Welcome to our home on the internet... a sure fire place to see our craziness! We are a homeschooling family of 12 trying to glorify our Lord while living and learning in every day life.
Well, folks... it's that time again. Yes, the Bible Bee has come to town. This year the headquarters has totally re-vamped the program and it is INCREDIBLE!!! We saw such growth in our children last summer, and I anticipate to see even more this year. Let me introduce you to what they are doing.
On Monday the boxes arrived containing the materials.
The kids were so excited... they had been watching for the UPS guy all morning long.
First thing they saw upon opening the box was a DVD which stated that we should watch that first.
So we did. Made the enjoyment last longer.
Each child received a Bible in the translation which they would be memorizing, a study notebook with a Bible study of the book of Colossians, a T-shirt, a Button, and the verse cards... printed on nice thick cardstock. These are all top quality products... well worth the $25 entrance fee even if you never did anything more.
Even Nathan was able to get all these, since he is a "supportive sibling".
They immediately donned the t-shirts and looked through everything.
And since I have 6 children competing, and Nate as a supportive Sibling, I immediately required that they initial Every Piece Of Bible Bee Stuff so I avoid future conflicts about whose Bible it is, etc. We also put the cards on rings so they are not lost. At least not yet.
Did I also mention that there is a study guide and Bible Study for each parent? So we can study it with them? It's all about family discipleship... one verse at a time. Parents and kids together.
Also included in the box was a CD with a Sword Drill game to play on the computer and help them memorize. I have told the children they can play all the computer they want if they are playing the sword drill. LOL.
Some of the girls headed out to the tree fort, which has been dubbed "The Bible Bee Clubhouse" so they could get a head start on their verses.
The only downside to this whole thing? Packing Peanuts.
I hate packing peanuts. No matter how carefully you do it, they get EVERYWHERE.
But we got them all cleaned up, I survived, and now we are full on ready to have a great summer... growing closer to the Lord and each other.
If you have not signed your children up please do. If the amount of verses from last year intimidated you, there are many fewer verses than last year. It is a wonderfully manageable amount. Your children can have no better way to spend their summer... please head to the Bible Bee website and check it out...
I have been woefully neglecting this little place on the web... so sorry. It is all because I have NOT been neglecting things in the home. Between gardening, canning, planning school for next year, the Bible Bee, and sewing projects, I have been busy from sunup to sundown.
I have been working on quilts for the girl's room. They are going to be so cute. Don't worry... I'll torture you with photos when they are done. ;) And speaking of cute sewing projects... isn't this idea adorable? She's got about a zillion wonderfully creative ideas for preschoolers. I have a feeling I may need some of them since I will have 4 preschoolers and 6 school age children this year.
As far as our Bible Bee schedule for those of you who read the blog for that:
We will also finish reading through Matthew and start in on Acts this week.
The children were so excited this week during the sermon at church since our pastor used 3 of the verses we have already memorized. This happens so often... he has used at least one verse we have in memory each week. This is exciting for all of us, to realize that all we are doing has practical application, whether we do well at the competition or not.
Well, I'd better get off the computer and out to the garden... have a great day! I'd love to hear how everyone else is spending their summer!
We are trucking along... last week was a really good week for most of the children's memory... they had the verses memorized and passed by lunch every day, and breakfast for a couple days...
They said that as they are doing more and more memory, it is getting easier to remember them. I am thrilled that they are hiding so much of the Word in their hearts. I am getting a lot of time to ponder scripture also as I am quizzing them!
We were on vacation last week, so we took a week off from learning new verses. A couple of my more motivated children used Thursday and Friday to solidify the ones they were weak on, but other than that and a little reviewing we took the week off.
So we are back at it full swing this week. We will continue doing 3 chapters a day in 1st Samuel, and 5 knowledge questions a day. We will memorize the following verses this week:
Category 1:
Matthew 11: 28-30 (M) John 1:1-2 (T) John 1: 14 (W) John 3:16 (W) John 3:19(TH) John 3: 35 - 36 (F)
We are trucking along on our Bible Bee Memory and studying... The girls are completely caught up, the boys are a bit behind. One of our friend's boys is studying hard because he cannot stand the thought of GIRLS beating him. That psychology is not working on my boys, though I am proud of them!
Some of the people who live around here have asked me what exactly IS the Bible Bee, anyway? You can look at the website here. Basically it is like the National Spelling Bee, only with Bible Knowledge and Memory. In my opinion, much as I think it is important to spell well, I think it is more important to know and love the Bible.
There will be a local competition here in our little town on Sept. 12. The top 100 students in each category in the nation will go to Washington D.C. in November for the national competition. There are significant prizes offered for the top 3 students in each category, but the biggest prize is going to be gained by all who participate... increased knowledge (and hopefully closeness to) our precious Savior. Already, after just two weeks, my children know between 150 and 200 more verses than they did before. That is a winning situation, no matter whether we progress to the national level or not.
For those of you reading who are local, we DO have need of the help of about 10 people who don't have children in the competition... I have 4 who have agreed to help us. If you would like to help correct tests, give the tests, or judge the oral rounds, please let me know.
I have received many questions from people who are having their children also memorize for the competition. This is NOT an easy amount of scripture! We spend time every day working together. We read the verses at mealtimes. I try to quiz the children several times a week... reviewing all the verses they have learned so far.
So THEY are doing the memorizing, but we are also doing it together. It is a family effort. I could use the Bible memory times, myself, so it is all good.
We are going to finish Genesis this week, and start in on Exodus. We are continuing our efforts to learn 5 quiz questions a day, also.
So- we are actually on week 3 of our studying. This week works out that we have 5 verses from each category. We will be memorizing the following verses this week, one each day from each category:
(The * means that a portion of the verses have been already memorized in other categories.)
We had a VERY successful week in our memory... especially since the leaders at Bee headquarters took off the highest levels for the local contests. All the girls made the memory goals, and are drinking their choice of hot chocolate or tea in celebration.
The boys came a little short, but they both did pretty well, so we count it a success all the way around.
I am changing things a little this week... we will still take the verses we need to work on, but I have divided it between the days of the week, so they have certain portions to work on every day. Just saying, "Memorize these by the end of the week" was a bit too broad for a couple of them.
If the verse has a * next to it, a portion of this verse was memorized last week, so we already know a portion of it.
We will continue to learn 5 Bible Knowledge questions each week, and will continue to work through Genesis at 3 chapters a day... this week will be Gen. 31 - 45.
We are all having such a good time doing this together as a family. It is a wonderful tool!!! I do quiz the kids each day on the verses they have memorized, maybe for about 10 minutes a day, but the children are doing this.
I have all the OT verses printed out with just the first letter of each word. We have put these on the backs of our cards. If you want to have these, please contact me. I will try to send them. I have them in power point, but if you don't have that program I can try to make it a PDF file to send you. Just e-mail me at: petersonclan at momys dot net.
I will be out of town for Monday and Tuesday taking my little one to Cincinnati for a couple days of tests, so if you do not hear back from me until the end of the week, don't worry. I'll get to you!
We have been working diligently (or not so diligently depending on the child...) on our Bible Bee memorization, etc.
Yesterday the headquarters sent out a new explanation of the regulations... stating that the younger children only have to know Categories 1 and 2, and older children Categories 1, 2, and 3 for the Bible Memory sections of the local contest in September. They will add one level if they make it to the National level in November. This was a relief to us all!!! They decided that they would work on the verses for the local level, and only add the additional level if we continue on to the National competition.
Josaiah stated, "The Lord has heard our cry! The Bible Bee People have taken away some of our fear!!!" I thought that was pretty funny.
Taking one level off for each of the children made us able to keep up with our schedule. This would not have been the case if they still had ALL the verses to do. All except one child (who has learning issues) will have memorized their sections of verses... I am posting the updated list here for those of you who want to either give the children a pop quiz as you see them, or use the schedule for your own studying.
We are in good shape to complete these... Anna, Emma, and Matt are all memorizing Categories 1 and 2, and Angela and Josiah are memorizing 1, 2, and 3.
Oh yeah- and Sara (age 5) has memorized all the category 1 verses for the week, and Nate (age 4) has done the first two or three. They are too young to be registered, but they are listening to all the quizzing and studying around here and picked it up.
Yes, it is a hard thing. Yes, they have to work on these. But it is possible. It is even good for them to have such a high goal. I encourage all the parents to stay positive, and keep telling the children they can do it. They CAN do this!
Our studying for the Bible Bee is in full swing here on the "farm". We are all a bit excited, and a little overwhelmed, at the scope of this challenge. We started out a little slowly, but we are in full gear for this week.
First we cut out some of the verse cards and put them on index cards with holes punched in them. Then we put them on rings... my ever present combo of index cards and rings... I love those things.
We started in to work. They "worked" all week while I was trying to figure out how to break down the verses into the 16 weeks we have to study. There are really 18 weeks, only we have two weeks of vacation built in.
At the end of the week I had them count up the verses they memorized... most had done 7 or 9 verses in the 5 days. One learned 15, and my eldest learned 34. She had worked really hard.
I delivered the news that the two younger children had to memorize 15 verses each WEEKDAY, and the bigger kids needed to do 25! Wow were we all shocked. So we needed to figure out a way to memorize more effectively... we fell back to our old standard of putting the whole verse on one side of the cards, and just the first letter of each word on the backs... so Joshua 1:9 (a category 1 verse) would say on the back of the card, "HIncy? Bsavc. Dnbt; dnbd, ftLyGwbwywyg."
I figure if we spend some time at each meal reading over the verses for this week using just the first letters, and the verses for next week using the full words, we will have read it over many times and they should have an easier time remembering them.
This leads us to knowing which verses need to be learned each week... I plan on putting up a full schedule on the blog for those who are studying for the Bee, but until I get to that, here is the first week. We counted out the number of verses in each Category and divided it between 16, so we would know the amount to memorize each of the 16 weeks.
We also go over 5 Bible Knowledge Questions every day (25 a week), and 3 chapters of the books we need to know from the Bible. So for Week 1, we are discussing (and outlining) Chapters 1-15 of Genesis. (Eventually we will have gone over Genesis, 1 and 2 Samuel, Matthew, Acts, and Romans.)
Yes, this is a lot of work. I think it is good for them... when else are they going to be able to have the undivided time to hide God's word in their hearts? Certainly not as adults. I am pretty sure that none of us with our old and weary brains are up to this challenge.
We are basically done with school (legally only need 5 more days, but don't tell them that!), so as long as they do Math (and read) every day, they can choose to work on these verses or do the other remaining school.
What is more important? Grammar or Bible? Of course Bible. So we are taking the time this summer to do this. We may not be able to memorize EVERY verse they ask us to. But we will have memorized far more than if we hadn't tried to do it. And that is a winning situation no matter how you spin it.
Oh- and people who see us in real life... feel free to stop my children and give them a pop quiz... ask them any of these verses at the end of the week. Hopefully they will reward you with a word perfect rendition of the verse.
Here is a video I snuck of some of the children reviewing their verses... evidently they had to jump off the swing if they got something wrong. They did not know I was videoing them... it sounds as if they are right next to me, but really they are across the driveway. I did ask all their permission to put this online.
So is anyone else with me out there? Are there other families working on hiding God's word in their hearts in preparation for the Bible Bee? Let's join together and let each other know how we are doing!
I just finished signing my oldest 5 up for the Bible Bee. Have you checked it out? If not, go do so, then come on back... we'll wait.
I cannot tell you how much we are looking forward to doing this. For those of you who are local, we are sponsoring a contest at Living Word. This is a great opportunity to have your children hide God's Word in their hearts. It is inexpensive, and a wonderful thing to do as a family or church group. I'd love to see our competition get so full we need to open another site to fit all the children! If you live within an hour or two of Burkesville, KY, please consider enrolling your children. Please pass the word on to homeschool groups and churches in the area. The more Bible the children memorize, the better, huh?
And anyway- you gotta love the competition which asks how many children you will be enrolling (ages 7-18)... and gives you the options of 1 - 15! Someone's been thinking of us poor larger families who never have enough room on enrollment forms!
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