Monday, January 4, 2010

Morning Devotional

This post is part of my thoughts on educating the kids.

I love having a morning devotional.

At first, I wondered if I wanted to spend much time on spiritual things for school. We already had family prayers, family scripture reading, and Family Home Evening.  I thought we should focus more on academics, but as I pondered on the most important things I wanted my kids to know, I realized that a solid understanding of who they really are was top most on my list.  I knew they needed a daily reminder.  It has made such a difference!

When we first started having a morning devotional, we sung a hymn, prayed and read a scripture story.  We added things, little by little, as the kids got better at listening for a longer period time.

Here is what we do now:

1. Music Theory - Sometimes we just warm up our voices with a scale, or sing a song about the note names.  Sometimes we play a game like "Musical Go Fish" or "Note Memory Match".

2. Hymn - We usually work on one hymn until it is memorized.  I try to pick one that has to do with a value we are working on.  Right now we are memorizing  The Family is of God to help us work on family unity.

3. Prayer

4. Scripture Story - I like to use Discover the Scriptures because it starts with some background and a couple of questions and then we read the story right from the scriptures. You get to hear the scripture language, but you hear it in a story format.  I've also enjoyed reading chapters from the early scripture readers like this one.

4. Latter-Day Prophet Quote - I'll read a quote from the conference Ensign or New EraThey usually have a question or we talk about what it means or how to apply it.

5. Pledge of Allegiance - Bazinks likes to hold up the flag for us.  It helps him feel included in the devotional.

6. Article of Faith - We'll recite an Article of Faith together

7. Poem - Right now, we're going through A Treasury of Read-Aloud Poems for Young People.  We've also read A Child's Garden of Verses.

8. Non-Fiction Story - Usually, I'll read a section from The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer.   Sometimes, I'll supplement it with a child's biography or other book.  For example, a couple of weeks ago, we read about the caste system in Europe during Medieval times in Story of the World, so I got a couple of books about knights and castles.  I'll sometimes read one of these books to the kids instead of a section from Story of the World.

9. Fiction Story - We'll read a fairy tale, an ancient myth, fables, a short story, etc.  Last year we were studying ancient times so we read quite a few Greek and Roman myths.  Right now we're working on The Good Books  list so we're reading through the fairy tales in The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang


If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales -Albert Einstein
The kids often do a quiet activity while I read.  They'll often color, draw, or work on a puzzle.  Bazinks has a hard time coloring for such a long time so I try to remember to get something out for him to do.  Sometimes he builds things with Legos, Tinkertoys, or Knex.  He also likes the Magnadoodle or Aquadoodle.

I can't say things always go smoothly.  I don't think that's possible with a baby and a toddler needing attention at random times.  Bazinks has been asking more and more questions that actually pertain to the reading, so I think he's getting more out of it than it seems at times.  The rest of the kids have learned to handle the interruptions really well.  They just keep doodling until I can continue.  The older kids usually want me to read more when we are finished so they seem to really enjoy it.  I know I do!  I've been learning all sorts of things that I wasn't aware of before.

I highly recommend having some sort of morning devotional to anyone who can make the time!


"Our first priority should go to spiritual learning. For us, reading the scriptures would come before reading history books. Prayer would come before memorizing those Spanish verbs. A temple recommend would be worth more than standing first in our graduating class. But it is also clear that spiritual learning would not replace our drive for secular learning.  To keep spiritual learning in its proper place, we will have to make some hard choices of how we use our time. But there should never be a conscious choice to let the spiritual become secondary. Never. That will lead to tragedy. Remember, you are interested in education, not just for mortal life but for eternal life. When you see that reality clearly, you will put spiritual learning first and yet not slight the secular learning. In fact, you will work harder at your secular learning than you would without that spiritual vision."
-Henry B. Eyring



6 comments:

  1. I really appreciated your quote from President Eyring.

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  2. Great quote. Basically, seek ye first the Kingdom of God. I love our devotional. I just need to work on having it every single day.

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  3. Interesting quote by Einstein about fairy tales. After you posted the good books list I rushed to the library to check out all the books in the first two levels and was disappointed they were all fairy tales. We are reading Aesop's fables right now so I held off on the fairy tales but why are they important? I don't get what the kids gain from them that is so important.

    And, in your opinion, where is the demarcation between devotional and school? Is this before breakfast and school is after? I ask because we do most of these things but we consider them school - SOTW is history, AofF is part of recitation....

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  4. Interesting question about the fairy tales - I've wondered about this also. What I have come to notice is that they really spark the kids' imagination. They get the kids thinking in new, creative ways. I've noticed this when Spice writes her stories or when I watch them all play. They seem to come up with interesting solutions that I wouldn't normally think of. I think that is what fairy tales do - they help kids think "outside the box" in new and innovative ways. I also think they give the kids a sense of how good can overcome evil and that no evil is too great for those who are courageous (good can always triumph over evil in the end). Maybe that's why the first two levels on the list are mostly fairy tales - the sense of good vs evil and right vs wrong is so important at that age.

    We have devotional after breakfast, then do some kind of family work project and then we have "school". We consider devotional part of school, but I think we consider pretty much everything as part of school in some way - even the housework part. I just divide it into separate sections throughout the day for structure and to make sure we get exposure to a variety of things.

    I'll go into more detail about it later :-)

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  5. Wow! I am just in awe of everything you do.

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  6. Would love to have a post about your musical song for learning the notes, and the games you play to learn musical theory. I by the way have used your zones and chore help, I printed this devotional out line to set up mine and tweek mine.

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