Jesse Tree

I recently posted about our plans for advent and to try the Jesse Tree project. Four days in, I am really delighted with how well this is going, and would recommend it. The boys come downstairs excited to open the envelope for the day. On a couple of days, I have put extra activities and colouring sheets in with the 'emblems' for the tree, and that has worked well. I have also been surprised and encouraged by how well they are starting to understand Scripture in context. There have been several times where I have reflected that we can tend to stereotype our children in terms of what they might find interesting or what they might understand at a certain age. When talking about the shoot from the stump of Jesse, we started to discuss genealogies, and he absolutely loved the genealogy of Christ in Matthew Chapter 1. In fact he has asked to read it several times. I must confess that this is a portion of the Bible which does not always excite and inspire me (although if I really think about it, I am of course amazed by the perfect plan and sovereignty of God throughout history, throughout the dark times). But my son really seems to understand something from it, and that encourages me. This type of occurrence reminds me of all the reasons we are home educating, and I look forward to seeing how they progress in their understanding of the gospel as we systematically look through the lineage of Christ and learn more about God's redeeming work.