Christianity & Homeschooling: Effective Bible Lessons for Young Home Schooled Children
By Mimi RothschildFor many parents who choose to home school their children, lack of faith and religion in the public school is a primary reason why they pull their children out of these schools to home school their children instead. Although they may want their children to spend more time studying God and religion, many parents don't have the foggiest idea of how to teach religion in a way that is educational, beneficial, and engaging to their youngsters. Luckily, there are many ways to teach religion to your child in a way that will build both their faith and your own.
Home school means that you can choose to teach your child religion as part of the traditional curriculum. While older children may benefit from a more academic and scholarly approach to the study of their religion, that approach is inappropriate for younger children. Instead, focus your attention in the home school lessons on the parables and stories of your religion. Parables and stories serve as examples of the works of God and to show us the character of God; home school lessons are not complete without them. Children love these stories and will become enraptured with such stories as Jesus turning a small amount of bread and fish into food to fill a hungry crowd, or of the story with Joshua bringing down the walls of Jericho. During your home school bible lessons and devotions, you can tell the children these stories.
Apart from telling the children these stories during their home school lesson and devotions, you can ask them questions about the story. Ask how they would feel if they were in a situation similar to that of the people in the story. How they would feel having to feed the hungry crowd or how they would have conquered Jericho if it had been them. The questions will help put the stories into context for your home schooled child and keep her engaged while pondering the nature of God and how these stories impact our lives today.
Home schooling your child may have spiritual benefits for you as well. These home school lessons and devotions give you the opportunity to revisit material and stories you may not have heard since you yourself were little. Furthermore, you may again be able to see faith and religion through the eyes of a child, learning and growing yourself as your home schooled child learns and grows. Home school religion lessons and devotions allow God to retake center stage in your child's education.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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