EUREKA!

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"Eureka (Greek "I have found it") is an exclamation used as an interjection to celebrate a discovery," says Wikipedia . Okay, so “what have I found” you ask? A theme for our homeschool year. The Lord is just cool like that, He gives us what we are looking for (or need) even when we are not looking for it (or do not know that we need it). This year I was struggling to get stuff together, but this has given me the inspiration and direction I needed.

We have never had a theme for our homeschool year, but this year we do. God has continually brought Psalm 1 to mind as a theme for us this year and reminded me that I AM A TREE PLANTED BY STREAMS OF WATER and so are my children. A picture of a palm tree is what I keep seeing. I heard a pastor say once that “a palm tree can be bent, but not broken.” I grew up in Miami, Florida – I know palm trees! I have seen palm trees (still standing) after a hurricane. The storms of life will attempt to break my kids and so will their enemy, the accuser, but as trees planted by streams of water they will not be broken as long as they stay connected to the Source.

Today at lunch I told the kids our theme for the upcoming year and Isabella said, “That was our verse yesterday at camp.” I went to the car and got their “newsletter”, published by the campers and the verse of the day was:

He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes for its leaves became green and it is not anxious in the year of drought for it does not cease to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:8

I could teach, on that verse alone, for the entire year.

What a foundation my kids will gain from Psalm 1 as they begin to understand who God has called them to be. We will be doing the following:

• Memorizing Psalm 1
• Meditating on Psalm 1 and understanding its meaning in our lives and the lives of others around us
• Decorating with palm trees (they have some cute blow up ones from orientaltrading.com) – this is for fun…gotta have fun!
• Making trees which will bear fruit – as the kids apply what they learn and begin incorporating it into their lives they will get flowers for their trees (I will not set it up as a competition, but as encouragement to each other)
• Use the theme to incorporate all academic activities – math, science, history, art, music and language arts

I am excited about this and think it will be a fruitful year for all of us.

Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Thank you Lord for speaking truth to my heart to help me teach my kids more about you.

Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children. Deuteronomy 4:9-10

18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. Deuteronomy 11:18-21