Hymn Study: My Hope is Built on Nothing Less

As I have been working on a new hymn study each month, I find it very interesting to know how the song came into being. Sometimes they are written by people who made a career of writing songs, but often there are personal stories that led to the writing of the hymn. I think it is incredible to see how God works through so many situations.

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Hymn Story: My Hope is Built on Nothing Less

My Hope is Built on Nothing Less was written by Edward Mote with the music composed by William Bradbury. Mote was a Baptist minister and, on his way to work one morning, had the idea to write on the “Gracious Experience of a Christian.” He had written the four verses by the end of the day.

Later in the week, he visited a friend and his very sick wife. They did not have a hymnal, so he took out his new song and sang with them as support and encouragement. The woman was so touched by the music that she asked for a copy of it. Mote wrote two additional verses (which are not typically included in modern hymnals) and then sent if off to the publisher.

Activities for My Hope is Build on Nothing Less

When our family does a hymn study, we like to start by simply listening to various versions of the hymn. This allows us to get familiar with the tune and the lyrics. I have included some great examples of this song in the resources at the end of the post.

Next, we like to use the lyrics for copywork. This helps my children memorize the songs and gives us good handwriting practice.

If your students enjoy music and play a musical instrument, you can have them learn the hymn on their instrument of choice. My daughter loves to play the different hymns on her violin, and you can even use an inexpensive recorder to play the melody.

Finally, we love to add art to our hymn studies. You do various activities, but if you want something simple but structured, I highly recommend the hymn lessons (included in the clubhouse membership) from Nana over at You Are An Artist Chalk Pastels. She has a beautiful lighthouse acrylic (that can also be done in chalk pastels) to accompany this hymn.

If you want to take this hymn study deeper, you could look up verses related to the hymn, pray through the lyrics of the hymn, or even do a nature study on the sand and talk about what the phrase ‘sinking sand’ means in nature and in the spiritual sense.

Concluding Thoughts

Hymn study is a great way to learn and worship together as a family. We know that music stays with us for many years, and we can lean on those lyrics during difficult days. Do not feel that you must make your hymn study long or complicated. You can spend as much or as little time as you want on a given song. Just enjoy learning and praising God with your children.

If you liked this hymn study, check out all of our other free studies!

Hymn Study Resources:

Southside Gospel Choir

Piano Instrumental

Instrumental Jazz

Download Your Freebies Below!

Hymn Study Fact Sheet

Free copywork is available in the resource library!

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Old Rugged Cross Homeschool Hymn Study

“On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame;
and I love that old cross where the dearest and best
for a world of lost sinners was slain.”

The Old Rugged Cross is an appropriate hymn any time of year, but it seems especially fitting as we approach Easter.

The song gives us a chance to reflect on the sacrifice of Christ and the promises of heaven.

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The Old Rugged Cross Background

The Old Rugged Cross was written in 1913 by George Bennard. Bennard was born in Youngstown, OH, in 1873 but moved to Iowa as a child. He was an ordained Methodist preacher who was inspired to write the song while meditation on John 3:16.

Bennard first performed the song for a pastor and his wife at a church where he was leading a revival. He later performed the song at the revival service. The church building where that revival was held has been preserved and is owned by The Old Rugged Cross Foundation.

Old Rugged Cross Hymn Study Art Lesson

Nana over at You ARE An Artist has created a beautiful chalk pastel lesson perfect for this hymn. She has an entire Easter lessons course included with the clubhouse membership or available to purchase as a standalone course.

We used the Easter Cross lesson to accompany this hymn. I love how it portrays the cross with flowers in front, and it does a beautiful job expressing both the pain and loss of Good Friday and the joy and hope of Easter Sunday.

Hands-On Hymn Study Ideas for The Old Rugged Cross

In addition to learning about the hymn and completing the art lesson, there are several ways to add a hands-on component to your hymn study.

First and most obviously, take the time to sing the hymn as a family. There are various versions of the Old Rugged Cross included in the resources list below. Even if, like me, singing is not your gift, you can make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

Next, if you have a child that enjoys instruments, you can add that into your hymn study. My older children enjoy violin, piano, and guitar in my family, and I try to find simple sheet music for our hymns that they can learn on their instrument of choice. My daughter is enjoying the violin music for The Old Rugged Cross.

If your children do not play a particular instrument but are interested, you could start with rhythm instruments or a recorder. (And if you are looking for affordable music lessons, I always recommend Practice Monkeys.)

The Old Rugged Cross also lends itself to creating a craft as part of your study. Your children could create a cross using wood, clay, or whatever materials you have one hand.

Other Resources For Old Rugged Cross

You can find FREE copywork and a hymn information worksheet for The Old Rugged Cross in our subscriber library (see the link to join at the bottom of the post.)

Hymn Story Old Rugged Cross

Sheet Music Old Rugged Cross

Alan Jackson’s Old Rugged Cross

Al Green Old Rugged Cross

Fountainview Academy Old Rugged Cross (accompanied by string and brass instruments)

Delores Winans Old Rugged Cross (Gospel Version)

The Old Rugged Cross Choir

Bluegrass Style Old Rugged Cross

Resource Library and Affiliate Disclosure

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.

Blessed Assurance Hymn Study

Hymn Study Introduction

“Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.”

Our family has been doing a Blessed Assurance hymn study this week. This is a beautiful hymn that I have known for many years. It is a lovely classic song found in many hymnals and some contemporary music compilations.

I love the part of the chorus that says, “This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long.” It is such a reminder that we should be praising him throughout the day. Hymn studies are one way we try to keep our minds on praising the Lord.

Blessed Assurance Background

Franny Crosby wrote Blessed Assurance in 1873 to accompany the tune created by Phoebe Knapp. Sometimes the hymn itself has an exciting story, but in this case, the hymn writer has her own rich story. Crosby is credited with over 8,000 hymns.

She was born with sight but became blind at only six weeks old. She went to a particular school for the blind and later taught at the same school. She was well educated and well known for her hymns and songwriting. She wrote Blessed Assurance almost immediately upon hearing the tune from Knapp.

Activity Ideas for Blessed Assurance Hymn Study

We always like to start our hymn study by listening to various versions of the hymn. It never ceases to be a blessing. We listen intentionally and sing together as we begin our study, but I also will play it at other times during our day as background music. For example, I might play the hymn while cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. Listening frequently helps to create familiarity with the music.

Music Performance in Hymn Study

If you have musically inclined students, learning to play the hymn on a favorite instrument is a great way to internalize the song. My daughter enjoys learning hymns on her violin, but you could get started with something as simple as a recorder.

Since many hymns are older and in the public domain, you can often find free or inexpensive sheet music online.

Take a few minutes and discuss the lyrics with your children. Talk about what they mean and how they might apply to their lives. You might talk about how the writer used rhyme to help the song flow if you have young children.

Printables for Blessed Assurance

Finally, you can download our free hymn study worksheet and copywork pages to accompany the hymn. These pages can help incorporate the hymn into your school day. To access your printables, sign-up for our free resource library at the end of this post.

Blessed Assurance Resources

Sheet Music

Contemporary Style Blessed Assurance: Jeremy Riddle

CeCe Winans and Choir (skip to 1:50 for the beginning of the song)

Alan Jackson Blessed Assurance (with guitar accompaniment)

Celtic Style Blessed Assurance

Carrie Underwood Blessed Assurance

Bluegrass Style Blessed Assurance

I hope this study and these resources are a blessing to your family! Be sure to check out all of our other hymn studies once you finish Blessed Assurance. We try to incorporate different ideas with each study, including nature study, art, and literature.

I would love for you to share your favorite version of Blessed Assurance in the comments. Also, let me know what hymns you would like to see next.

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Cross Seven Ventures: Homeschool Musical Memory Tool (Review)

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

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Sometime when I choose to review a product I have a pretty good idea what to expect and how we are going to like it, but Cross Seven Ventures – Homeschool Musical Memory Tool from Cross Seven was a bit different.

When looking over the program, I was unsure if my children were going to really love it or hate it. I decided to give it a try to see if it would help us to be more diligent in our scripture memory work.

Cross Seven Ventures – Homeschool Musical Memory Tool is a huge collection of memory work that covers nine different content areas and is broken up into four cycles. They include scripture, hymns, mathematics, science, history, grammar, Latin, geography, and a timeline. There are four cycles of work for each of those categories.

Getting Started

When we first received access to this content, I had the whole family join me in the living room one evening to check it out. Even my husband decided to listen and see what he thought.

We started with the hymns section because we love hymns and I knew that we would probably enjoy using that section. The voices were lovely and I was well pleased with the selection of hymns. My husband was impressed with the quality of the singing.

Next, we listened to some of the scripture memory work. This was an area that I knew I needed to spend more time on and I loved how easy it made it. The cycle 1 (which we chose because of our history studies) section had three scriptures to choose from. We picked Philippians 2: 1-11 as the scripture that we wanted to memorize together.

After scripture we decided to try the history since it would go along with our regular history curriculum. I started in the middle of cycle 1 with the history lesson that we had completed that week.

The history videos were a bit different from the scripture and hymns and had more of rap or chant style compared to the flowing scripture and hymns. My oldest son really disliked it but my seven year old loved it. He thought it was great and wanted me to add it to his morning work.

We listened to a few selections from the math and grammar sections as well, but decided that starting with the three areas of hymns, scripture, and history would be the best fit for us right now.

Hymns

We started with the Doxology and then added in Great is Thy Faithfulness a few weeks later. The Doxology was a perfect way to start because it is shorter and easy to memorize. I already knew the song because we sang it every week at the church where I grew up.

Great is They Faithfulness is a longer song and broken up into weeks. We have been working our way through that song and enjoy the time spent together singing each morning.

Scripture

I loved that they were done in bigger passages and not just random verses. I feel like you get so much more context.

I appreciated that the words were displayed on the screen to help as we worked on memorization. I also liked that we could listen to the whole passage, but they had it broken down into weekly sections to make it more manageable.

History

I only used the history with my thirteen and seven year-olds because they are covering the same history material. I was not sure how it would go, but they really enjoyed it. They would walk around singing the weeks memory work, especially the seven-year-old. I even found my three year old singing parts of it.

I really appreciated that it tied in so well with our history curriculum and felt like it was a great way to help the information from the curriculum ‘stick’ a little better in their minds.

Other Resources

In addition to the videos, the program contained extra videos with hand motions to help with the memorization. There were also quizzes that you could use to see how well students were memorizing their work. Since we had decided to use this program together as a family a few minutes each morning we did not use the quizzes. However, I think they would have been very beneficial if I was having them work independently.

There were also some fun history videos for kids that were included about some of the different topics. The website said that they were still making new videos and adding to the list.

Conclusions and Opinions

Overall, I was well pleased with Cross Seven Ventures – Homeschool Musical Memory Tool. I loved how easy it made it for me as the parent. I simply logged in each morning and clicked on the right videos. I was so much more consistent with our morning time because it was simple (and the seven year old would not let me forget about it).

If you are wanting an easy way to add in memory work or keep morning time simple, this is a great product. I love that I can pick and choose which subject we will use and that we can do it all at our own pace.

You can see how other Review Crew families used this program by clicking on the graphic below.

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Hymn Study: Trust and Obey

It is no secret that 2020 was a crazy year for most people, and honestly 2021 does not appear to be settling down. As I spent time in prayer about what I needed to focus on this year, it became clear that I needed to really lean into ‘Trust’. I know that I can trust God but I need to spend time making sure I actually put it into practice. As a part of my desire to focus on trusting the Lord, I have decided to include several hymns that focus on trust in our lineup this year.

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Hymn Story

This month we will be studying Trust and Obey, written by John H. Sammis. It is most often sung to the tune written by Daniel Brink Towner. It was first published in 1887. According to Ira Sankey, a young man at a testimony meeting led by Dwight Moody, “I am not quite sure but I am going to trust, and I am going to obey.” Sankey then sent a note and that quote to John H. Sammis who was a Presbyterian minister. From that note he wrote the hymn that we now know as Trust and Obey.

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Scripture

There are many scripture verses in the Bible that talk about trusting and obeying God. A few that tie in really well to this particular hymn are Proverbs 16:20, 1 John 5:2-3, Matthew 11:29-30. These would be great verses to memorize or use as copywork.

Activities

In addition to listening to a variety of versions of this song (make sure to check out some of our favorites below), I have created free printable copywork sheets with the hymn lyrics. In order to build upon the idea of trusting God, you can make a list of things you are thankful for and ways that God has already been faithful to your family. This hymn can also be a good starting point for discussions on times when we have to obey God even though it is hard.

Another fun way to help your children remember the hymn is to have your children learn to play the hymn on a musical instrument. You could choose any instrument your child already plays, or if they are new to learning an instrument you might start with the recorder as an inexpensive and easy to play option.

We hope you enjoy this hymn study and find comfort in the words of this classic hymn through whatever trials come your way.