Isaiah 1:16-18 and more

First of all, I'm sorry I haven't posted, but we've been super-duper busy!  Grace is two days behind in her Bible Bee study of Jonah.  Melody is right where she belongs (day 5, week 9, if you're keeping track), and Charity is on Day 4, week 10.  Go figure!

I've visualized all the verses using my Scrapbook Max program, and I think they've turned out great!  I'll be showing you a few to help you get some ideas.

While it may look like a foreign language, we call this prompterizing.  It is the first letter of each word.  The pictures help to remember the main ideas as well.  This verse says, "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow. "Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool."  

Here is another example of prompterizing a verse. 

K.T.F. stands for Kind, Tenderhearted, and Forgiving.  Once again, we have just listed the first letter of each word in the verse.  

Hope this gives you a few ideas for memorizing!

Writing out Jonah

Well, this is the first year that we have actually tried to write out the Bible book that we are studying for the summer.  My oldest strongly dislikes writing and I knew it would be a battle with him, so I've always skipped it.  This year, he is teaching 5-Day Clubs with CEF, and the girls and I are working on Bible Bee together.  Bible Bee also came out with handwriting books for the youngest writers with the whole book of Jonah to trace.  My youngest two are working on that.

My 5 year old finished writing the whole book of Jonah during week 7.  She was so excited to be able to finish her whole book.  The other two are both in the second half of Jonah 4.  I'm thankful for the experience and what we've learned not only about Jonah from writing it out, but also about our own character and about perseverance and finishing a task once you start it.

In fact, I've enjoyed it so much, I'm thinking about having each of the children pick a Bible book to write out this year for handwriting in school.  Perhaps before they all graduate, we can have the whole Bible written out!

Here is a video of our 5 year old explaining about our new motivation system for our Jonah Bible study and verses.  She does such a good job with it, I need explain no further.

Some verses visualized

I meant to get more ideas for reviewing verses on here, but unfortunately I haven't been able to post for a while.  Anyhow, I'm back and focusing on Bible Bee verses today.  I went on my Scrapbook Max program and worked up a couple of verses that we need to work on.  Here are the results.

1 Peter 2:1-3

For this verse, I gave a few whole words for clues throughout the verse.  For the rest of the words, I only included the first letter.  I did leave all the punctuation in, because it helps me to know where we are if I see a comma or period in the verse. 

Luke 24:46-47

This time, I decided to delete every other word.  It isn't really challenging to fill in half the words, but it does make you think about what the verse says and hopefully what it means.  

On the Bible study front, Charity and Melody are on Week 7, Day 2--right where they should be.  Grace is on Week 6, Day 5--just two days behind.  Grace is not behind through any fault of her own.  I have to help her look up verses and read with her, and it is my fault that she is not caught up.  I haven't sat down with her and worked on it like I should have a couple days last week.  For their handwriting, they are all ahead of where they are supposed to be.  

Jonah's Map

I'll post a picture later, but we have a new incentive program for memorizing our verses that I wanted to tell you about.  We made a map of Jonah's travels from the Mediterranean Sea to Nineveh.  After dividing the path into squares, we are coloring them as we learn verses and do our Bible study.

We are all ahead on writing the book of Jonah!  This is the first time we have tried writing the book that we are studying like Bible Bee recommends.  It has been a good experience.  I am thankful that Bible Bee put together a journal with the book printed out to trace for the younger students.  My two youngest are using it and find it very helpful.  I think it has really help them to immerse themselves in Jonah. I can understand better why God commanded the kings of Israel to write their own copy of God's law.  You do notice things when you write it out that are easy to skim over when you are reading it.

I am planning out our school year for next year, and I've decided to let each of the kids choose a Bible book to write out for handwriting.  Hopefully, I can make pages for the younger ones to copy or trace again.  If they choose the book, they will probably be more interested in writing it.  I'll try to choose a book to write as well.  Maybe if we do this for enough years, we will have a complete Bible from our collective efforts!  That's a goal to work towards!

Our big fish is colored in!

Our Big Fish!

Yesterday, we finished coloring in our big fish.  We are so excited!  Now it is time for ice cream sundaes!

Really though, finishing our fish means so much more than that.  As the girls could see that we were getting close to the end, they really got excited about quoting their verses.  On the last day, Melody quoted 10 passages.  How wonderful that she has learned more of God's Word in these starting weeks this summer!  Grace and Charity also put extra work into memorizing and quoting their verses and are doing a great job.  

Hiding God's Word deep in the hearts of our family--that is what Bible Bee, big fish and this summer is really all about.  Speaking of family, our son isn't in Bible Bee this summer because he is teaching with CEF.  However, yesterday, he sat in the living room building with legos, and I heard him singing quietly.  Listening closer, I heard one of this year's Bible Bee verse songs.  Never, Ever, underestimate the power of music!  Praise God!  He is learning more of God's Word without even trying!

Now that our big fish is done, we are working on something new to keep track of our studies and memory work.  I think it is going to be pretty fun, so check back and see what we come up with.

Piers Gorge video

Here is a video I put together of the pictures from our family night at Piers Gorge.  It was a beautiful night, and we all had a lot of fun at the water.  We found minnows and crayfish to watch, had a Bible study and one of us took an accidental dunking!  Making memories centered around God's Word--that's a priority in our family.  This is how it's done!