Power of the Devotional

After hundreds of way less than perfect devotionals, I realize now that each devotional shaped the core of my children. True, some were just drops in the bucket, but some were a gush of awesome-ness.  I love this idea of sharing what I do because it makes me reflect on what I do for homeschooling and why I do it, a powerful process for anyone :).  It has also helped me to see the joyous imperfection that is somehow making a difference!  Cracked pots away!!

Devotionals.  Awesome.  Powerful.
This is how I plan for them:
--some video or thought has been on my mind: I find a way to incorporate it (usually can) or just say, "today we have something I feel God wants us to learn about"
--I see some cool video or idea from someone else and copy it (love this one)
--think of our theme for the month (ours being "civility and its effect on society");  sometimes I will just find synonyms or tangent thoughts from our word study on it and go into depth there
--think of our daily focus: today it is Geo-conquest (since we have shifted our days all forward one since we weren't here Monday), so I looked for cultural and historical examples of civility.

I google or look on my "go to" websites mentioned before (lds.org, values.com, etc.) with a prayer in my heart and a feeling I am looking for my kids coming away with.  Remember, we want to change their core, strengthening it.  That is the purpose of devotional,...not the memorization of random facts.

So.  I get started with my devotional. I have the videos ready, any supplementary material, I call the kids down.  We start with our "attention grabber" (we haven't always done this, but it is fun!).

Today it was "Generation Gap": importance of communication is important despite differences, right?

Next, the "kid of the day" (Chugger-dude today) picked a patriotic song.  "Wee Sing" or "Classroom Classics" have some great sing-along music lists to choose from if your kids aren't as enthusiastic as mine.  Some of the little ones march around with a flag. I believe in the power of music.  I envision my boys in the trenches with patriotic songs in their heads strengthening them.  This is important to me so we do this.  What is important to you?  What will help your own children feel the feelings of patriotism that you want them to feel?  Videos? Stories? Songs?  Don't be deceived by their apparent apathy (although that can be annoying).  They are getting it at least a little.

Then we do our pledge of allegiance and sometimes a poem we are memorizing, although that has been more done at breakfast during our "Biesinger Creed" time lately.

Then onto devotional!

Today's was, as I mentioned before, historical and examples in the world around us of civility.  As I searched for videos, I came across the last one, a longer one, that I will save for tomorrow.  I found the others and organized them in a way that had stronger ones at the beginning and the end. (I don't like to end on a dud...although I learned that through a lot of experience!)

We began with one of my favorite ladies, Kathryn. I have met her from the years when the kids did more of the devotionals.  This is a fun way to do it and helped expand our base of videos to draw from.  Sometimes they had 10 videos! I had to put a limit on it, although I hated to limit anything.  Do what you feel you need to :)...and try to be supportive.  Sometimes their videos were a stretch to apply, so I made them apply it and make connections :).  That was interesting.

Kathryn is a great example of someone who really values others, an important element of civility.  She also talked a great deal about how to see others and appreciate diversity.

Kel (17) shared about the value of trying to see the value in each other's experience and not just trying to "one-up" each other, a result of our conversation last night about friends and conversations he has been having with them lately.

We then looked at this short video about chivalry.  It was not so awesome, especially at the end (I just skip through videos sometimes to preview and sometimes "take a chance"...failed a bunch on that one, but I just don't want to take the time to pre-watch everything! Don't be afraid to stop a video mid-watch and talk about why you stopped it...great learning :).)  However, it did bring to light the role of civility in society and how it was made more structured in the form of chivalry.

This next video was truly awesome, an example of civility during wartime: Christmas Truce of WWII

We wrapped up with a surprisingly peaceful time as I testified of the importance of being civil, even when it is hard. I challenged them to practice civility with each other, especially today as I am leaving to go mission-shopping with Tova (19) and will be gone for most of the day.

Reflection time had music playing and about half-way, someone got everyone's books (I was already writing in mine).  The little ones were quietly stacking dice until I asked them to put them away for reflection time.  I concluded by asking everyone to share their personal definition of "civility"...then did a reflection treat (sometime like a dum-dum or a marshmallow).

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This is the one for tomorrow....the kids don't like them as much but I like to mix it up and they do get something out of it :).