By Kathy Cooksey

As I sat at my husband’s desk in our house, I looked out the window, deep in thought. Three Japanese construction men in hard hats stood twenty feet from me, evaluating house plans. Squished between two houses was the empty lot they had to deal with. Other construction workers lowered pipes from a crane and roared the engines of their trucks during all of this. The air filled with smoke from the engine of their crane truck, and they measured, marked, and measured again.

It occurred to me that that empty lot is a lot like our children, except the children are infinitely more precious. That’s why we’re homeschooling in the first place, right? Our children are so important to us that we can’t just hire any construction company to build the houses in their little minds.

So we put on our hard hats, draw up our plans, dig up the earth, and begin to pour the concrete. And I know that you would agree with me that the foundation we want to hold them rock-solid is Jesus Christ, made known through the Scriptures. But how can we get the living Word of God in their lives?

First of all our family has chosen an overall curriculum (ATI) which starts with the Scripture and goes from there. It’s not added as an afterthought but rather every subject (even law, medicine, and Greek) are taken from a verse in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s fun as a family to take apart those Scriptures like a cow chews its cud — to ruminate on them over and over again. It makes us consider angle upon angle of the verse, building a room in our minds for that special message from God.

Before breakfast we try to make sure the kids have spent some time either in the Word or in a Bible story book, depending on their reading level (or lack thereof~!). Really important, too, although my littlest kids don’t fully understand it yet, it to spend a few minutes meditating on the Word. The Lord promises, among other things, that the man who meditates on His Word will be like a tree planted by streams of living water. Whatever he does will prosper! So we encourage them to pick a meaningful verse, close their eyes, and ponder each word of it in their hearts.

Before I had any children, a homeschool mom I admired let me peer into her teaching world. One of the books I was most impressed with encased the kids’ handwriting assignments — completely Scripture! One good curriculum for practicing handwriting with Scripture is The Weaver, but much cheaper is just to pick out some verses that your child especially needs. Our oldest son is now writing verses from Proverbs about the rewards of hard work. Like The Weaver, when he’s written it 4 days in a row, the fifth day he gets to write it on special paper. One of his verses that especially ministered to me is now hanging in my closet, held on the shelf by the weight of winter sweaters.

At meal time sometimes my husband or I get to share something from our quiet times that the Lord has gotten us excited about. With five small children it can be hard to get a word in edgewise, so at those times we have what we call “the rule,” which means that the children let us talk unless they need to politely ask for something. I think it’s important for them to see us excited about applying the Scripture in our own lives and talking about it.
We’ve just started trying to memorize some verses as a family, sometimes adding motions to make it interesting and easy to remember for the kids. Navigators Scripture memory packs have great ideas to get started. A friend suggested saying the reference after each phrase to really get it in our heads. That has been helpful for me.

In the car in the past we’ve used those “waiting times” to run through learning cards, sing songs, or do guessing games. Recently a friend sent me some psalms to the tune of famous hymns. I’m excited about having sing-a-longs in the car that will not return void!

Another important element which the Lord is dealing with me on is to eliminate anger from our home. If I react to the children in anger (including frustration, irritation, or those kinds of attitudes), they could grow up to see a Christian home to be something they don’t want to be apart of. Rather if our home is one of consistent discipline, love, hugs, pats on the back, and praise, they will see God’s love through us and want to hang around for more. And the Creator of Heaven and Earth is the Master Builder after all!