Homeschooling co-op!

This year a few of my friends pulled their kids out of public school and started the homeschooling journey.  Our little group decided to start a co-op focusing on character development traits.  We each take a month to cover a character trait with our group of kids and then plan a field trip for that month.  October was my month and my topic was confidence.  There are 12 kids total and 7 participate with grades ranging from preschool to first grade.

I covered confidence from the angle of making right choices when playing with their friends or siblings.  We played a game where I read scenarios of how they should react in certain cases to show they have confidence to make the right decision.  They tossed a ball in the yes or no bowl to answer the question.

We then watched a Veggie-Tale video on confidence.  It was really cute and discussed a situation where three of the veggies, who worked at a chocolate factory, where given the choice to sing a horrible song and worship a chocolate bunny ...if they didn't they would be thrown into the furnace.  They made a bold decision to sing an alternate song and were tossed into the furnace..only to have some friends sweep in and rescue them.  This video helped the kids understand that sometimes people who aren't living a life of faith, or understand what the Bible says about how we should live our lives, might co-erce you into doing something you don't agree with.  I think about how many teens, college students, and adults turn from a life of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior...and somewhere along the way they turn from their faith...I know our kids are young, but hopefully this lesson planted a little seed about how they should stay confident in making the right decisions, instead of caving into their peers sometimes bad decisions.

Of course any get together needs to have food:)  I made fun-da-middle cupcakes in honor of sweet Emma's 6th birthday!

The kids then practiced writing their bible verses for the day.

Phillipians 4:13:  I can do everything, through Christ who gives me strength. 

Hebrews 11:1:  Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
This verse means that "faith" is not the crossing of your fingers and "hoping" that something great with happen....it is believing in and trusting that by having grace through faith (belief) that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and then rose again we will have eternal life in heaven....we did not see Jesus dying on the cross and we did not see his resurrection, but by reading the eye-witness accounts in the Bible we know with certainty what happened and those who believe this have to look forward to.

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