Resurrection Day Curriculum

I'm so excited!! It's finally done! I've been working for several months on a new curriculum called The Lamb That Was Slain Resurrection Day Curriculum. I finally finished it and its ready to sell on my new website!!

I wrote this curriculum because I couldn't find what I was looking for to teach my own children last year. It starts with a Bible reading plan for the month leading up to Resurrection Day. This is assuming a 5-day week of family Bible reading. It goes through Jesus' death and resurrection, with a Psalm for each day. I chose Psalms that related to Jesus or prophesied about Him.

The next section is Study Questions and Answers to help delve deeper into the text. Some of them are very basic for younger students, some are much more thought-provoking and theological for older ones. My hope was that each mom could determine which questions would be appropriate to discuss or write about.

After that is a lapbook study, which I'm pretty excited about. I love lapbooks, and this one is custom-made to exactly what I was looking for to teach my own children. It goes through the Passion of Christ, but also talks about the Passover supper, linking Jesus as the fulfillment of the Passover lamb.

And then last is my favorite part of all! It is a Christian Seder Haggadah. The Seder is the Passover meal that has been celebrated by Jews since Moses. Jesus took it and used it for His last supper and Communion with His disciples. The Haggadah is the order of service that they use. I rewrote one to be completely based on Christ. I'm excited to use this with my own children this year. We've done them in the past, but never one this stream-lined or focused on Christ!

two kinds of kids

I was thinking today about how there are two kinds of kids--there are the "younger brothers" who get wild and want to live it up and blow all the inheritance and there are the "older brothers", the "good" kids who want to stay home and be responsible and please their parents. Parents tend to be naturally drawn toward the older brothers, feel like they're doing really well spiritually, less prone to worry about them and take them for granted, enjoy being around them, give them more positive reinforcement, etc, etc. But, in God's eyes, the older brother and the younger brother are equally sinful and in need of grace, it's just that their struggles and their needs are completely different and manifest themselves differently on the outside.

The older brother is more prone to be jealous and judgemental, to say 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people!' The older brother is more likely to think that he's doing pretty well on his own, that he doesn't need grace. That God loves him because he's so loveable.

I know because I'm an older brother.

So I think we need to be careful that we don't grow comfortable with the older brothers, thinking they don't need our guidance, prayers, and focus. We need to be careful to recognize that each of our children has their own sinful flesh struggles. That they each need parental guidance and the help of the Holy Spirit in a different way.

Basic Biscuits

I have a basic biscuit recipe that I have memorized. It has come in handy countless times when I've needed a quick bread solution for dinner (or breakfast) or something to feed the kids.

Basic Biscuit Recipe

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon sucanat or sugar choice
1 Tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (Redmond's Real Salt is the best!)
1/2 cup butter softened
1/4 (ish) cup milk

You mix the dry ingredients, cut in the butter, and add milk in small amounts to get it the right consistency. Knead 10 times, just until it forms a ball, roll out and cut biscuits, or just form them with your hands. Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes.

What I've realized is that there are countless variations to this recipe. I've made garlic cheese and broccoli cheddar. I like to use it as the crust for chicken pot pie, and a mexican pot pie that I made up. And yesterday, I discovered one more way to use this recipe. Here's what I did.

Cinnamon Raisin Biscuits
(basic recipe is doubled)

4 cups whole wheat
1 cup sucanat
2 Tablespoons cinnamon (I like cinnamon a lot! You could cut this by half)
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (because it's sweet)
1 cup of coconut oil
1/2(ish) cup milk
Raisins

After I formed them in balls, I kind of broke them in half and pressed raisins into the middle before I baked them.
These weren't super sweet (although still sweet enough to feel like a treat for breakfast), so if you wanted to make them more like cinnamon rolls, you could make a glaze out of powdered sugar and a little vanila and milk!

Isaiah 1: 16-18

"Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, REPROVE the ruthless, DEFEND the orphan, PLEAD for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together," says the LORD, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool."

In the context of the passage, He is saying that their sacrifices are meaningless to Him, because they are not pursuing justice. What really stuck out to me in these verses was the verbs that I highlighted above. It's not just a quiet righteousness, it is an active voice, crying out for justice for the oppressed, working to reprove the ruthless and plead for the widow. I pray to know how to fulfill this calling in Atlanta, Georgia, amidst the oppressed, the weary, the broken, the poor! Please pray for us as we seek to discern where our place is in all of this!

Homeschool: Math

A while ago I started a series of posts about what we do for homeschool. The methods and resources Bible memorization and Bible reading posts are here. What we have used for the last two years for math is Math-U-See. The Old Schoolhouse Magazine rated it as the most popular math curriculum for two years in a row, I heard lots of good reviews from friends, it was listed on the approved list for both Charlotte Mason websites, and so I thought we couldn't go wrong. But after much consideration and prayer, I have decided to try a different approach next year. It's not that it's a bad program. But it's very rote, extremely repetitive, and quite boring, to be honest. I don't think everything should be fun and exciting and I definately want my children to learn to do things they don't want to do, but I was finding that math was consistently her most dreaded subject. I just hate to start off her school career with a hatred for math that, once established, will be extremely hard to get rid of. So we're going to try something new. I'm thinking about Horizons Math, but I haven't completely decided yet. Any suggestions?

I wanted to go ahead and post this, even though our math hasn't exactly been successful so far, because I came up with an idea that will work for any subject, and I think can bless you. Can you see in the picture how the page she is working on is covered with a page protector? This works wonderfully well to preserve books to use for the next child without having to copy pages. I just cut off the end of a plastic page protector and slip it over the page we're doing that day. She uses dry erase markers, and then when she's done and I've checked her work, we rub a wet dish towel over it. This would work for any book that handwriting is not necessary (it's hard to make it look neat with a dry erase marker) and will really save a lot of money!

Yummy Scones

This scones are really yummy! They are great to have on hand for a quick breakfast or snack, although they do dry out in a few days!



2 cups flour (I like to use Kamut, but any flour will do)
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sucanat or sugar choice
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup pecans
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup flaked coconut
1 cup milk
1/3 cup butter or coconut oil

Preheat oven to 400. Mix the first four ingredients. Then add the fruit/nuts (any combination of fruit and nuts that equals 1 1/2 cups will work--you can play around with it! The ones in the picture have M&Ms because that's all I had that day!) Then stir in the milk/butter and knead 10 times. This should be the consistency of biscuit dough. Then roll it out. As you can see, I use my pizza stone, which works great, but any cookie sheet will do. Cut into 12 pieces and spread them apart a little bit to bake.

Another good quote

This is from Comforts from the Cross, by Elyse Fitzpatrick.

"Faith is all that is necessary. However, not only is faith necessary for your salvation, but it's also necessary for your ongoing obedience. Responding to His love and grace is the only way to true or what I call "gospelized" obedience, because all other obedience always degenerates into penance or trying to avoid punishment. Other forms of obedience simply don't measure up, because love for God isn't the motive. And if love isn't the motive, your obedience will always be motivated by love for yourself. It seems upside down to say that God motivates our obedience by freeing us from law and by declaring that He has no wrath for us, but it's true, and true faith embraces it. . .
. . . Of course, sometimes we feel guilty, and we don't really care that God isn't angry with us. We know we've let our spouse or kids or parents or friends or employer or church or ourselves down, and we just can't seem to get past it. In these times we've got to see that our problem with guilt stems from our pride and from our idolatry of people's opinions. There's only one Person whose opinion really matters, and all the rest of our guilt is just our desire to [have the approval of others] and make ourselves happy. Rejoice because your Savior bore even this sin for you!"

Profound!