Thursday, September 22, 2011

Scripture Memory: I Corinthians 13

Here they are reciting I Corinthians 13. They needed a little help, but they've got it. I love their silly actions.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Missionary Biographies, Subject Integration, and Inspiring a Love for Learning!

One of the most favorite parts of our morning is taking the time to read part of some type of missionary biography.  We enjoy this so much, and usually the boys beg for me to continue reading.  Most of the time, I even have a hard time wanting to stop! 

In my opinion, to read from missionary biographies is one of the best ways to achieve a type of educational integration.  By "educational integration", I mean that children learn more than just one subject while they are hearing the book being read.   For example,* The Peace Child by Don Richardson includes some very complicated words.  It is very beneficial for a child to hear new vocabulary words being used naturally in sentence form.  It helps them to understand what the words mean in a natural way.   Here is an example of a sentence from The Peace Child:
 "And since the Sawi were fully convinced that persons officially declared to be in aumamay were already dead, they had no compunction about interring them in gravehouses either."  The words "inter" and "compunction" are not words a child under the age of 11 usually uses in conversation, so by reading them in a natural way, children learn what they mean.   A lot of times when I come to a sentence like that, I ask the boys, "What did that mean?"
  Usually they can tell me even if they were not previously familiar with the words.  Their understanding is due to hearing the words used naturally in the sentence.

 If the words are still not understood, I usually take the time to look them up in my electronic dictionary (on my Kindle).  Researching helps when the meanings are not so obvious.

Another benefit of reading missionary biographies is that children learn about other cultures.  We have a world map on the wall of our den.  As we read the biographies, we point out the location of the setting of the book on the map.  We are also learning a lot of things about the particular culture in which the missionary is living.  Again, this is a natural way that is much easier to remember than mere rote memorization.  Children seem to absorb the things that are interesting much more easily than "boring" facts.    I am not saying rote memorization is not beneficial (we use rote memorization to learn a lot of things).  What I am saying is that it is much easier for children imbibe the things that are exciting to them. 

Last but not least, missionary biographies are testimonies to the grace of God in the lives of lost people groups.  Most of the books give examples of occurrences of actual miracles. This is another way for our children to hear testimonies that give honor and glory to our Heavenly Father.
I highly recommend reading missionary biographies and/or other books that help children to learn new vocabulary words, geography, cultural & multi-ethnic studies, history, science,  and most of all a love for learning these things!

*Disclaimer:  Most of what I read, I edit as I read .  The Peace Child is a very good book, but I did have to heavily edit it as I read because some of the content was very violent.  This book is about cannibals and the author was very descriptive.