Ten Verses cards

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
Psalm 119:11

Last night I listened to a sermon* by Voddie Bauchman, and he was exhorting parents to have their children read and memorize scripture. He said, "You've got to pour everything in there you can get in there! Get it in there. And when you think you've gotten it in there, just stuff a little bit more."

I laughed out loud at that, and replayed it for Mark, because that is so my motto. :) Just stuff it in. Right now, when our children are literally sponges, when they are able to memorize and retain what they've memorized so easily, we want to pour God's truth into them.

In June, Mark and I each made a list of the top five things we value in terms of homeschooling our children, and "memorizing God's word" made it to the top of both of our lists. We want to stuff it in there. :)

As I set out to select our memory verses this year, I asked God to help me find verses that would suit each of our children. Instead of just choosing several verses that we would all memorize together, I wanted each child to have his or her "own" verses; verses tailored to their individual personalities and/or particular areas of struggle. I began by listing each child's name in my journal and then noting particular patterns of sin I see in them. For one child, these are the words that I initially jotted down: self-control, lies, self-worth, obedience, love. Then I found verses that dealt with those areas.

For instance, one of the verses that child will be memorizing is this one:

The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful. (Proverbs 12:22)

Then I rounded out their "set" by choosing verses that are specific to that child's interests or personality. One of our boys is very imaginative and is always telling stories. I made sure that some of his verses contained illustrative language:

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. they were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen." (Revelation 7:9-12)

So at this point I had a handful of verses for each child, but I still wasn't sure how to put them all together for our memorization time.

Then I came across this "Ten Verses cards" post of Kendra's, so I shamelessly stole this concept from her.

I wrote out ten verses on a card (actually, it took two cards) for our four oldest children (yes! Adelia (2) gets her own set of verses, too!), and they look like this:


Everyone's verse #1 is our theme verse for the year. That space on the left-hand side is for stickers. When they learn a verse- and can recite it (with reference) to daddy- they get to choose a sticker and stick it next to the verse on their card. I showed them the envelope labeled: "10 Verses Stickers" that is tucked into our memory box. It's amazing to me how motivating stickers are. They were seriously enthused about the prospect of getting to choose a sticker. Kids are so great!



*Sermon link here, if you're interested. (And thank you, Cutzi, for the link!)

Open House: Friday, September 10

I am wearing...
Black yoga-type pants, a black scoop-neck shirt with detailing around the neckline.

I am reading...
A Time for Remembering: The Ruth Bell Graham Story
Beautiful Girlhood
Meet the Austins

I am thinking/pondering...
Oh-so-many things, always. But I've just come from Ann's blog, where she is writing so beautifully about the faces and stories she is encountering in Guatemala on the Compassion bloggers trip. My eyes are still teary as I think of those mothers, afraid for their children. And of course I can't read without wondering where our Isaias would be today, had we not adopted him from Guatemala.

I am praying...
That SO many people will respond and sponsor a Compassion child, for the first time or in addition to those they already have. I used to think it was one small thing we could do, but the more I read about Compassion, the more I know of their heart and ministry, the more letters we receive from our own Compassion children, the more I realize that it is no small thing. For our own Compassion kids, it seems to be "THE" thing, our sponsorship of them. Would you consider sponsoring a child?

Thankful for...
My mom, who offered to take Adelia and Audra for two hours each Friday morning so that I can have uninterrupted school time with my older three. We had such a peaceful, productive, fun morning, I was so much less stressed, and the girls had so much fun with grandma. I am so grateful.

From the kitchen..
Potato chowder keeping warm on the stove, and blueberry muffins to make later.

In the schoolroom...
This morning we learned part of the Apostle's Creed. My plan was to learn the words and then introduce Rich Mullins' song, but decided last night to begin with the song.

If you comment, I'd love to read what your response would be to any of the above!

Memorizing our theme passage

You'd think with a degree in graphic design I could draw... somewhat-ish.

I cannot.

But do you know what? My kids don't care! :)

I am a visual learner, so this is naturally how I teach. And I think all children are very high visual/auditory learners- at least at this age- so often I add pictures and sound to help them learn, especially when it's memory work.

Here's what I've done to help us memorize our theme passage (Romans 12:9-21) for this year: (I'm only showing you the first few picture cards.)



Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the LORD.


Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the LORD. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

I haven't drawn pictures on every single card; some cards are words-only. But this way, at least some of the cards offer a visual tie-in to the words we're learning!

What do you do to help your kids memorize Scripture?

Let me take a minute to plug (again!) my FAVORITE resources for Scripture memory:

1. My ABC Bible Verses


If you want to start memorizing Scripture with your kids, this is an excellent resource! Each letter of the alphabet has a corresponding Bible verse and is accompanied by a story to illustrate the scriptural passage. We read this book four years ago, and our kids loved it. They still remember every single one of these verses! I posted more about this book here.

2. Seeds Family Worship. They have five CDs available: Seeds of Courage, Seeds of Faith, Seeds of Praise, Seeds of Purpose and Power of Encouragement. We have all of these and every single person in our home enjoys them! When the kids ask me to put on a CD, I *always* choose one of these; they are just that enjoyable to listen to. (Each of the above links will let you listen to samples of the songs from that particular album.)

Prepped and ready to go!

{on the menu for breakfast: Yogurt Coffee Cake, requested by Ella}

Seriously? We get to do this?

...Eat some coffee cake and drink some tea as we kick off our school year? Yummy fall-scented candles will be lit, and I'll be hearing the happy chatter of my favorite people in the whole world!

Ah... I can't wait!

Memory work box

Our Memory work box is one of my favorite homeschooling tools, and I am so very thankful to Kendra for the idea! This box holds most of what we do for our daily Circle Time* (school we're all doing together).

Last year this is what we worked on:

Mon: verses, catechism
Tues: verses, 10 commandments
Wed: verses, states
Thurs: verses, landmark cards
Fri: verses, art cards
Sat: OT/NT books of the Bible (review)

I upgraded our Memory work box to a larger size this year, and I love it.

(Notice our theme verse, right there in front?)

Here is what lies behind those tabs for our 2010/11 school year:

Monday: Catechism questions
Tuesday: Ten Verses cards (also Kendra's idea. I'll share more about this in my next post.)
Wednesday: Romans 12:9-21, our theme passage
Thursday: Sign Language cards, and I am SO coming back to that topic, in just a minute.
Friday: The Apostle's Creed, and after we memorize that: some Family Rules Mark and I are working on.

Now. The sign language cards: I am super excited about these, so if you'll bear with me I'm going to rant about them for a minute. I wanted so much to have something visual for the kids in our memory work box because of how much they really enjoyed the pictorial Landmark Cards last year, but I couldn't think of anything similar to that for *this* year. I briefly considered doing a Greek or Hebrew alphabet, but I just couldn't really get pumped about that. Then I wondered: "...Maybe I could find some sign language alphabet flash cards..."

Imagine my delight, then, when not only could I find some sign language flash cards, but I found SIGNING TIME flash cards (!), with pictures of Alex and Leah and Hopkins and Rachel on them, no less! Which thrills me to no end because not only do my older kids adore Signing Time (and have for years), but even Adelia (2), is into them. The faces of Alex, Leah and Rachel are pretty beloved around here, so they are going to LOVE these!!! (But shh! It's still a surprise to them, so don't say a word!)

I bought two sets.

I just now remembered that I had planned to post a bit more about our theme passage in this post, but it's late and this is already a long post, so I'll get to that next time.




*The whole concept of Circle Time came from Preschoolers and Peace.

*More about what Circle Time looks like in our home, here. (Or you can just click on the "Circle Time" label on the sidebar and it will bring up any other posts I've noted as Circle Time posts.)

Banana-Oat Smoothie

{adapted from a recipe found in an Everyday Food magazine}

Banana-Oat Smoothie

1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 banana*, cut into thirds
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp honey

Blend until smooth.
Double, triple, or quadruple the recipe as needed! :)

This was a hit when I tried it this morning. Even I liked it, and I am not-so-much a banana lover (unless we're talking banana cake with cream cheese frosting, that is. Or banana bread... those I can do!)

We will definitely be making this one again, and it's such a great recipe because these are ingredients we always have on hand!

*I used frozen bananas, and next time I may add some ice cubes, too. :)

Our theme verse

One of the things I prayed about in terms of school for this coming year is our relationships with one another here at home.

It is paramount to us that the character of our children remains more important than any academic successes they might achieve.

With that in mind, I selected a theme verse for our school year.

Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.

We will also be memorizing several verses from that chapter in addition to just our theme verse.

I'm going to introduce the year with it (a mini Bible study on the verse), and we'll continue to say it each day together and it will be posted for visibility.

I imagine we'll be referencing it quite a bit, too- in our day-to-day goings on, and talking about ways we can honor one another above ourselves and what that could look like, or what it does look like when we catch someone doing so and can commend them for it! I can't wait! :)