3 Ways We Glorify God On The Car Ride To School

Between elementary school and preschool drop off last year I started to wonder if I could be making better use of my time in the car with the kids. A few months into the school year we began to implement these 3 things on the 15 minute car ride to the elementary school: singing, catechism, and prayer. With all 4 kids in the car it has become the perfect way to start the day for all us.

SING

We love singing together as a family and singing about God to glorify God is the best way to start our drive to school. Here are a few of our favorite albums that I highly recommend:

  • Seeds Family Worship: Seeds has many albums that will help your entire family memorize scripture through song! This is a great resource!
  • Sovereign Grace Music: Another great resource to speak God’s Word into your family via song. We like the albums Walking in the Wise, The Ology, and To Be Like Jesus.
  • Shai Linne: The album Jesus Kid is our current favorite. The song Gotta Know The Books helped our 6 and 4 year old at the time learn all the books of the bible. If you want to introduce your kids to good and sound theology that will be easy for them to remember and understand start here.

CATECHISM

For reference we are using New City Catechism. Today many churches and Christian organizations publish “statements of faith” that outline their beliefs. But in the past it was expected that documents of this nature would be so biblically rich and carefully crafted that they would be memorized and used for Christian growth and training. They were written in the form of questions and answers, and were called catechisms.

Using this question and answer method the catechisms explains clearly what the gospel is, but also lays out the building blocks on which the gospel is based, such as the biblical doctrines of God, of human nature, and of sin. It also helps to address false beliefs of our culture so that believers can reflect the likeness of Christ.

You can download the New City Catechism app on your phone. We love this app because it is free and we also have easy access to the songs that make it super easy to memorize each question/answer. There are 52 questions and every week we do a new question. Our kids enjoy the songs and it is amazing to see how much they are learning. We also have it in book format as well which can be purchased HERE

We usually will review a previous question that the kids have already learned and memorized and also the current question we are working on for the week. I get just as much, if not more, out of learning these alongside my kiddos.

PRAY

About 5 minutes before we arrive at school we start praying for the day. We will pray blessings over our children and their school as well as the staff. We also ask each off our school aged children to pick a friend in their class that we can also pray over. By the end of school year each child in class will have been prayed over by our family multiple times. Our morning car ride concludes with praying that our kids find a way to encourage that person during the day. 

These are super simple and easy ways we have found to place the gospel message in front of our kids. Plus when they are in the car they are strapped in and can’t go anywhere ;). If you have children I hope your family has a blessed, safe, and happy school year.

Share

Our After School Routine

Our oldest started kindergarten this year. Gulp. I don’t think I have fully come to terms with that yet. How does time fly so quickly? Because I love reading about other families routines I thought I would share what has been working for us this last month in regards to our kindergarteners after school routine.

As soon as we get home school clothes go into the hamper and afternoon showers, baths, or swimming happens for the kids. I figure this is one of the best ways to minimize shared germs as much as possible. We don’t have a swimming pool at home but have had great luck with this inflatable pool and this at home spray pad.

We are trying to keep all the kids immune systems boosted to prevent as much sickness as possible because it seems once one person becomes sick it isn’t long before we are all down for count. In addition to this the kids also take SmartyPants vitamins and a probiotic daily.

Once the heat starts to dissipate I would like to add in 15-30 minutes of playtime at the park before showers/baths to get a little extra vitamin D. The extra outdoor playtime is great after sitting in a classroom for several hours.

Homework is next on the agenda and comes home Monday – Thursday. As soon as homework is done the rest of the day can be spent focusing on quality family time. We will have a dance party (thank you Greatest Showman Soundtrack), color, build with blocks, and somewhere in there I throw a freezer meal into the Instant Pot for an easy dinner.

After dinner, if time allows, we play a little longer or we get to work picking up the house before story time and our nightly Bible lesson. Our kindergarten will read us all a story using either these BOB books or this Curious George sight word set. Each child gets to pick a book to be read aloud to them and then we end with our Bible lesson. We are still working our way through the New Testament and are currently in the book of Acts with them. We use Old Story New for our lesson along with New City Catheshim for basic theology.

And that is our after school routine. All the kids are in bed between 7pm and 7:15pm and most of the time fall asleep fairly quickly.

I would love to hear your routine or anything you have found to keep your kids healthy during school :).

Share