later.
