Cup Overflows

"The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil

for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff they comfort me.

You anoint my head with oil.

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, 

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Psalm 23

We purchased the Sonlight curriculum for Preschool 3 and 4.  It does not come with a laid out plan for the year but it does come with plenty of fun ideas and a barrel load of good literature.  I would highly recommend building a home library and found Sonlight aided that endeavor.  However if you live in the States with good libraries and librarians I would not suggest purchasing this package but being more selective with your book purchasing by "trying" out great literature with your child to assess their reading preferences.  Don't forget to access your local librarian for suggestions of great children literature.

Sonlight has a small blurb in the margins of the activities book quoting a woman who does Bible memory with her children.  Her ideas seemed reproducible so I spent ten minutes writing out the 23rd Psalm twice on a 8 by 11 piece of paper.  I cut it in half and taped one by our dining room table and one on the kid's door.  I then told my husband I was going to try to say the Psalm in its entirety to our children twice daily.  

I confess God used the Navigators to grow me in college but I never could hold a light to most of my peers when it came to Bible memory.  I stink at it folks.  Stink.  I felt very nervous moving forward with this idea.  Afraid of my own weakness.  I still read the passage sometimes after fifteen days of saying it twice a day and a lifetime of hearing the words of truth.  However now I have a little three year old voice that chimes in with me and helps me when I falter at "He leads me in paths of righteousness.."

I planned this academic fall in months and each month has a passage for memorization.   Chad says the passage at night with the kids when he is here and sometimes at the table.  I say it at lunch with the kids and at night.  Zana says key words and finishes the lines.  She particularly remembers the word evil.  Hmmm.

To include my husband in this adventure I asked him to pick the next month's passage.  Psalm One is in the docket awaiting memorization.  I felt that the long passage might be too substantial but in truth it helps with retention.

Beads are readily available here in India at reasonable prices so here is an finite motor activity I did with Abe to help with memorization.  I want to say that I saw this first on Jen B.'s wrist.  It can be made into a bracelet to wear, Abe made his into a long line of beads that he swings around David fighting Goliath style.  In the photo next to his rain chart Abe is swinging his beads with fervor!  They were fun to make and fun to play with.  I poked my head into his room yesterday and heard him saying the passage alone to himself.

 Step One:  Thread beads for each line of the Psalm.
Step Two:  Take a better picture than me and post it on Pinterest! 

White for Sheep because the Shepherd takes care of the Sheep.

Green for Pastures.

Blue for water.

Pretty bead for paths of righteousness.

Black for valley and evil.

Wood bead for rod and staff.

Gold bead for table and anointing.

Round unique bead for cup (or head).

Two Beautiful beads for last two lines.

I wish I had done a separate bead for "restores my soul"

and for anointing.  I think it would have helped Abe.

He first sorted all the beads not knowing what we were going to do.

We talked through the Psalm.  He thought he came up for green for pastures.

Then he got to chose a green bead of his choice from three or four.

You could talk ahead of time and then go shopping or you could just give the beads you want them to use or you could let your child decide as Abe did.

Close up on beads.

Here are the two postings of the entire Psalm at the Dinner Table and on the kid's door.

I changed the translation per my husband's request and want you to see the crossed out word and added other word.  My pre-school mantra is that perfection isn't going to happen without my family starving, no language learning happening and my sanity fleeing therefore do what you can, consistently, simply and creatively as you feel comfortable doing!