Hymn Study: Count Your Blessings

Count Your Blessings

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Updated 11/11/22

As I sat down to decide what hymn to study this month, I knew that I wanted something that focused on the concept of thanksgiving or giving thanks. We are called to be thankful every day, but this time of year is a time when I like to refocus on all that I have to be thankful for. The day that I was researching hymns had honestly been a pretty tough day, and it was amazing how much listening to all the songs of thanksgiving lifted my spirits.

Story Behind Count Your Blessings

Count Your Many Blessings was written by Johnson Oatman, Jr. in 1897. During his lifetime, he wrote over 5,000 different hymns. Many of those hymns are still sung today. The tune was composed by Edwin Othello Excell. He was popular in his own right and composed music for over 2.000 songs. He is most well known for this song and his arrangement for John Newton’s Amazing Grace.

Hymn Study Plan

Our plan is to listen to various versions of this hymn as an enjoyable way to become familiar with the words of the hymn. I will also have the children complete the hymn study fact sheet to learn more about the background of the hymn. Each day, for one week, they will complete the copy work pages for the hymn.

Through these activities, they will internalize the hymn in just a few minutes of work each day. If your family is musically inclined, there is sheet music listed below. They could learn to play the song on an instrument of their choosing.

Nature Study

We will also be combining nature study with our hymn by taking a hike and making a list of all of the blessings that we see along the way. We can remember how blessed we are that God gave us flowers to enjoy, trees for wood, birds to listen to, plants to eat, and all of the other wonderful things we find as we hike.

Counting Your Blessings

In addition to our regular monthly activities, I think this hymn and this month where we focus on giving thanks gives us a great opportunity to literally ‘count our blessings’. I encourage you to talk to your family and choose a way to list your many blessings.

Some of you may be most comfortable with a private journal format, while others may prefer something more family oriented. You could create a thankful tree where the leaves each have blessings on them, a thankful pumpkin, or just a jar where you collect slips of paper with things you are thankful for.

My daughter found a cute fall container and placed it in the middle of our kitchen table. Each day we all write down one thing we are thankful for on a sticky note. She wants us to take them all out on Thanksgiving and read them aloud to remind us of our many blessings.

Other Activities

One additional activity that I plan to do with my children is a blessings walk. Walk down your road (if it is safe), through your neighborhood, on a nearby trail, or even just through your yard. As you walk, find as many blessings as possible and thank God for them. You may thank him for the butterfly you see flying, your neighbors, your home, flowers, the warm sun, and whatever else you see to be thankful for.

Nana, over at You Are An Artist, also has this really neat mixed-media sunflower art for clubhouse subscribers in her hymn study course. She also has a wonderful podcast on being thankful: Color Me Thankful, for everyone to enjoy.

Other Hymns of Thanks

While we will focus on this hymn this month, there were so many wonderful songs about giving thanks that I wanted to share more with you this month. I am including a list of songs with their links below if you want to enjoy more songs of thanksgiving this month. I would love for you to share with me in the comments what song you think of when you think of giving thanks or thankfulness.

I pray that this hymn study can be a blessing for you during these trying times and that by counting our blessings, we can lift our spirits and be a light in the darkness.

Background and Sheet Music

YouTube with Lyrics

YouTube Performance

Download Your Freebies Below!

Hymn Study Fact Sheet

Count Your Blessings (November Copywork)

Other Songs About Thanksgiving:

We Gather Together We Gather Together

Come ye Thankful People Come

Give Thanks

He Has Made Me Glad (Ska Version)

He Has Made Me Glad (Regular)

God is so Good

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When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.

Deals and Freebies!

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IEW is offering some great free resources right now.

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Giving, Giant Sequoias, and Grapes: Letter G Preschool Activities and Printable!

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We had so much fun with the letter F last week! I love that it timed out so that we were able to go to the fair while we studied the letter F. In addition to our regular fair activities (milking a cow, seeing all the animals, tasting yummy treats, and visiting all of the exhibits), we had a lot of fun trying to find things that start with the letter F. When you consider how many things are fried at the fair there were lots of food options for the letter f: fried vegetables, fried candy bars, funnel cake, french fries, fried soda, fried fish, and fudge. The whole family got involved with the letter f scavenger hunt and we found everything except for the fish. His favorite letter might still be B for Benjamin but he had a great time learning about the letter f.

This week’s study of the letter g will be a bit more tame than our study of f but hopefully still lots of fun! No field trips but we will do some nature study, sensory bin work, and Play Doh letter making this week.

Our nature study is going to focus on the giant sequoia trees. We live on the other side of the county from these beautiful trees so a real life field trip is not an option right now. however, I think my son will really enjoy checking out all of the great information and pictures from the National Park Service and the Visit California site. There is also this cute two minute documentary about the giant sequoias that is free with Amazon Prime. If you wanted to take it a step further you can actually buy a kit to try and grow your own giant sequoia.

We may also take some time to do a little art work related to the letter G. For practicing making the shape of the letter I will use glue sticks and glitter. I will give him a piece of paper with a large letter G on it and then have him trace the letter with the glue stick. After the letter has glue he can sprinkle glitter on it to cover the letter. Shake off the excess glitter into the trash can and he has a sparkly letter G. Since he really loves art we will do one or two chalk pastel projects as well. There is a great green anole in the Backyard Nature lessons or this fun goose lesson in the Pond Nature lessons. If you are concerned about the messiness of the crafts then check out my tips for being able to say yes to crafts and sanity.

Games is a fun extra activity because there are so many options. We can play board games, card games, or outdoor games. Games are a great way to work on various skills while having fun as a family. You can play competitive board games or if the age ranges in your family make this difficult try a cooperative board game like Race to the Treasure or our family favorite Wildcraft.

Grandparents are a valuable part of a child’s life and this is a great week to spend some time with a grandparent if they live close by or take some time and do a craft or card to send to a grandparent that lives further away. If grandparents are no longer living you could spend a little time this week sharing pictures or telling stories about your parents to your children.

Giving or service can sometimes be a bit tricky when children are younger but there are lots of ways for them to give back to their community. You can make cards to send to people who serve your community or bake cookies for a local fire department. I will have my son help me bake cookies to give to the volunteers that are staying at our church to help with hurricane relief work. If you want more ideas these 100 ideas were written for the holidays but most could be used anytime of year.

I hope this post gives you some ideas to get started with the letter G. Please share your ideas for letter G in the comments below!

Snack Ideas:

Grapes

Ginger Snaps

Graham Crackers

Grapefruit (we like ours sliced in half, topped with just a bit of maple syrup and broiled for a couple of minutes)

Godiva Chocolate (ok maybe that is mom’s snack)

Gouda Cheese

Extra Resources:

Letter G Upper Case Craft Freebie

Letter g Lower Case Craft Freebie

Optional Activities:

Games

Nature study on gnats, geraniums, gems, or giant sequoia trees (online unless you are fortunate enough to live close)

Focus on giving by having them work with you to complete a service project (cards for the sick, cookies for a neighbor, etc)

Georgia ( A great chance to learn about the peach state!)

Giraffe (Live WebCam from zoo)

Grandparents! (This is a great opportunity to spend a bit of time with the grandparents if they are local or make a card or craft for them if they are further away.)

Guitars (My son loves playing around on his small guitar and if you don’t have one in the house you can make one from cardboard!

Don’t forget to download your free letter G sensory bin pictures .

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When you sign up for the Schoolin’ Swag free resource library you will get a link and password to the library, we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.

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Deals and Freebies!

The World of Peter Rabbit and His Friends Only .99 on Kindle! We love Beatrix Potter’s stories and this one includes her original illustrations.

Sunny Under the Sea Free (always double check because Amazon changes prices regularly!)

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it!

FREE Fantasy and Fairytales StoryBuilders from Write Shop!

Pumpkin Fun and Fall Fun Book Display

We had a fun pumpkin themed 4H meeting this week and I thought I would share what we did in case anyone was looking for some pumpkin activities. These could all be done individually in your home or with a group of friends.

pumpkin 2

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First, we did a chalk pastel pumpkin drawing. These drawings were so much fun and easy for anyone no matter your artistic ability level . We used this free sample tutorial from You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels. I loved how some of the kids drew their pumpkins in the same colors and as closely to Nana’s as they could and others used fun crazy colors and made them personalized.

pumpkinchalkart1

Next, we did another fun art project and melted crayons onto a white pumpkin. This was so much fun. I never know whether the cute activities I see on Facebook are going to work in real life but this one was certainly a success. We split the kids into two groups and each group peeled the paper off their crayons and then with adult help hot glued the crayons to the top of the pumpkin. Then we turned on the hair dryers and melted the crayons. I had Crayola crayons at home and they worked well, but honestly the cheap ones would probably melt even easier. I will note that if you are doing more than one at a time you do not want to run both hair dryers on the same circuit! Thankfully my son knew how to flip the breaker and all was well again.

Then we did this fun pumpkin investigation activity. The children were put into small groups and they estimated the height, weight, and circumference of a small pumpkin (each group had their own pumpkin). Then they used the appropriate tools and measured to see how close their estimates were. If time had allowed we were planning on having them guess how many seeds were in their pumpkins and then cutting it open and counting but we ran out of time.

pumpkin investigations

A few children were done with some of the activities early and one of the moms had the wonderful idea of playing a game of ‘hot potato’ except with a small pumpkin. She put on some music from her phone and the children passed the pumpkin until the music stopped. This one would be harder to do at home unless you have multiple children but it was a fun filler activity.

Finally we finished up with a pumpkin themed snack. There are so many options from pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, little oranges that look like pumpkins, pumpkin dip, or even pumpkin seeds. Since we had a gluten allergy in the mix I went with some tasty pumpkin seed tortilla chips that I picked up at Aldi. They were healthy and tasty.

There are hundreds of fun pumpkin activities available on the internet but these made for a fun combination with readily available materials. I would love for you to share your favorite pumpkin themed activities in the comments.

In More Fall News….

Fall Books

I have gotten behind in displaying thematic books on top of our art cabinet but the cooler temperatures this week and a couple days break from relief efforts have given me the motivation I needed. Our cabinet is now all decked out with fall books!

Having the books on display encourages the children to pick one up and read it as well as providing me with easy to grab read alouds for those times when we have a few extra minutes. I added one of the pumpkins we chose at the pumpkin patch to finish out our book display. I love the combination of decorative and practical!

Pumpkin Circle

Sky Tree

Fall Apples Crisp and Juicy

Animals in Fall

Fall Weather

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

We are finally getting a chance to start really enjoying fall. I hope that you are enjoying fall and I would love to hear about your favorite pumpkin activities or fall books! Share them with me in the comments!

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Deals and Freebies!

Try READING EGGS for FREE for four weeks! Reading Eggs is currently offering a four week free trial!

Sally Clarkson just launched her newest book, a devotional for moms! You can purchase it at Amazon now .

We have been listening to Alice in Wonderland on audiobook to prepare to watch a live version of the play this week. I had forgotten just how ‘crazy’ the book feels. If you are interested in listening to it, it is only .66 on audio right now.

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What About Report Cards?

When people find out that I’m a former public school principal turned home school mom I get lots of questions. Grades and report cards are subjects that come up often in those conversations. People always want to know how I grade the children and if they get report cards.

grades

The second question is the easiest to answer so I’ll answer it first. No, they do not get report cards. The purpose of report cards is to share student performance with their parents and in the case of the last report card of the year, the teacher for the following year. There really is no need for me to create a document to share information with myself. I do know parents that choose to create a report card for their child/ren for various reasons and it is certainly an option, but for our family it would just be an extra piece of paperwork on my already cluttered desk.

The first question is a little more complicated. At the elementary and middle school level, our family chooses not to do grading in the traditional sense, i.e. grade every assignment and average it out for a final grade. This does not mean that I do not check assignments for accuracy or that they have never received a score on an assignment. It looks different for various subjects and at various times. For example, in spelling they take a test each week and either it is scored with a 100% or the incorrect ones are marked and the work corrected. They really enjoy the chance to earn that 100 or maybe just the small treat that sometimes accompanies the perfect score.

My son uses a computer based math program for his seventh grade math and it gives him a score for every lesson. For him I require 80% accuracy or he has to re-do the lesson. My daughter is in fifth grade and is still using a book based math. For her math I mark the incorrect problems and she fixes each one that is incorrect but does not receive a numerical score.

In writing, they have assignments and I will help them proofread and edit but no numerical score is given. We use real life writing opportunities like our North Carolina Junior Historians projects, NC State Fair essays, letters to our elected officials, etc. In general, our science and history lessons are done together and they do projects or oral discussion to share what they have learned and show master of the content.

In a public school setting grades are important because they share how much content is mastered by a particular student in a particular subject with parents and other stakeholders. Grades also give a quantitative measure of achievement. In the home school setting I have the ability to continue to work on a topic until mastery is achieved and because we are all here together, I do not need to worry about using that information to share progress with the stakeholders.

I first talked about elementary and middle school grading because those are the ages which I am currently homeschooling. However, beginning as early as next year I will have a child taking high school level courses that will be included on a transcript. For these courses I personally believe that grading is more important. The transcript will share his accomplishments with outside stake holders who will need more quantitative data. Therefore, while I will still work with him to mastery of those subjects I will use a quantitative grading scale for each course.

There is no one right way to handle grades in your home school. The freedom to do what works best for your family is one of the many benefits to homeschooling. Some children might really enjoy getting a report card and others may not care. I would love for you to share how you handle grades in your home school!

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Deals and Freebies!

Reading Eggs has their new kindle books FREE on Amazon today (10/18)

The World of Peter Rabbit and His Friends Only .99 on Kindle! We love Beatrix Potter’s stories and this one includes her original illustrations.

Sunny Under the Sea Free (always double check because Amazon changes prices regularly!)

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

FREE Fantasy and Fairytales StoryBuilders from Write Shop!

St. Bartholomew’s Eve: Heirloom Audio (Review)

St. Barthalamew — Ready to listen and ride!

Last week we had a two and a half hour ride each way to a competition that only lasted about an hour including the awards ceremony. That is a lot of riding with children, but Heirloom Audio came to the rescue with this newest review product! St. Bartholomew’s Eve is not the first G A Henty story that we have listened to from Heirloom Audio and hopefully it won’t be the last. It kept the children quiet and content during a large portion of our ride because they didn’t want to miss any of the story.

In addition to doing a great job keeping things peaceful on a long ride, I was able to cross history off of our to-do list for the day as these stories include a great deal of important historical information. St. Bartholomew’s Eve tells the story of the French Huguenots as they fought for the right to worship as they saw fit. The main story begins with young Phillip going to France to aid his mother’s family in the fight against the king and the Catholic Church for the right to worship as they pleased(in this case practice Protestantism). We follow him through training and battles until what is now known commonly as St. Bartholomew’s Massacre.

When asked I often said that I was a fan of the works of GA Henty, but after a couple people mentioned that they could sometimes be a bit dense to read I realized that I might should clarify my opinion. All of the GA Henty that I know comes from the audio adaptations produced by Heirloom Audio. These are not mere audio books where a narrator reads the story aloud (though our family loves audio books), these are wonderful audio dramas with talented voice actors playing each role and sound effects that bring you into the story. The clanging of swords and stamping of hooves make you feel like the battles are going on all around you and not hundreds of years ago.

In addition to the history lesson, this production develops the deeper theme of understanding that many people have fought and even died for the right to worship in a way that each individual feels is best. The production begins with two boys being caught skipping church services. Instead of just chastising them the gentleman tells them the story of Phillip and the Huguenots and how they fought for the right to worship. While the Huguenots were certainly not the only people to fight and die for their right to worship, it is a great example of the sacrifices that have been made through the years. I felt like this was a great way to reinforce with my children the importance of appreciating our right to worship and protecting our right to worship.

Our family wholeheartedly recommends Heirloom Audio. We believe that these stories are not only fun but educational. They teach history in an easy and engaging manner while also teaching larger life lessons. I will caution that if you have younger children that are sensitive the battle scenes and persecution may be a bit much. I believe they are handled tastefully and appropriately but they are difficult facts for young children to process so use your judgement on when your child is ready for the stories. While my four year old has enjoyed many of these productions I think this one would have been too intense for him. I encourage you to check out my review of Wulf the Saxon which is another one of Heirloom Audio‘s productions as well as clicking below to read what some of the other Review Crew members thought about this audio drama.

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Fishing, Fairs and Fairy Tales: Letter F Preschool Activities and Printable!

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My son’s favorite letter up to now has been B because it is the beginning of his name and the first letter he learned to recognize, but this week’s letter might become his new favorite. What is so special about the letter F? It is the first letter of his favorite activity: fishing! And to make it even better it is the first letter of our field trip for this week: the fair!

banjaminfish

We will be attending our State Fair this week and we are excited to be able to include that in our letter study! In addition to talking about the fair and how it starts with F, I created a scavenger hunt at the fair for things that begin with the letter F. You can download your copy of the scavenger hunt below. There are also some yummy treats at the fair that start with F. We always enjoy splitting a funnel cake and French fries are one of my son’s favorites.

Letter F Nature Study

Our nature study is going to focus on fish. While we may not be able to study those up close this week due to the weather we are going to look at his fish books, color pictures of fish, and hopefully find a few fish at the Marine Fisheries exhibit at the fair.

We will also cover the season of fall in our nature study. While fall officially started several weeks ago, this is the first week that we are slated to have fall weather! With the cooler temperatures it will be fun to go outside and look for changing leaves and other signs of fall. I also have a collection of fall books that I want to incorporate into our days.

Letter F Sensory Activities

My sons loves finger painting and I think that will be a fun sensory activity to help learn the letter F. We are a big fan of finger painting because it encourages fine motor skills, it is easy to clean up, and of course lots of fun. If it feels too messy you can choose a different activity or check out my post on making it easier to say yes to the messy activities.

My son’s favorite number at the moment is the number four. I think it may be a rule when you are a small child that your favorite number matches your age. He wants to eat four of everything, do things for four minutes or four days, and put everything into groups of four. This is a great week to reinforce that number through counting, activities, and possibly add drawing the number 4 in finger paint to our letter activities.

Letter F Literature

Finally what better way to enjoy the letter F than with a few good fairy tales! There are so many great ways to enjoy fairy tales. We can read them in some of our favorite books, listen to them, watch a movie, or even make up our own fairy tales.

I hope this post gives you some ideas to get started with the letter F. Please share your ideas for letter F in the comments below!

Letter F Snack Ideas:

Figs

Fig Newtons

Fish (gold fish)

Fruit Salad (This is a fun one for them to help make. They can use a lettuce knife to help cut and then mix it all together.)

Funnel Cake

French Fries

Fruit (and veggie) Flower Snacks

Extra Resources:

Letter F Upper Case Craft Freebie

Letter f Lower Case Craft Freebie

Letter F Optional Activities:

Fishing

Float/Sink experiment

Nature study on fish or ferns or fall

Finger Games

Fair (this one is seasonal but times out perfectly for us)

Fairy Tales (This 5 minute fairy tale book is free if you have kindle unlimited).

Letter F Fair Day Scavenger Hunt (FREE PRINTABLE)

Don’t forget to download your free letter F sensory bin pictures to use this week!

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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Deals and Freebies!

The World of Peter Rabbit and His Friends Only .99 on Kindle! We love Beatrix Potter’s stories and this one includes her original illustrations.

Sunny Under the Sea Free (always double check because Amazon changes prices regularly!)

Wind in the Willows on Audio for only $2.95

Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!

Brinkman Adventures (Review and a Discount!)

Many of you know that we recently went through a devastating hurricane in our town. We were without power at our home for about five days, with other folks faring much worse. We were expecting the power to be out for at least that long and before the storm I set about preparing not only for our safety but for a little fun and comfort along the way. We charged up the kindles and as a fun surprise I downloaded our newest review product Season 6: Underground Rising from the Brinkman Adventures.

I had not told the children about the review but knew that they would be excited and the episodes would bring a welcome break during a stressful time. I was so glad that I had them downloaded. As we sat around in the evenings and spent time together as a family and during hot afternoons with no air conditioner the episodes were a welcome reprieve. My children were already familiar with the Brinkman Adventures from our normal Saturday morning routine of listening to an episode on the radio as we ride around going to yard sales as a family. They love listening to them and always wish they could hear more, so having a chance to own a season was a real blessing. Now we can listen to them whenever we want and not just during that one time frame on Saturday mornings. My son enjoyed sitting on the couch and playing Legos while he listened and my daughter could work on her crafts.

Brinkman Pic — Building with Legos while listening to the Brinkman Adventures!

If you are not familiar with the Brinkman Adventures, they follow the fun adventures of the Brinkman family and incorporate stories of real life missionaries and Christian heroes. As a parent, I make it a priority to surround my children with good role models and and heroes both in person and through stories. The Brinkman Adventures is an excellent way to introduce your children to some wonderful missionaries and Season 6: Underground Rising is no exception.

My children’s favorite episodes from this season featured a Green Beret who became a missionary in Burma. He founded the Free Burma Rangers and is helping many people to escape from the Burmese army. It tells of his time in college and some mistakes he made and how he got his life back on track. I love how it highlighted how God used his military service to train him for his later missionary service. While they take some liberties with the story to make it work for the audio drama it is the real story of missionary David Eubanks. The website has a section that shares more of the real story of the person featured in the episode as well as explaining which parts were adapted for the sake of story and which parts were true.

Other episodes in this season included a two part series on the Dutch Underground, a fun story about a family who worked with an orphanage in India, and a funny episode about the Brinkman family and the time one of them swallowed a fly! These episodes will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly they will remind you of God’s power and his provision. Our family truly enjoyed Season 6: Underground Rising and I encourage you to check out the website and try these fun and meaningful adventures with your family. As an added bonus I get the privilege of offering you an additional 10% off if you use the code FALL10 now through October 31st! To find out what adventures the other Review Crew members loved make sure to click below to read the other reviews.

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CashCrunch Careers (review)

careerinformation

While I sometimes look at my twelve year old and see just a little boy, I know that time is moving fast and the years until he is out on his own will fly by. We don’t pressure him to make any decisions about his future career at this point but it is something we have discussed with him. There are so many options for both careers and educational opportunities and we want him to take the time to know and understand what his options are and then seek the Lord’s will for his life. When we were given the opportunity to review CashCrunch Careers by CashCrunch Games I asked my son if it was something he was interested in and he requested to give it a try.

CashCrunch Careers creates a career report for you based on your answers to the assessment. The assessment is a series of questions in which you choose which word best describes you between the two options you are given. If the person taking the test is not sure about the meaning of the word you can hover over the word with your mouse and get an explanation. This was a feature that my son used several times to help him in choosing the best answer.

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Once you have completed the survey the program creates a career report that helps analyze which careers might be a good fit. This report includes motivators and de-motivators, career attributes, and career match.

The career information is where I think this program becomes most beneficial. Honestly, I felt like the test picked up some great insight into my son’s personality but it also does not take into account skills and interests. However, the career information and data base was full of some really great information and the career options that it listed were not bad choices for my son. He had never really thought about a career as a manager but most of his options were some type of managerial role. Once he read the report he felt like some of those roles might be of interest to him. A few days after he had taken the test and looked over the report an older gentleman who was on a volunteer work crew at our church took my son aside to tell him how hard he was working and that he had done a great job that day. In the conversation he told him that if had not yet chosen a career he should really look into a management position because he thought he would do well.

We enjoyed looking at the various careers and the being able to find colleges that matched those careers as well as projected information about the future of those careers. I think that as my son gets older this will be a great data base of information that he can use as he explores various career paths. There were also some videos about the careers but they were older videos that would be more useful if they were updated based on today’s technology.

Overall, while this program did not provide the in depth career assessment that I was hoping for (taking into account talents and interests and not just personality traits), I do think that it provided us with valuable information. I believe that we will continue to use the career data base as we move forward and my son gets more serious about deciding on an educational and vocational path. I encourage you to check out CashCrunch Careers over at the CashCrunch Games and while you are there check out their other educational games that help teach economics. Also, check our the other Review Crew reviews to see how the program worked with a variety of different ages and personalities.

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Printable Books of the Bible “Summary Sheets” (Review)

Bible study is a core part of our homeschool and family life and we enjoy using a variety of tools to help us as we study the Bible together. We have recently had the opportunity to review some really helpful Printable Books of the Bible “Summary Sheets” by Teach Sunday School. This was a simple tool to assist our Bible study.

The Printable Books of the Bible “Summary Sheets” are one page sheet information sheets about each book of the Bible. The sheets include background information on each book, including the author, when it was written and where it is in the Bible. It also includes the ‘claims to fame’ which is something unique or spectacular about that book. For example, for the book of Ruth, ” Ruth became the great-grandmother of King David after a good deed of refusing to desert her mother-in-law, who was from Israel. Her story takes place mostly in Bethlehem, the future birthplace of Jesus.”

Each page also includes a summary of the famous stories that are included in that book. For the book of Jonah that would be, “Jonah is swallowed by the giant fish.” and “Jonah prophesies to Nineveh and the nation repents.” In the New Testament Epistles this category changes a bit and becomes, “Problems or Issues this Book is Addressing” since they were mostly penned in response to issues that the churches were having.

The next section is famous verses. This section includes two or three verses from that book that either are the most looked up verses or verses that are known to be loved by the American people. Jeremiah included one of my personal favorites, ” For I know the Plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

The pages end with important points about the book. Some of these were simple facts like the fact that Matthew was famous for including the Great Commission, but others were more background information. For example, “Matthew was writing to the Jews as opposed to Gentiles, which is why his gospel often quotes the Old Testament to show how prophecy was fulfilled.”

If I had to pick my favorite part of these sheets it would probably be that they tell what time period each book covers. I think that really helps me understand how the events in the Bible relate to the other events in history. As someone who was raised in the church and been a Christian since I was a child, I knew many of the facts on the pages but I still learned something new with each one we studied.

We chose to start at the beginning and look at one summary sheet each week during our morning time to learn more about that book of the Bible. However, I think there are many wonderful ways this tool could be used to supplement your Bible study. You could use them to get a better understanding of the background and scope of a the book of the Bible that you were currently studying or you could match them up with a memory verse or other study. Another idea that I would like to try is matching up the books timeline with our history study. For example, Esther covers the time period of 480-475 BC. When we study that time in history we could include the book of Esther in our reading and have a better understanding of what was going on throughout the world at that time, like the Greco-Persian war and the Battle of Thermopylae.

While these do not replace Bible reading, Printable Books of the Bible “Summary Sheets” are a great tool for gaining more insight into the Bible and better understanding the background of each individual book. I think these could be used with elementary age students all the way up to adults both at home and in a church or Sunday school class setting.

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Florence: The Storm That Changed Our Town

I have lived in Eastern North Carolina all of my life. I have been through so many hurricanes that I have lost count. I was in college during one of the most infamous hurricanes in North Carolina history, Hurricane Floyd. I came home for that storm to ‘weather’ it out in a place that I felt safe. None of those storms affected me quite the way Hurricane Florence did.

First, I should note that my family was extremely blessed and did not suffer significant damage in this storm. We had limbs down, a broken fence, and a few day without power. All minor inconveniences compared to what so many in our area are going through. While we saw water in our driveway (which according to the neighbors is significantly higher than it came with Floyd) many of our friends and neighbors had water in their houses. Not a few drops, not a few inches but feet of water rushing into their homes and destroying everything in its path.

I have always appreciated the day after a hurricane because typically the weather is clear and sunny. In the past, it always seemed that the storms would roll through and then leave this sunny clear day behind it. However, Florence seemed to enjoy our southern hospitality and just did not want to leave. One news channel called it a flood of Biblical proportions and while it certainly did not flood the whole Earth it was beginning to feel like 40 days and 40 nights. The wind was not nearly as bad as other hurricanes I have been through but the rain and a significant storm surge caused a great deal of flooding throughout our county and the counties around us.

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In Hurricane Floyd I was only able to stay home for a few days after the storm before flying (because the roads were closed due to flooding) back to college to continue my classes. I remember feeling like I was stuck in between two worlds. At home, everything was different but at college, not much had changed because of the storm. With this storm I have been here in my community since the storm. In the days just after the storm there were curfews and road closures, so we stayed close to home and helped out neighbors as best we could. Once the roads were opened and our electricity restored we ventured out to our church to begin helping their recovery efforts.

It has been my privilege to help feed and provide for the many teams of people that have come from various towns and even other states to help our church serve our community. I have seen both our own people and these teams work tirelessly to help people sort through flooded belongings, tear out flooded drywall and flooring, and be there to support them however we could. We have done very little formal schoolwork during this time but my children have learned so much about serving and being the hand and feet of Jesus to a hurting and devastated community.

I’m not sure what the future holds, I’m not sure how long we will go on serving and when things will start to go back to normal or at least a ‘new normal’ as our community may be forever changed by this storm. I do know that our community needs your prayers. So many people lost so much. There are thousands of people whose homes were destroyed, school and businesses destroyed, churches flooded, and lives forever changed. I have been and will continue to try to keep up with my blogging and the posts that I have scheduled, but I ask for your patience and understanding during this time. There are so many needs to be met and we feel that we should focus on helping where we can, knowing that the schoolwork will still be there when things settle down a bit.

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For those of you that were affected by this storm, know that I am praying for you. For those of you that are not in the area I am including some links below to various pictures and news articles about the storm. If you have never been through a flood of this magnitude it is really difficult to imagine the devastation that it leaves in its wake. I ask that you pray for our area and the counties around us as we pick up the pieces and move forward.

Before and After Pictures

Flooding

The Aftermath

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Deals and Freebies!

20% off at Fit2B! We love their exercise courses as well as their course for girls!

For the Temple by GA Henty Free on Kindle (This is my son’s current book for his literature course.)

So many folks looking for homeschool options at a reasonable price during this unusual time. SchoolhouseTeachers.com is having an amazing sale. For less than $200 you get 2 years access to over 400 courses that you can use with as many students as you have in your home! We use this for several courses and I am always happy to answer questions. Just click on this link and use code: SHARK20

If you are looking for a fun way to encourage reading this summer, check out the FREE summer reading materials from Your Morning Basket with Pam Barnhill. The passport and reading bucket list are a great way to encourage reading!

Homeschool Complete is offering a special 10% off discount to my readers! Just use code: SWAG

Get a FREE Literature Kit from LitWits using Code 11READ4FUN. We are currently enjoying the Heidi kit but have also previously loved the My Side of the Mountain kit.

IEW is offering some great free resources right now.

FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it!

Story Behind Count Your Blessings

Hymn Study Plan

Nature Study

Counting Your Blessings

Other Activities

Other Hymns of Thanks

Download Your Freebies Below!

Other Songs About Thanksgiving:

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Deals and Freebies!

Snack Ideas:

Extra Resources:

Optional Activities:

Don’t forget to download your free letter G sensory bin pictures.

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Deals and Freebies!

In More Fall News….

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Deals and Freebies!

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Deals and Freebies!

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Letter F Nature Study

Letter F Sensory Activities

Letter F Literature

Letter F Snack Ideas:

Extra Resources:

Letter F Optional Activities:

Don’t forget to download your free letter F sensory bin pictures to use this week!

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Deals and Freebies!

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

Deals and Freebies!

For the Temple by GA Henty Free on Kindle (This is my son’s current book for his literature course.)

FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it!

FREE Historical Fiction StoryBuilders from Write Shop!

Don’t forget to download your free letter G sensory bin pictures .