This Home Schooling Life: Daily Devotions

After breakfast and our morning work, we have Bible time.

I have had Bible time with my kids since James was about 2.  I would read them Bible stories, we'd learn a verse and perhaps practice our singing.

It has been a blessing to me to spend time with my kids studying the Word of God everyday.

But this year I decided to add something new.

We call it Personal Bible Time.

I wanted to begin teaching my kids how to have a daily devotional time with God.
They can't read the Bible to themselves yet, but I have an ever growing collection of story Bibles, and Bible story books that they can look at by themselves for a short while every day.
And because they have been learning Bible stories since the days of infancy, the pictures they look at remind them of the story they already know.  I know they are able to commune with God in this way.


So each morning, after chores, I tell them it's Personal Bible Time and they grab our stack of books from a shelf in the living room.  We arrange them on the table and everyone picks a book.
I read my Bible at this time so they see I am doing devotions right alongside them.
We pray.
Then everyone must read silently for 15 minutes.

The first day Lilly was a big distraction.

But I took her out of the room and put her in her bedroom.

Since then, all I have to do is remind her she can sit in her room alone or stay with us and read quietly to herself.

Lilly hates to be left out, so she usually chooses to stay with us.

It is a pretty sweet time to sit there with my 3 little babes and partake of God's word together.

After 15 minutes, I read to them a passage from my Bible and remind them the difference between the Bible story books they are reading and the living Word of God.

Then I read to them from one of the Story Bibles.  We just read Jacob's ladder today.

Memorizing our verse comes later during hand writing.  

Bible verses make excellent copy work.

The Bible story books I have for the kids are widely varied.

Of course, I have a strong love for the vintage ones and am always on the look out for them at used book sales.

But we also have the Arch books that were Aaron's when he was little.
And we have few real art books with beautiful drawings and paintings.  James loves to study those intently.
Just today while I was reading to them about Jacob's ladder (from a book with no pictures) James jumped up.  
"Mommy, I read about that one today too."
He found the picture for us all to look at.


This book, here, I just found at a library book sale.
I am pretty excited about it.

The language is beautiful and so are the stories.
The commentary Dickens puts into it tell of a loving, and good Saviour.
It is a good read and I can't wait to get started.

The illustrations are beautiful.

Halos and all.

I am so happy I added this personal time to our daily Bible time.  It makes for a good start to our day and hopefully will develop a lifetime habit of personal devotions.

Because that is the goal, isn't it?

Teach them what to do now so they'll continue to do it later.

Love from,

Greta