15 Bible verses that we taught to Emma

Proverbs 22:6 "Train up a child in a way He should go, so when He is old, He will not depart from it."

As part of training Emma in spiritual aspects of life, we taught her some Bible verses. She memorized some of those before Covid, and we let her continue to memorize 1 verse a week during the quarantine time. We used the New King James Version to teach her. 

So far, she has 15 verses memorized. Here is the list:

1. Genesis 1:1
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

For us parents, it is important that we establish to Emma who created everything. This foundational truth is very important. She should know God not only as her Saviour and friend, but also a Powerful God who created everything out of nothing.

2. Ephesians 6:1
"Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right."

This command from God is an important reminder for her to obey her parents in obedience to the Lord.

3. James 4:7
"Therefore submit to God, resist the devil and He will flee from you."

A reminder to Emma to obey God always and to resist temptations. As early as 5 years old, we want her to always obey God and follow Him.

4. Psalm 23:1
"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want."

A reminder that Jesus is our Good Shepherd. Only thru Him will our needs be met.

5. John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

This verse is the heart of the Bible. A foundational truth that Emma should know. It was because of God's love that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

6. Philippians 4:4
"Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I said rejoice."

A reminder to always rejoice in the Lord.

7. 1 Peter 5:7
"Casting all your cares upon Him for He cares for you."

A reminder to trust God that He will take care of us when we have troubles and worries.

8. Proverbs 30: 5
"Every word of God is pure;
He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him."

A reminder that knowing God's word will help us in trying times. We can claim God's words and promises to our lives, because we know it's true.

9. Philippians 4:13
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

A reminder to Emma that with God's help, she can do and will do amazing things for Him.

10. Psalm 115:3
"But our God is in heaven, He does whatever He pleases."

This verse teaches Emma the sovereignty of God. God does whatever He pleases. God allows things or appoints things that happened to our life.

11. Hebrews 13:8
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever."

A reminder that Jesus Christ never changes, therefore we can always trust Him and His words.

12. John 14:6
Jesus said to him "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me."

Like in John 3:16, this is a foundational truth. Only thru Jesus, that we can go to the Father.

13. Psalm 56:3
"Whenever i am afraid, i will trust in you."
A reminder to put her trust only to the Lord.

14. Deuteronomy 6:5
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength"

A reminder to love God with everything that we have.

15. Psalm 119: 11
"Your word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you."

This verse is a reminder of why we are memorizing verses at the first place. We memorize verse to keep it in our hearts that we will not sin against God.

So, those are just the verses that Emma memorized. I taught her new verses every Monday. We recite it daily. We sometimes play matching game to enhance her memory. We also listen to Steve Green's memory verses songs. This is the link in spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6eGXFEwOdfD1dIPyu6c5cG?si=vgw3_G80RzSFHxJPGEN4uA

That's it. What other verse/s will you suggest that Emma will learn soon?

Our Grassi Lake Hike

Our first hike as a family 

We always like to try new places. It has always been in our bucket list to do hiking. So, last Monday, June 22, we decided to go to Grassi Lakes in Canmore, Alberta. We left Calgary around 8.30am. It was about 1.5hr travel. We arrived at 10am. 

There are two routes going up, the easy route and the more difficult route. I read in some of the reviews that the easy route is good for the whole family. The distance is 4.3 km and 233 meters in elevation. It took us about 45 minutes going up. We stopped twice to drink water and catch our breath. Going up is a bit hard, but going down is easier.

When we reached the top, we were welcomed with a beautiful sight. The lake is emerald in color. It's very relaxing to see. There were also many families with different age group at the top. You can also bring your dog up there. Emma loved the beautiful view, the lake and the hike. We stayed for about an hour there. The going down is easier, we still used the easy route. Emma got a bit tired so we carried her half-way. 

The emerald lake behind us

Some tips when you plan to go there: 1. Come early. Make sure you arrive before 10am to find a good parking spot. Also, when we arrived at 10am, there are so many people already. It's one of a popular place to visit, so come early. 

2. If you're bringing children, make sure they're occupied. Bring light snacks and water for them. While we were walking, I had to play music so she'll be motivated to walk. We stopped twice just to drink water. 

3. Wear your comfortable shoes. I think this is a no brainer tip. Even though this is an easy hike, wear your hiking shoes. The road in the easy route is a bit rocky and I slipped once or twice going up. (I was just wearing my normal rubber shoes).

4. Make sure you check the weather before hiking. When we went there, it was supposed to be a warm day, we still brought light jackets. It was a little chilly on some part of the hike.

5. Bring your camera. Take a picture or two of the view. It's very instagrammable. 

We encourage our churchmates and friends to try this hike with their family. It's worth the hike.

My collections

I would like to share some of my favorite collections. I'm not a typical lady who collects shoes, bags and makeups.

I just want to showcase my top 4 collections. 

1. Mugs

I started collecting mugs here in Canada. At first, I only want the white ones from Indigo. But as my collection grows, I am buying and collecting other colors as well. Right now, I think I have 24 mugs. I post my mugs in my Instagram. You can check the hashtag #bimsmugcollection to see some of my mugs.

2. Books

I love books. I bought most of my books, others were gifted to me. Right now, I have 46 book in my mini library. Some are Bible study books, some are free books from Grace to you, some books I brought from the Philippines, some books are about parenting and about married life. 

3. Beautiful papers

I love doing crafts. I love collecting beautiful papers and even paper craft set. Sometimes I use my colorful papers to make event banners. 

4. Postcards and cards

Lastly, I collect postcards and cards. I love receiving them and sending them as well. I bought some from the different places I go. Some I bought in thrift shops and in Indigo and Papyrus when they're on sale. :) 

So those are my top 4 collections. I used to collect stickers and keychain in the Philippines. But I wasn't able to bring my collections here. I give it away before I came here. I also started to collect some refrigerator magnets and landmark pins. 

What are your collections?

Emma's favorite tv shows on Netflix

We let Emma watch some tv shows and movies for 2 hours (maximum) in a day. It could be an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon or evening.

I'm going to share some of our favorite tv shows in Netflix. Her preferences changes as she grow older. During 2-3 years old, it was us who chose the shows for her. But as she grew older, we gave her choices on what to watch. But we make sure to watch some episodes with her to know what to expect on each show.

Disclaimer: I'm not promoting watching tv shows and movies. But there are times when we also need our free time from our children.

2-3 years old
1. Paw Patrol- She loved dogs. This show about dogs is teaching about being helpful in the community. Her favorite characters are Skye and Marshall. Their song is also very catchy. They have 6 seasons and have atleast 20+ episode in each season. Each episode is about 23 minutes long.

2. Word Party- this show is good in learning words. They have songs and dances that she loved. They have 4 seasons and have atleast 12 episodes each. One thing I also love about this is it's only about 10-minute long. So sometimes, we just let her watch atleast 2 episodes at a time, then have a break to do some other things.

3. Little Baby Bum- more singing of nursery rhymes and new children's songs. This is actually available in youtube. They have 2 seasons and each episode is an hour long. We usually don't finish the whole episode in one sitting.

4 years old
1. Care Bear and cousins-she loved the cuteness of the bears and how they are very caring and loving to one another. They have 2 seasons and about 20 minute per episode.

2. Trolls- we both love the movie and Netflix original tv show of this. We like it because they have songs and dances on each episode. The trolls are also so cute and colorful. They have 8 seasons with 7 episodes each.  Each episode is about 23 minutes long.

3. Little Pony- she loves pony and she enjoyed the creativity and imagination on this one. They have 8 seasons too with atleast 23 minutes each episode. 

5 years old
1. Super Why- this is about 4 friends who goes on magical adventure to solve their daily problems. We love it because they goes "inside" a book to find solution to their problems. Also, they encouraged letter recognition and reading words. They have 3 seasons with 25 minutes each episode.

2. Green eggs and ham- this is based on the story of Dr. Seuss. Netflix made a tv show out of it. It's an adventure story about Guy and Sam. This is only one season, 13 episodes and about 25 minutes each episode.

3. Puss in Boots: Trapped in an Epic Tale- This is basically the story of Puss in Boots but like a choose your own adventure. She likes it that she can choose what will happen next to the story. This is 35 minutes long.

These are Emma's top 3 favorite shows (per age group).
 What is your child's favorite tv show and movie?

Emma's daily routine

It's been a long 3 months that Emma and I were here at home. We decided to have some routines and schedules to follow daily. It was religiously followed on the first month. Then, on the next 2 months, I was more lenient to her and had more flexibility with the schedule.

I just want to make sure that on the daily basis, she would spend some time learning, singing, reading and playing.

 This is our basic schedule for the day: 
1. Memory Verse
2. Filipino time
3. Writing time (3-5 pages)
4. Singing time
5. Reading Bible stories

Memory Verse
I would like to instill God's words to Emma. So, I have decided to teach her some verses to memorize. I taught her one verse a week

Every Monday, I teach her a verse for the week. And everyday we recite the verse including the verses that she already memorized. In that way, she won't forgot the few verses she already memorized.
Sometimes we play verse matching game, where she would match the text to the reference.

Memory verse matching game

Psalm 119:11 "Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you."

Filipino time
I would like her to learn some basic Filipino words. She already learned some basic conversational phrases like "how are you?", "what's your name?" And "how old are you?". 

She already learned the days of the week, months, parts of the body, food, and vegetables.

It's so fun to see her inculcate all the things she had learned on her daily conversations. 

Filipino matching words

Writing Time
We practiced writing letters and words. She's very good in reading but a bit lazy with her writing. So, we spend extra time on writing. I'm using some writing activity from reading mama blog. Here's the link if you would like to check on her page. She has so many writing and reading printables for children.

Singing Time
I've enrolled Emma on an online voice lesson. So everyday, I want to make sure that she practiced the songs she had learned. We spend few minutes of our day singing.

Reading Bible stories
She has a lot of Bible story books at home. We would spend time to read one story, then talked about it for few minutes.

We usually do these 5 activities in the morning. After those, she's free to do whatever she wants. She usually spend it playing, making forts, making crafts, reading some more books or even pretend play. We let her watch some netflix shows too. Recently, she's too engaged with Super Why. It's really a nice show for kids. If you want to know what are some of our favorite tv shows, you can click on this link below: 

https://bimmy27.blogspot.com/2020/06/emmas-favorite-tv-shows-and-movies-on.html?m=1

My thoughts on playground and social distancing

Our province Alberta is starting to open more places. They've announced that they will open phase 2 on friday, June 12. It means the recreation places like gymns and sports arena will be open. It also means that libraries would be open too. It brought mixed emotions to me. I would really like everything to be back to normal but at the same time a bit cautious of everything.

Last June 01, the playground was opened again. I told myself that I would not bring Emma to the playground yet because of safety reasons. Besides, some other children don't really know how to follow safety protocols.

Today,we went to Edworthy park. They have awesome playgrounds. Emma wanted to play. There are some kids playing. She's so enticed to play again. She loved playing in the swing and slides. We told her she could go if she will follow social distancing and never touch her face. She said yes and she was so happy when we allowed her to play.

She told us "Thank you, thank you. I love this playground".
When we asked her if she missed playing in the playground, she said yes.

She tried her very best to social distance to other children. But she keeps telling other kids "I am friendly". "We can play". Soon enough, she's talking to two other girls. I heard them exchanging their names and age. She was so excited to meet and play with other children. Soon, they're sharing one seesaw (opposite sides ofcourse).

With today's experience in the playground, I have some realizations:

1. Play is a very integral part of a child's growth. They learn while playing. Their cognitive, physical and social aspects are developed while playing.

2. You can't keep children in isolation for so long. They need fellow kids to socialize.

3. They can follow social rules if you tell them the importance of it. I heard Emma telling other kids that they need to social distance to each other.

4. Kids will always be kids. They will always love playing.

Well, Emma had fun playing in the playground. We stayed for about 30 minutes max. We sanitized her hands after. When we reached the car, we changed her clothes. When we reached home, we washed our hands and changed clothes too.

We can still have fun while following social protocols. I think even when we have flattened the curve already, these safety protocols will stay in place for a long time.