So, here we are. We just spent ten days traveling with our three oldest children, spent a day getting unpacked and settled back at home, started school today, and will tear out our kitchen next week. At the same time, God has been sending those BOLD but GENTLE warnings He's so good at, and this time we are hearing two words repeated: GIVE GRACE. GIVE GRACE They pack a punch, don't they?

The highlight of our Fall 2010 Circle Time is our Lamp and Quill Bible Study on the books of Acts, Romans, Galatians, and eight more of Paul's epistles. God has seen fit to move our family out of one church and into another, so we thought it appropriate to study the early church this year. I love the layout of Lamp and Quill studies. Each age level has their own book with questions and activities geared especially to them, so while my junior higher is answering questions about the text, my three-year-old is coloring a picture of what happened in the chapter that week. There are crafts if you want that option, and the study is meaty enough for me. We're also still (still! Year three, I think) working through Notgrass's Draw to Learn the Book of Proverbs, but we remain with it because my four who are doing it love it so much. Maybe one of these years we'll get to move on, eh? But the reason it has taken us so long to get through the whole book is that I tend to toss it into the mix only a few days a week. They literally squeal when I pull it out, though. Lamp and Quill will take up the bulk of the 45 minutes we have set aside for Circle Time, so last on the list for the fall is A Young Scholars Guide to the Composers. I pretty much like everything Maggie Hogan produces, and this one promises to be a good fit for us, too. Coloring pages, links to sample pieces, chronological so I can major on the composers in the time period we're studying this year. And if I'm lucky, we'll actually memorize some poetry from First Language Lessons. Really, we will. I printed out the poetry pages posted at Homeschool Creations and at least they look cute in my Circle Time binder :)

I love it when big brothers read the Word to us