A peace place.  A place for my children (or myself) to go when we are not being peaceful.  A time-out of sorts, but focused on God and His desires for us.  A quiet and comfortable place for us to reflect on why we haven’t been peaceful and to ask forgiveness.  A place to rid ourselves of frustration, focus on the Word and work through forgiveness towards the person or people who have offended us.

In this place, you’ll find a Bible, a peace notebook, paper, pens and a servant jar.  The peace notebook includes everything included on Holy Experience’s post about making a peace place (above).  As the kids read through the pages in the notebook, my prayer is that their hearts begin to soften.  That they grow closer to the Lord and learn to walk in His ways more readily.  That they learn how to better handle the frustrations of life (especially life with brothers and sisters.)

The servant jar is an idea that’s just brilliant.  Preschoolers and Peace talks about it in Part 2 (above).  When one of the kids gets angry and offends someone else in the house with ugly words or ugly actions, not only do they get to spend a little time in the Peace Place, but they get to choose a slip of paper from the servant jar.  On the little slips are jobs that person can do to serve the person they’ve offended.  What better way to ask forgiveness of someone than to serve them.

We’ve only just begun our Peace Place, but I’m praying that God will reveal Himself to us when we visit.  I’m praying that our walk will grow closer to His as we learn better to ask forgiveness and to forgive others.  I’m praying that, eventually, we won’t need the Peace Place anymore because our hearts will have turned towards Him in such a way that our actions and reactions are generally peaceful.  Ah, peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  Matthew 5:9

Cindy’s Favorites (so far)

For Instruction In Righteousness.  Go here to see one way I’ve used this.

Literature.  Go here to see my list.

The Children’s Story Bible by Catherine Vos.  Go here to see a post about it.

Miller’s Stories.  Go here for my post.

Jennie Bishop books.  Go here to see the titles.

Pearables

Our 24 Family Ways

The Original 21 Rules of This House

Jonathan Park Audio Stories

Jesse Stuart Books like this one

Studies In Virtue website

Reading To Learn Series of readers

Ideas From Other Co-op Moms

A Reason For Spelling

What Every Child Should Know Along the Way

A Tale of Two Princes

A Hive of Busy Bees

Let’s Chat About the Bible

Big Truths for Little Kids

www.visionforum.org

www.courtshipconnection.com

www.focusonthefamily.org – magazines

Elsie Dinsmore books

Character Quality Language Arts

McGuffy Readers

Rebecca Powell books – Proverbs, Ruth, www.rebeccapowell.com

www.jillnovak.com, www.rememberancepress.com

From the time they were preschoolers and we started reading Storytime With the Millers and on through each of the other books, my children have intently listened to and learned from the stories.  I think they’re so good, in fact, that they were read during devotion time usually.

Even though the books come from a very conservative Amish-Mennonite perspective, I found them to be very useful in teaching topics like trusting God, manners, friendship, obedience, respect, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and much, much more!  Each story centers around a Bible verse and that verse is used at some point within the story.  Many of the stories are full of some excitement, too.  That helps to keep my son’s attention!

Choosing a favorite is hard, but I would probably choose Missionary Stories and the Millers as my personal favorite.  This book is just full of the true adventure stories of actual missionaries.  Some I had heard of, some I  hadn’t.  I have read other reviews that said the stories in this book were a little too much for their younger children, but mine had no problems it.  Be warned, though, that the real stories of missionaries aren’t always smily, joyful stories.  But in each, God’s faithfulness and care shine through!!

Timberdoodle sells these books at a very reasonable price.  I hope you enjoy (or have already enjoyed) them, too!

Luckily, there are more books teaching these ideas lately, but these three have caught the attention of my children like no other so far. Maybe it’s their age, maybe it’s just that these books are that good! Either way, I’m very thankful for Ms. Bishop’s talent.

I have recently invested in devotion guides for The Princess and the Kiss and The Squire and the Scroll. Since my daughter is ten, I’m hoping our church will agree to a young ladies’ class using The Princess and the Kiss guide. I’d love to teach these girls the idea of purity as a group and then celebrate what they’ve learned with a purity ceremony. There’s just something about knowing you have friends who walk the same path as you! Eventually, I’m hoping our men will do a similar boy’s class using The Squire and the Scroll.

Take a peek at this website for a fun look through both of the books mentioned above and to find a few great ideas for using the books.

If you’ve found a really great book (or books) that teach purity and/or faith, would you please add them to the comment section? I’d love to add more to my library!

Related Tags: homeschooling, purity, faith, Bible, literature, children