This week & next, I hope to share some Bible lessons you can use in your own homeschool. We are hosting VBS in El Salvador with both the kids in the orphanage & local neighborhood. Our work is part of SHIP (Shelter the Homeless International Project) and I’m excited to see how God works over the next 2 weeks.
Each day we will center on a virtue from We Choose Virtues. We Choose Virtues recently published their Parenting Cards in Spanish & we’re excited to be the first group to use them.
I’ll let you know what we added to the We Choose Virtues Bible Parenting Cards (verse, saying & story). So, you’ll get a Bible story, craft & snack that you can use with We Choose Virtues (at least the virtues we teach in El Salvador).
Yesterday, we were discussing the importance of being diligent. After singing songs, Dennise told the story of Ruth.
We discussed the importance of working hard, starting quickly & finishing strong. This continued into memorizing our verse. I always print phrases of our verse on cardstock and back them with flannel.
Our verse teacher, Courtney, lets the kids practice saying the verse together. She takes down one card each time we repeat the verse. This helps them memorize verses easily.
For our craft, the kids made finger puppets of Ruth, Naomi & Boaz. They can act out the story they heard in VBS to remind them to be diligent as Ruth was diligent to gather wheat sheaves.
Since the memory verse didn’t fit on the finger puppets, they took it home on a flash card. Some kids taped their finger puppets to the flash cards…creativity!
Some also added eyelashes and other features. These kids are always adding cute extras!
Finally, we served cinnamon rolls to remind us of the wheat that Ruth gathered as she was diligently working to provide for Naomi.
I’ll be sharing this recipe in an upcoming post.
Trevor shared a life story about being diligent while the kids ate their”wheat” rolls. He told the kids how he trains for running events. They aren’t normal running events, so he must diligently prepare his whole body for the obstacles during those events. He reminded the kids to work hard & be diligent in other areas of their lives – at home, with friends, in school.
In summary, here’s what we covered:
- We Choose Virtues Diligent Parenting Card (includes virtue, memory verse, catchphrases)
- Story of Ruth – Working diligently in the fields.
- Craft – Finger Puppets
- Snack – Cinnamon Rolls
- Life Story – Diligently working towards your goals
I am giving away a pound of freshly roasted El Salvadoran coffee. To enter this giveaway, you need to do 2 things.
1. SUPER-EASY: Subscribe to this blog. Use the form below to subscribe to my blog & receive an email every time I post. If you already receive emails every time I post to this blog, you’ve already done #1. Just check it off!
2. COMMENT: Leave a comment on any of my blog posts about our SHIP VBS. You can leave a comment every day until July 17th, 2014
- How you are teaching your kids that particular virtue
- How you struggle with that particular virtue
- Thoughts about going on a family mission trip
Here are links to each of the SHIP VBS posts. Leave a comment on a different post, every day! You’ll get a 10 point entry for every comment.
Day 1: We Choose Virtues – Learning to Be Diligent
Day 2: We Choose Virtues – Learning to Be Content
Day 3: We Choose Virtues – Learning to Be Patient
Day 4: FREE Bible Lessons for Kids – Diligent
Day 5: FREE Bible Lessons for Kids – Content
Day 6: FREE Bible Lessons for Kids – Patient
Question: How do your kids learn diligence? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
NOTE: This post may contain affiliate links.
12 Comments
We have Part of We Choose Virtues and will be using it this fall.
Linda
I hope these ideas are helpful to you. Please let me know if you have other ideas to use with We Choose Virtues
I continually have to remind my son about Patience. He is mentally challenged and although he is older that his mental age (he can do things on a 2nd to 5th grade depending on the subject) he is really learning patience by doing puzzles. He has a problem with a puzzle of 1,000 pieces or more but I encourage him to do them because when he gets frustrated with them I just remind him that he can do it and he has done them before. I tried to get him to do a 5,000 piece puzzle and I realized really soon that it was above his ability and I told him he wasn’t quitting by putting it up for the time but that when he does the 1,000 and 1,500 piece puzzles he is learning and that he will one day be able to do the 5,000 piece. Because of his mental problems he really has trouble with sitting down and doing things. I have found when he is able to put together a puzzle that he is really interested in doing that he finds it easier to do other things like his schoolwork. He recently did a 2,000 piece puzzle of a early flag. You should have seen him beam when after he glued it together and framed it he gave it to his dad and me for Flag day. He is always doing patriotic puzzles for us because we were both veterans and we are both disabled.
Jackie,
Thanks so much for sharing you story about your son. What a fantastic example of learning patience. Puzzles definitely take lots of patience, especially ones of 1000 pieces. I”m so impressed. I’m sure it’s encouraging to you when he is successful with those type activities.
My daughter plays sports and maintain an A average and this helps in teaching her to be diligent in all areas of her life. I use a variety of examples from sports,books,real-life and people in the bible. I believe the best way is still to lead by example. So far so good. I’m extremely proud of her.
Tomika,
You are so right…leading by example is one of the best ways to instill Godly virtues. My kids also learned diligence through sports. Thanks for the reminder
Patience is not only a virtue a child needs to learn. To often as adults we need to learn to be patient when things go wrong. If we don’t have patience then our children will not have patience.
Are the finger puppets part of the We Choose Virtue curriculum, or are they available elsewhere?
They are not part of We Choose Virtue. We created our own patterns.