Creation Wall

We've spent the last month putting together this creation mural. The posters across the top are William's. The ones across the bottom are Lily's. Lily likes to point to them and sing Mrs. Leinhart's (my kindergarten teacher's) 7 Days of Creation song with me.

One night, I was sitting on the couch nursing, staring up at the half completed mural, when Eric looked over at me. He was confused for a minute. Then he said, "You love home schooling, don't you?" Yes, I do!

Starting Home School

We've actually done little bits before today, but today we started the alphabet, so it felt official. I remember trying to do this three years ago with William. What a difference! It helps so much that he's older now and he has a younger sister who's really into it.

The Day the World Went Wacky

Another book arrived today that turns out to be an answer to prayer. For a while now I've been looking for a book that explains the Fall. I want to have it to share with kids, especially my own, as they become more aware of William's disabilities. I called Joni and Friends and they didn't know of any. I emailed Stephanie Hubach (author of Same Lake Different Boat) and she didn't know of one. I'd even thought about writing one myself. Then today one of the books I ordered for home school came, and it's the book I've been looking for!

The Day the World Went Wacky starts out,
"A little while back, I was eating my lunch
When I got out an apple and took a big crunch.
The next thing you know, I was in a big chair
With my mouth open wide and my feet in the air.

And just as the dentist put in a huge filling
(My ears were half deaf with the noise of the drilling),
A really hard question came into my brain,
And my really hard question was DID GOD MAKE PAIN?"

Author Janine Suter goes on to explain the Genesis account of the Fall and what it means for us today. She takes as much time to explain the effects of the Fall as to tell the story. She does a good job of explaining God's "riddle" about a coming Savior and how God sacrificed an animal ("Animals can't really pay for our sin, But Jesus' blood can, and this pointed to Him.") Her one page about "...into the world this sin has brought death, and cancer and pimples and shortness of breath..." is very similar to what I would have written myself, only better.

She doesn't talk as much about God's work of restoration through Jesus as I would have. But she does mention it at the end:
"Now no one can go and see Eden today,
Because Noah's Flood has washed it away.
But God has a plan to make everything new
For all those who love Him.
Does that include you?"

I'm excited to use this book when I do an orientation for the kids in his children's ministry class this fall.

Book Reviews

I mentioned before that I've been a home school wannabe since I was a child. So it's a dream come true for me to start to plan some (very basic) home school units for this year. In addition from benefiting from our large library system, I have started buying books online. A few have arrived already. I thought I would review them as we go along for any other mothers of preschoolers out there.

A is for Adam by Ken and Mally Ham- Not as good as I'd hoped. The subtitle is "The Gospel in Genesis," which sounded promising. I had watched a video of Ken Ham back in high school and knew he was big into creationism. Our first unit is on creation and dinosaurs, so I thought it would be a perfect fit. And the parts about dinosaurs and extinction were good. The pictures were entertaining. But the gospel part focused heavily on judgment- fire insurance salvation. The snake is a huge red dragon, Adam and Eve get literally thrown out of the Garden, the angels at the entrance look angry and mean, and it gives substantially more pages to sin and judgment than to the gospel and grace. Bummer. Maybe we'll use the first few pages or save it for when we're older and can more easily fill in gaps.

This is No Fairy Tale by Dale Tolmasoff- I bought this book because it has a forward by John Piper. Not sure that was wise or not, but this book is great! Beautiful pictures, deep concept presented clearly so even young children can understand- an inspiring contrast between kings in fairy tales and our King Jesus. I'm so excited to use this book as part of our royalty and castles unit! My plan was to talk about Jesus as King anyway- and this looks like the perfect book to do that.

Each page shows two pictures- a small one showing what it would look like if the gospel was a fairy tale- Jesus would be born in a castle and loved by all and lived an easy life and died in honor, etc and a large one showing what really happened along with a short description. It ends with saying how the story of Jesus is really true and, "If you and I trust in Jesus, this story will turn out much better than a fairy tale for us. We really will live happily every after!"