After our first big day of Dragon Week (the Dragon Book and the movie), we spent the next few mornings working on new verses for our Dragon Book. At first I thought I’d focus on lying, complaining, arguing or harsh words. But after I started looking at more scriptures, I came across a few prayers that talk about our words. I liked the idea that when our words are getting away from us (we know when they are–and we know what the bad ways to use our tongues are), that Asa could say a prayer instead of simply quoting something that was showing him how wrong he was.
Our first day we learned a verse I learned in 6th grade, “May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in your eyes, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19:14. Asa’s not quite as into doodling as Lydia is so we cut out some pictures to illustrate this verse.
Easy right? (That last one is a rock in case you were wondering. *grin*) If I was going to do it again, I’d add an eye in there for the third phrase there. We got to talk about which kinds of words are pleasing to God and when to pray this prayer.
This was also the day that my husband took Asa to the very non-dragon-y Braves game. Not dragon-ish but a great Father-Son time together. (And how cute is he?!!)
The next morning (a leisurely dragon-day as Asa stayed up till 11:30 at the Braves game), we worked on our second verse–also a prayer: “Lord, guard my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalm 141:3. I super love this one as it conjures up pictures of castle guards and doors to dungeons. Perfect for dragons!
We talked about all different kinds of bad ways to use our tongues. It took awhile and I had to prompt him but we got a good list and then prepared to lock those words in the dungeon with some fancy-shmancy toothpicks!
He loooved gluing those toothpicks over our bad words and then drew a guard and a door to help remember the rest of the verse. I love the way it came out and he really got the picture of this verse in his head!
After we finished our new verse, we headed to the library and checked out literally all the dragon books in the entire county. I also realized I’m not that great at the Dewey Decimal system anymore. (See our Dragon book haul here!)
Our final day of dragon week (how could it be done already?!) was Proverbs 12:18, “Thoughtless words cut like a sword. But the tongue of wise people brings healing.” It’s not a prayer but I like how it encompasses all words–quick “white lies”, angry retorts, aggravated sighs and snappy arguments and more.
We grabbed some tinfoil to fashion a little sword and then some bandaids to remind us of healing. Asa was so proud of his book and we decided if we run across any more Scriptures about our words, we’d write them in this book!
Our big “dragon adventure” for the day was to visit a real dragon. Alas, I couldn’t find any real dragons, so we made a trip to a petting zoo.
It worked out nicely because we were able to compare these docile, trained animals to our verse in James 3. Plus, my little guy got to pet a real live sheep and after all our Psalm 23 studying, he was in love! He said, “Mommy. He likes me.”
We did one more fun dragon craft that I’ll show you soon and I really wanted to go to Medieval Times (how cool would that have been?!) but overall, even as non-dragon-y as it may have seemed, spending all that one on one time with my sweet almost-kindergartener was a delicious treat.
He’s already asking what “week” we’ll have next year while Lydia’s at camp!
I really love doing themed weeks with my kids. Our summer has been kind of nutso, but maybe I could figure something out for next week. And your biblical tie-in is wonderful, of course.
Thanks, Amanda! Wonderful. Asa felt so special that you did something special while Lydia was away. Don’t you love one-on-one time with the kids?
Thanks for the continuing Dragon series. I will use some of this in the fall when we start school. This fall we will be doing our unit study on language, communication, and sound. I am pretty much done making up the lessons, but it looks like I will have a few more Scriptures to include. 🙂 Thank you. I love the Ps 141:3 verse! Thanks!
As a side note, Anglicans and Episcopalians often say Psalm 19:14 in the morning during Morning Prayer…as well as the priests who may say it before preaching. Also, at the beginning of Morning Prayer, with the thumb the sign of the cross is made over the lips, saying “Lord, open our lips; and our mouths shall proclaim your praise.” It is a great way to start the day.
Bless you today.