Teachinging Children to pray

Teaching our kids to pray is a very vital part of our parenting. Home schooling and prayer go hand in hand, don't they?
There are many free resources to use when teaching about prayer. It has been a blessing for our family to grow in this area, and hopefully these are a few resources that can help all of us in this process.

Teach Us To Pray has some really cute activities to help reinforce prayer. Here is a tutorial on how to make a Prayer Jar. Make your own Prayer Jigsaw Puzzle, or Scripture Flipper. Here is a huge collection of prayer coloring sheets.

Have you heard of Prepare and Pray? This is a curriculum geared toward teaching real life skills while acknowledging God as the true source of our well being. Here is a sample chapter of the Prepare and Pray Curriculum. They also have a sample chapter available for their Blessed Assurance Curriculum.

Thank you to the Old School House Magazine for providing this info. :)

Valentine's Day ideas

(Click the sweet girl below to download the hearts of loving kindness tradition detailed below, the love muffin recipe, 10 things I love about you, and directions to make your very own love journal. These will print out ready to give as a sweet little gift, so using cardstock works well.)

Hearts of Loving Kindness – Use pretty hearts during the month of February to teach the value of loving kindness to the loved ones in your life. Find a small box or jar and decorate it (invite your children to help) any way you want: with stickers, artwork, photos or a big red ribbon. Place all of the hearts inside and tell your family members what it’s all about.

Every time you see someone doing something kind for someone else, write their name and what they did on a heart. String it up on a ribbon and hang it in the kitchen or family room for all to see. You can put four to six hearts on a ribbon by cutting a slit at the top and bottom of the heart and slipping each heart up the ribbon and then tie a knot at the top of the heart to hold it in place. The more hearts your family sees dangling, the more they will want to add to the festive display.

You will have plenty of opportunities during the month to talk about how and why we do things for others simply out of the "kindness of our hearts." Make it a family tradition to focus on the value of loving kindness every February and be sure to preserve those precious memories in a Valentine’s Day Book with a photo of family members holding their Hearts of Loving Kindness.

SEE Balancing Beauty and Bedlam for more tradition ideas