I have a regular routine for putting my little ones to bed. We sing a song, say a prayer, and read a chapter of a book together. We do it in that order so that my oldest can be part of our song and prayer and then be dismissed to read on her own if she has already read the book we are reading together. (Many times she will start a read aloud with us and get so enthralled she reads ahead and finishes before us.)
My WFMW part of the post is about the songs we sing. When all of my kids were preschool aged then we stuck with Zacchaeus, Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children, and etc. Well now that my kids run the age gauntlet we still sing one of the little songs but then we follow it up with a song from the hymnal. We love doing this because it teaches our kids the traditional hymns and they know them by heart. A few years ago our congregation were replacing our green hymnals with the new red ones and we were able to get a few of the old green ones to bring home. So each night the Kid of the Day chooses the hymn to sing and Daddy leads us in it. Some of our favorites are Low in the Grave He Lay, Ten Thousand Angels, I'll Fly Away, and Our God He is Alive. Many nights we can't stop at just one and we sing several. This is one of the highlights of my day and I love the fact that my kids are tucking these songs away. That works for us!
5 comments:
I love this idea. We sing with our kids after dinner, but always the same two songs. Maybe we need to bring out the old hymnal to shake things up!
Melanie
I once took an old Hymnal we had and started at the beginning and sang to my son every song I could remember to tune too! Surprisingly it was quite a few! Wonderful idea!
That is beautiful! We are impressed with our toddler's recollection of her music (the Donut Man) but will now more regularly use the hymnal together. Have a great week!
This is a wonderful idea. I have a one year old. I sing songs to her now. I have actually thought about the praise music and hymns alot. Our church is almost 100% praise music. The music is wonderful. However, I grew up in a traditional baptist church and we sand hymns. I do miss my hymns and I have wondered, how will my little one learn the good old hymns if I don't teach her. So, I have started singing hymns to her. So, thanks for the post, and I will remember this for when she gets older!
Just wanted to share a CD/DVD that we have come across that my kids ADORE. It's by Hillsong and all contemporary kids praise and worship music. And these kids on the DVD truly worship God, it is so awesome to see. My 4 year old has nearly every song memorized and the slow ones really work miracles to calm the house down when there is a lot of stress. Even my one year old can throw in a few words here and there! And the best part is that they are written in a way that the kiddos can truly understand what they are singing about which I love. Just thought I'd throw that out there for another option!
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