Priorities and routines

When I was growing up I watched my dad and mom have times that they would evaluate their priorities. How was their time really being spent? What "good things" were swallowing up the "best things"? Joe and I have followed their example and every few months find ourselves asking what we are doing with our time, are we making eternal investments or just getting the next thing done? With our children it seems that we tend to run from one situation to the next and if we don't have a goal in sight we don't get anything done in spite of being extremely busy. It is so freeing to wake up and know what the purpose for the day is and that there are certain "big rocks" that we want to make sure get done and there are some "medium sized rocks" that would add extra zest to the day if we are able to get to them.

With our family's "big rocks" we have specific routines that allow us to fit important things in. For example, we want to have morning Bible reading, we want the children (and us!) to learn hymns, we want to memorize Bible passages as well as historic documents, we want to work on Greek and Latin vocabulary. How do we make sure these miscellaneous tasks get done? Our breakfast routine. We sit down to breakfast and hear about every one's adventurous dreams from the night before, what kind of animal they are that day, whatever our topic of conversation may be...

Then when I am through eating we start our memorization. Thomas is always first and he works on one new verse a week and the two previous weeks verses. I have every one's verses printed out on a board at the table. Tom can memorize very easily so we go over his new verse about three times and then I give the reference for his old verses and away he goes. Abbie and Jonathan are both in AWANA so their verses are from their AWANA books. Abbie always has one new verse and three previous verses. Jonathan works on three verses and a poem or historic document. I love having everyone at the table because then they are all exposed to each other's memorizing.

Next we do Bible reading and what the children call the "Lady bug book" which is an etiquette book. We read and talk about the various things, I try not to rush their thoughts. We then go through a stack of flash cards with various Greek and Latin roots. Lastly we sing a hymn, which I print out a copy for each person at the table and even Elizabeth will look at her bright yellow paper and "sing"! :)

It is little routines like this that let us get different activities done in the day. The children enjoy the predictability and I enjoy knowing that valuable moments have already happened before the breakfast dishes are even washed!