MorningStar Academy Year 4

It is soo hard to believe that we are back at it again for another year. Honestly I went back and forth over the summer as to whether I would homeschool another year. Homeschooling is hard enough but add a PCS move and husband who works ALL the time now and well I can get just a L-I-T-T-L-E overwhelmed. But when all is said and done and I focus on what God is telling us to do, it's another year of homeschooling and deep down that is the desire of my heart!!!! I've never thought much about making the first day back at school a big deal but after seeing what Courtney does with her kids on the first day of school and seeing the reason behind the Big Cookie tradition I thought I would have a go at it!!!!!

Here are our First Day of School pictures!!

CJ

JJ

LJ

My Big Cookie ended up being a Cookie Pizza!!!

And I thought I would come up with my own little tradition as well. Since we will be doing ECHO this year, the kids needed separate lunch bags so I decided to fill them up with some goodies and printed up a personal note for each child, encouraging them to do their best in the year to come and also reminded them of how proud I am of them!!! The notes were greatly enjoyed by all!!!!

Here are their 1st Day of School goodies

LJ being silly

I love this pic of JJ, it captures his I'm still not awake face

CJ was just eating it all up

Check back weekly as I "plan" on doing a post weekly sharing what we are doing or some things I've come up with to help make learning more meaningful and fun. I'm working on some posts for Bible memory verses for AWANA and also getting creative with the amazing Pre-K curriculum Itty-Bitty Bookworm. I also want to get back on track with my Mettle Monday's and am working on a Remember When post to celebrate a very special September birthday!!! I do hope you enjoyed your visit and come back often, I always enjoy making new blogger friends!!!

Wisdom from Proverbs

A friend loves you all the time, a brother is always there to help you.
Proverbs 17:17 (International Children's Bible)

After we decided to have more than one child, I was very concerned with the chance that my children might not get along. I had always seen two scenarios when it came to siblings. (Please note this is through the eyes of a single child) Those who got along wonderfully with their siblings and those who could not stand their siblings. I was very concerned about raising children that might end up like Cain and Abel. After much prayer I felt God answer this concern with this statement: "Siblings must be taught to get along and learn to love each other." This really made sense to me, just because children are born into the same family doesn't mean they will automatically get along or even love each other. So if I wanted to have a peaceful family I must ensure that they are taught to be kind, respectful, loving and forgiving. I can't just tell them to be like this, I must show them how to give these precious gifts to each other by example, correction, and instilling in them the wisdom of the Bible.

I also feel that socialization begins at home. When children learn how to treat, get along with, and be respectful to their immediate family; those skills naturally flow over into how they interact with others. This is why when we start teaching our children to share, we teach them that sharing is not just getting what you want from someone but more importantly waiting your turn with a happy heart. Often our young children have come to mis-learn that sharing is getting what you want from someone else. The coin phrase in our house is: "When you are done with that, can you share with me." Then as they get older the focus is turned to putting others first in giving up a toy to bring joy to a little sibling.

Another issue we deal with rather early is favoritism. I think we unknowingly instill this in our children when we allow only one parent or family member to tend to the needs of a child. This wasn't a big issue with LJ but we saw favoritism in JJ and most recently has become an issue with CJ. We start addressing the issue once we see a toddler who ONLY wants a certain family member to get a drink for them or put them to bed. Often we notice that a toddler will only hold a certain parents hand. As a toddler, the solution is rather easy in method but requires consistency and firmness in execution. For example, our children have refused a cup of water if it has not been provided by a certain parent. In that instant we have kept that cup in front of them and explained if they are thirsty they will drink from that cup AND no other cup will be provided. Usually this is enough to resolve the issue but did find ourselves dealing with a willfully disobedient child who picked up their cup and dumped out the water. In this instant a spanking was given because it was an act of defiance. (In our house spankings are only issued when a child is being defiant and not used to intimidate or as a punishment.)The cup was not refilled and when they wanted a drink they had to ask the parent they were refusing a drink from for a cup of water.

Lately I have felt a bit overwhelmed by all that has to be done and worn down by a very demanding little girl. After much prayerful consideration I introduced the Buddy/Helper system.




Each day the boys look on their cork board to see if they are a Buddy or a Helper. If they are a Buddy they help out CJ, she is 3, with her daily activities. Being a Helper means they help me out with meals and doing my daily chores. This has helped out tremendously and been such a blessing in producing more fruit than I was expecting. The Buddy system has helped CJ and her brothers bond more and fostered an environment that has taught them to get along. LJ and JJ are learning to be more patient and show compassion to their little sister. CJ is learning to be more friendly with others and willingly receive their help. The Helper system has been a lot of fun for me, creating bonding time with the boys and has helped me carve out time to teach them some "home economics" each day as I train them in home maintenance and management.

I have been revising our cork-boards and recently took their Gold-Medal Behavior out of their binders and put it up for them to work on daily. After we move, they will get one point each day they are able to win all 6 gold medals and turn those points in for rewards. (More on that later) But for now we have used the Gold Medals to help correct attitudes and get them to think about how they are behaving. Once we are settled into our new home, LJ will be required to write in a daily journal how he has displayed, "completed", each character trait in hopes that he will start thinking about how he needs to behave,"complete the play". JJ is still in a "training phase" and his chart is used more for correction as he is still "learning the play book". After all training our children what it is all about!

Train a child how to live the right way. Then even when he
is old, he will still live that way. Proverbs 22:6

4 more weeks

and MorningStar Academy will wrap up for the school year. Oddly enough, however I have noticed that we are just beginning some important changes and life lessons that will carry us well through the summer and into the coming months. MANNERS!!!!

Having two boys tends to lend to silly talk about poop and jokes that only they find humorous. We have also entered into a phase, with LJ, where he finds it rewarding to do things to purposely aggravate his little brother and sister. AND little brother and little sister have been taught all they have to do to get big brother in trouble is to scream. So my three manners to work on are LJ thinking about what we say before we say it and determine if we have the right heart attitude, JJ is learning how to be slow to anger and verbalizing what he is feeling, and CJ is learning to also communicate verbally with words if she wants brothers to not do something.

We are also working on teaching the kids how to take care of their rooms and keeping accountability for their possessions. Our focus this week is putting our shoes where they belong. Last week I introduced the skill of folding laundry to LJ and JJ. We are working on CJ putting up her clothes and not dragging them all out through out the day.

Another idea I'm working on is having a Mommy Helper each day. My Mommy Helper will get up early with me to make breakfast, help me clean up the table after each meal, and work beside me as I do my chores. On the days that CJ is not my Mommy helper one of the boys will be responsible for playing with her while I am busy with my Mommy Helper. I think the boys are in need of extra time with their sister. I'm hoping to get some of my Preschool in a Bag activities prepped so that she will have her "own" things to do during sit down time for school and the boys can help teach her readiness skills. As boys I think it is of utmost importance to start training them to be leaders early on. They always seem to enjoy teaching their little sister homeschool lessons and it also helps them to get on her level and play with her in a more personal manner.

So how are some ways you ensure that your children are learning to get along with each other????

Week 17 in Review

Wow, what a C-R-A-Z-Y week this has been. Anytime I have had a chance to sit down at my computer, I can't find my camera. Then when I find my camera, I'm no where near the computer or out of time. Sigh!!! We have had at least one to two extra things to do this week EVERY day on top of our normal schedule. I am sooo tired and the end isn't in sight. And even though my least favorite thing to do is blog without pictures, I seriously can not find my camera right now, so I'll try to leave you with some links!!!

This week had CJ continuing to enjoy her Itty-Bitty Bookworm Curriculum!!! Can't wait to share more pics with you on that. Don't forget that April 30th is the last day to get their Bo Year 3 Curriculum for only $150 for 12 months!!!!!

Both LJ and JJ have enjoyed our week with McRuffy Math. LJ still has issues with wanting to sit down and do his lesson but the biggest improvement is that he is able to solve the problems on his own, with the use of the manipulatives!!! I'm using the simplicity of the K lessons to get JJ in sitting down to do math lessons. He loves the Geoboard while LJ is having a blast with the Pentominoes. Of course CJ is along for the ride and we are using the Teddy Bear Counters to help her solidify that numbers have a value.

Our count down begins as we have 4 weeks of school left. We will pick up the pace a bit but having the whole month of June available to do some last minute sight seeing with be well worth it!!!

I hope to find my camera over the weekend and I will post some pictures of our favorite places on island, catch up with Kiddo Create, and also share with you all the excitement of Golden Week!!!

Scripture Memory Games

Our kids are a part of our church's AWANA program. LJ is in TNT and JJ is in Sparks. The AWANA program runs parallel to the public school year so we are down to our last couple of months. This is a very exciting time yet mundane can set in. So as JJ works for his review patch and LJ works to finish his last Discovery, I decided to come up with a game that would help them maintain their excitement for memorizing God's Word!!

For JJ I came up with a matching game. I print out the verse reference and Bible verse out on separate cards.

JJ is an beginner reader so right now I'm focused on him tying the references with the verse instead of reading the verses. So I can say Psalm 118:11 says "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good" which verse does Psalm 118:11 belong with. And although he is just learning to read, he is always able to figure out the right verse.



If you child is an independent reader, you can turn the cards over to make it a matching game. Now they have to find the verse and the reference to get a match!! When starting with a early reader you might want consider starting with just two verses. After they have those down then you can add a new verse as needed.This way you can reinforce new verses while reviewing older ones all at the same time.


LJ has longer verses to memorize so I wanted to be able to break down the verses into smaller sizes to help him whiz through memorizing them. I decided to write the verses on index cards and cut the verse apart.

Then he has to take the mixed up verse

and put it back together again!


Mama Jenn inspired me with her calendar board post and so I decided to store their game pieces on our school cork board in baseball card protectors! I really like the hook idea Mama Jenn used but when I decided to put ours together all I had was push pins. Hey, it works!


Another cool thing about using baseball card protectors is that once we are done


we can simply put them into a 3 ring binder for storage!!


You can use these ideas for many learning subjects, foreign language, matching objects to their shadows, Upper and lower case letters, or math facts. This list can go on and on!! I hope this gave you a little bit of inspiration and put some excitement back into what ever it is you are teaching your children!!!

Edible Color Wheel

This isn't an original idea or the first time we have done the color wheel but it was the first time we tried it with frosting!! When you live on a tropical island and it gets a bit cold and windy it makes for some yucky time indoors, especially when your kids aren't use to it. So after 2 days of being stuck indoors and waking up to another rainy day, I knew I had to do something fast to get this day off on a good note. So I decided to bake cupcakes with CJ cause she was the only one up.



While the cupcakes were baking the boys woke up and I wanted to keep them off the T.V. so I decided to first do a color wheel with some frosting I had.


Then I decided to let the kiddos make an educated guess as to what color would be made when they mixed their colors.

The kids were so excited at this point!


Here is JJ mixing his colors and was very excited to get orange!


I was surprised LJ didn't get made at getting a girl color but maybe his taste buds overwhelmed his normal boy thinking, lol!



We made sure that CJ ended up with green because that is her color of the month with IttyBitty Bookworm.


Our edible color wheel completed.


And the kiddos starting off their day with a bit of fun!!

Jenga for scripture memory?

If you have followed my blog for any length of time you probably know that we are an AWANA family. I have a first year TNTer and a first year SPARKy and I am our Cubbie Director. AWANA fills the role of scripture memory in our home and supplements our Bible lessons from Bible Study For All Ages.


Here is JJ working on one of the Beginner Pages!
It is honest to say that sometimes the boys do get into ruts when memorizing their verses!! Because I want this to be a lifelong habit it needs to be kept fun, at least that is my own opinion. So the other day I decided to use Jenga blocks as a memory tool. It all started because LJ locked onto the Jenga blocks at the same time he was suppose to be working in his TNT book. And rather than go into a long discussion about how he's not being diligent, not obeying, yada yada yada I encouraged him to do both!!



I suggested that as he laid each block down he should recite a word from his verse and continue until all the blocks were in place. Then as he took away a block he could also recite his verse, word by word, all over again. He was allowed to play as long as he wanted, IF, he was working on his verse at the same time. Jingle jangle; it worked!!! Still not sure who was happier him or me, lol.

Gold Medal Behavior

As we are finally winding down our ABC book, my plans for the Letter V were a bit of a well... complete flop. What to do, what to do??? Brain storm and act quick!!! Since the Winter Olympics are upon us and our memory verse for V is: ..victory rests with the Lord Proverbs 21:31 I thought doing something with a "medal theme" would work perfectly!!! And that is how our Gold Medal Behavior Charts were born. Most of these verses came from Character Trait Memory Verse Cards for Children, but a few I changed. Another great resource would be For Instruction in Righteousness by Doorposts
.

Be Helpful When we have the opportunity to help anyone, we should do it. Galatians 6:10	Be Thorough ..(do) everything the Lord command(s). Genesis 6:22	Be Obedient Children, obey your parents the way the Lord wants. Ephesians 6:1
Be Respectful Show respect for all people.. Respect God. 1 Peter 2:17	Be Cooperative …if two or three people come together in my name, I am there with them. Matthew 18:19	Be a Peacemaker We are workers together with God..Do not let the grace that you received from God be for nothing. 2 Corinthians 6:1

 

Be Forgiving .if you forgive others for the things they do wrong, then your Father in heaven will also forgive you… Matthew 6:14	Be Happy Happiness makes a person smile. But sadness breaks a person's spirit. Proverbs 15:13	Be Slow to Anger ..a foolish person who loses his temper does foolish things. Proverbs 14:7a
Be a Good Listener …always be willing to listen and slow to speak. James 1:19b	Be Prompt There is a right time for everything. Ecclesiastes 3:1	Be Neat and Orderly Let everything be done in a way that is right and orderly 1 Corinthians: 4:40

We will print out each chart, cut them up and store in baseball card page protectors.

Next I'll print out 6 "medals" for each child and laminate them.


Through out the day, when they practice one of their "Gold Medal Behavior" I will award them with a Gold Medal Badge.

A New Year Begins

What a great week this is turning out to be! We are in full swing here at MorningStar Academy and learning is in the air!

We are loving Sonlight Core 1: World History and I must say I am enjoying the many "I never knew that!" moments I am having with the boys. To up the fun factor, I wanted to make sure we started off on a positive note in our first week back after our Christmas break so I broke down and planned some crafts. (If you know me it wasn't hard to twist my hand in this area.) We attempted pyramids and I showed the kids how their names might look in hieroglyphs.

We finished up Mr. Popper's Penguins and started Mountain Born. LJ is working on Discovery 4 and JJ will finish up Red Jewel 3 this week. As for CJ, she is just sooo excited about her princess party and carries around her party favors all around the house trying to show anyone who will stop and listen to her gush about her princess party; which by the way isn't till the end of the month.

We are still figuring out the execution of our Four F's: Father, Family, Finance, and Fitness. This week for Fitness we woke the boys up early on alternating days to workout. The weather wasn't always favorable but just getting them use to waking up so early has been exhausting enough. Finance was a bit harder as we adjust to not eating fast foods. It takes a little more creativity for foods on the go, but all in all it all went well.

Big Daddy and I have decided that Fridays will be our adult movie night. I picked the movie last week so I have no idea what he is going to bring home. Last week we watched Inglourious Basterds, and I think I sat there just amazed at how fast events changed in the movie. I really liked that I could not guess what was going to happen next.

But the one thing that I think this week will forever be remembered for is the day CJ gave herself a "Daddy haircut". If you look at the bottom picture above you will see a head full of hair that made its way to the floor....


and that prompted a visit to the saloon....sigh!!!!

A Vision is Born

August 17,2009

22...A transformed woman will embrace the transforming God!....33-34"This is the brand-new covenant that I will make with Israel when the time comes. I will put my law within them—write it on their hearts!—and be their God. And they will be my people. They will no longer go around setting up schools to teach each other about God. They'll know me firsthand, the dull and the bright, the smart and the slow. I'll wipe the slate clean for each of them. I'll forget they ever sinned!" God's Decree. Jeremiah 31.

As our new school year is creeping closer, I have been prayerfully considering what our Bible Verse would be for the focus of School Year 09-10 and then I read Jeremiah 31: 22,33-34. And all seemed to fall into place. I have been struggling with the validity of teaching my children the 10 Commandments. Oh they know them but I was in prayer about the necessity at such a young age. Would they really understand, would it encourage works vice faith, most importantly was I setting them up to be yoked with the bondage of sin instead of the freedom of salvation. After reading 33-34 I knew my answer was awaiting me and as I prayed for clarity the Lord revealed that yes I do need to teach my children, as young as possible the 10 Commandment. Specifically so that they will have this knowledge within there heads and it will be easier for them to understand when Christ writes it upon their hearts. Not foreign but something familiar and will be accepted with greater ease.

These verses really sum up what our motivation is for this coming school year. We are advancing with great confidence and purpose. Myself, confident not in my abilities but in the fact that God will provide. Secured in the decision to homeschool and that it is what is best for our family and a part of Gods plan to grow us as a family. And most importantly that each one of our children will be able to say yes, I know God first hand because my Savior is Jesus Christ.

Wow, if that doesn't get you pumped up for a new school year, I'm not sure what will!!

---

Father, my Creator and author of all good things!! You have given me this day, now what would you have me do with it? May I have the discipline to be still and wait for your answer. In Jesus Name we pray, Amen

Sites We Find Useful

May 18. 2009
In an attempt to de-clutter my right column, I've decided to list all the sites I use or have used in the past in a post rather than in my column. Once I'm done with de-cluttering I'll link the single post in the column, and hopefully this will work at making my blog page not so overwhelming. As a sweet friend said, "My your blog sure is busy, but knowing you I wouldn't expect anything less." Still trying to figure out if that was a complement or not.

Teacher Book Bag

CurrClick

ABC and 123

Art Projects for Kids

lwm3b; Grammar Rules

inches to centimeters

First-School

Homeschool Share

Lapbook Templates in MS Word

Reading a Ruler

Flags of the World

Starfall

History of Bible

Homeschool Helper

me and my girl

What sites do you find useful?

Going through the ABC's with memory verses is going great with JJ. This week we are doing the letter D, check this post to see what we've done so far. You can also bookmark it as I will be updating it each week with what we are going to do.

---

Perseverance
Lord, teach my children perseverance in all they do, and help them especially to "run with perseverance the race marked out for [them]". Heb. 12:1

School Days Are Numbered!!!!

May 11, 2009
So I've finally decided on what I'll be ordering for the new school year. I'm really trying to wrap everything up by the end of May so we can enjoy our last summer here in Okinawa.

Sonlight Core 1 with Intermediate Readers

Bible Study Guide for All Ages Unit 2 Intermediate and Beginner Pages.

Learning Language Arts Through Literature,Red

This week is going to be very busy for me as we are drawing near the end of the AWANA year, the boys and Big Daddy are going to White Beach for JJ's 5th birthday (don't even get me going on that event), my rotation for Children's Church starts next week, and the list could and does go on and on and on. The bottom line is my posts will be short and sweet over the next several weeks. All apart of managing stress and being more available for my children.

Since I'm not going to be around much over the next several weeks here are some blogs I think you will enjoy!!!!







The Happy Housewife



This is my BBF=Blogging Best Friend!!!

---

Faithfulness
"Let love and faithfulness never leave [my children]," but bind these twin virtues around their necks and write them on the tablet of their hearts. Prov. 3:3

ABC's the Totally Tots Way

April 23, 2009
So if you haven't checked out Totally Tots by now, you must. Great blog for you AND your kiddos. I must say, my children range from 2 to 7 and we all enjoy the crafts that they come up with. I haven't visited in about a month so when I saw they were going through the ABCs, I knew this was my answer to working on the alphabet with JJ!!! So that I can keep this for future reference I'm going to link the posts for each letter right here and add pics of what our crafts turned out like. Oh boy this is going to be soooo much fun!!!!

A

All have sinned Romans 3:23
Boy or Girl color sheet for memory verse
Letter A Word Search
Letter A Color Sheet
Letter A Template


B

...believe in God. John 14:1
Beecolor sheet for memory verse
Brown Bear File Folder Game

Letter B Template
Brown Bear I Spy Bottle


C

Call upon the Lord... Psalm 18:3
telephone for memory verse
number match or learn phone number(for older kids). I was more comfortable with them practicing dialing on the worksheet than our real phone. I even taught them 9-1-1 and why you would use it. I will use the letter H to teach them their address so they could give this if needed also. Still trying to decide which letter we will use to teach first and last name.


Letter C template

D

...day and night belong to you. Psalm 74:16

Sun, Moon, & Stars for memory verse

Creation Day Activities


Letter D template

E

early in the morning..Jesus..prayed Mark 1:35

Jesus praying for memory verse

Egg matching


Letter E template

F

friends...,we must love each other. 1 John4:11


Fishy friends for memory verse

Triangle fish craft

Letter F template

G

grass withers..but he word of the Lord stands forever. 1 Peter 1:24

Flower color sheet for memory verse

Flower Fun
Print 4 copies of flower template; 2 in pink and 2 in yellow. For the yellow I'm just going to cut the inner circles out and label them with 10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100. I'll use this to help JJ learn his 10s by laying all 10 pink flowers on the table and then laying the flower middles down in order and asking him if he would like to try. You could also just label the middle of a flower with numbers 0-9 and have butterflies or bees and have the child put the number of bees or butterflies on the corresponding flower.)
Note: when we start to learn to count we do zero to nine, then ten to nineteen, then twenty to twenty-nine, ext. I introduce each set of numbers as a family with the zero number being the name of the family and then counting 1-9 is how many children the families have.


Letter G template


H


..my house.. will serve the Lord. Joshua24:15
my house memory game (cut out each card and then use as memory game,keeping cards when you match animal/insect with its home)


house for memory verse
house coloring activity
online game
Letter H template

I

In your anger, do not sin. Psalm 4:4Angry face for memory verse
Emotions bingo (print off one sheet for each child, then act out an emotion and have them cover the space with whatever you chose to use)
make icecream to eat or for a file folder game

Letter I template
(I will modify the I template to add a "stroke" across the top and bottom of the capital I so that it doesn't look like a lower case L.)

J


..justice is a joy.. Proverbs 21:15
Moses and 10 Commandments for memory verse
10 Commandments for kids. (I printed off 10 different calendars with the different commandments, then cut off the headers and coorasponded the numbers 1-10 with each commandment.
Read Hand Commands, the best book I've found for teaching all ages the 10 Commandments.

Letter J template

K

..keep the sabbath holy... Exodus 31:14
church for memory verse
Kite matching from T.T.
Lapbook/Tot-book on kites
Foreign launguage, Famous people, how they fly, pictures.

Letter K template

L


love one another, for love comes from God. 1 John 4:7friends for memory verse"love is" puzzle

Letter L template

M

my sheep listen to my voice. John 10:27
sheep for memory verse
My name fun because Jesus loves Me

*This will vary depending on the age of your child.I used the meanings of my children's first and middle names and then added the bible verse we picked for them when they were born. I'm planning on framing the pictures and hanging them above their bed, an idea I got from Hands-On Character Building
Letter M template

N

..never tire of doing what is right. 2 Thessalonians 3:13
tire for memory verse

we used this FREE Math BINGO to introduce adding to JJ.Once he filled up his card, he got to eat all the candy. We also used legos to help him add.
Letter N template

O

open my lips...to praise you. Psalm 51:15
singing animals for memory verse Letter O template Opposites match game or lapbook

P



...Peace be with you. Psalm 122:8
dove for memory verse

Perky the Pumpkin Story or Pyramids
Letter P template


Q

..quick to listen, slow to speak.James 1:19
"quiet" girl for memory verse

5 senses puppets
Letter Q template

R

run with endurance the race God has set before us. Hebrews 12:1
tennis for memory verse
make a rainbow with ROY G BIV
Letter R template




S

seek the kingdom of God above all else Matthew 6:33
soldier for memory verse
Season Cycle Lapbook with Apple Picking ABC game
Letter S template



T

Teach us to use wisely all the time we have. Psalm 90:12
Clock for memory verse

(What I did was print off our daily schedule on magnet pages, cut them out and then each night/day I put up what we will do for each hour. This seems to help the boys see the progress they are making throughout the day and helps me adjust the schedule without much fuss when needed.)
Free clipart for schedule
Letter T template

U

...understanding is a fountain of life...Proverbs 16:22
Heaven's gate for memory verse
I printed the Solar system off on magnet pages and then cut them out to displayed on our fridge. We have had a blast making plans to visit several of the planets in our solar system!

(I also used many ideas from TTB January Bundle on Exploring Space )
Letter U template

V

...victory rests with the Lord. Proverbs 21:31
medal for memory verse


(I did up charts for each of the boys with behaviors they needed to improve on or learn and called it Gold Medal Behavior)
Letter V template

W

...we will walk in the name of the Lord... Micah 4:5
Jesus for memory verse


(Using the writing program Startwrite I made the boys writing notebooks. One book has the alphabet printed off in italic and the other is in italic cursive. Each week I print off a worksheet with a bible verse they are memorizing for AWANA to help aid in memorization and give them practice with their penmanship)
Letter W template

X


..Xerxes did what Esther had requested...Esther 9:14
Esther for memory verse
Pasta Skeleton
Letter X template

Y


Your eye is the lamp of your body Luke 11:34
Inside My Body Flipbook


(using some print outs from TBB December 2009, I made a flipbook that starts with the skin, then moves to the muscles, next nerves, and finally the bones of the body. For my older children there are game pieces so they can match different parts of each system.)

Letter Y template

Z

Zion will be restored by justice... Isaiah 1:27
Jesus' ascension into heaven color page

yellow and white print offs
Letter Z template

---

Father, as we strive to give our children the very best education possible, let us never forget that all is useless unless we lead them to Your Son, Jesus Christ. And before we can lead them we must have first walked the path ourselves. May our children see Your Light shining from us into their lives. In Jesus Name we pray, Amen