Here is the first of several posts on my unit study layouts using the links on the Chain of ChristianityLink:

Link: Creation Unit

Governing principle: God’s Principle of Individuality(this is the principle that will be referred to MOST, maybe not all the time but MOST:-)

Subjects Covered: History (of Creation)
Leading Ideas:

1. What can we learn from Creation? Gen chapter 1, 2, Rom 1:20, etc(these leading ideas develop into lessons which I’ve just begun writing)
2. There is diversity in Creation. Psalm 19:1(define diversity, what does this show us about God?, etc)
3. All that God made is unique and exists for His glory and purpose. Rev 4:11…highlight the creation of man as special and how God feels about us…how do we treat the creation of God(nature and us)…what can we do to help take care of God’s creation(including ourselves and maintain own individuality…this can lead in Principle of Self-Govern)
4. God gets pleasure out of all He created….He is pleased with each individual thing just like He created it..can lead into many areas of discussion
5. Individuality of ’subjects’-All that God made can be ‘categorized’ into ’subjects’ - Here is where I plan to go into each subject addressed in THIS unit and define it, present it’s biblical origin(this is where the NP Lessons come in handy. I’ll use the lessons in this book to present the BIBLICAL FOUNDATIONS instead of writing it myself…it’s already written..AND I’ve already spent money on it!!!!!!!!!!:-)

Subjects Covered: Literature (of Creation)
Leading Ideas/Content:

1. The Bible as Literature- (I’m using NP Lessons and use the ‘foundation’ lessons to define literature and the biblical origin/purpose of literature)

- read Creation story and identify literary elements

2. Individuality of Poetry- introduce Psalms 23 as poetry(NPLit Guide p. 74)

- Individuality of Poets and their Poetry- read Poetry of Creation(NP Lit Guide p. 108-109)

1. “The Voice of Grass”

2. Poems about creation/birds/naturefrom The Home Book of Verse for Young Folks

Subjects Covered: Geography (of Creation)
Leading Ideas/Content: I still need to develop my leading ideas for this content or I just may present it like this depending on my time and energy level.

1. Individuality of the earth (taken from GACE starting p261+)..God made the earth for man

- in the universe

- in the solar system

- terrestrial globe(??? I have no idea what this means or how to present it so I may hold off on this until I study and know what I’m talking about!!)

2. Individuality of continents(begin study each continent-especially as we encounter it in literature or read-alouds)

- land

- water

- atmosphere(for these 3 I plan to just take some books out of the library and study present these concepts using very “BROAD strokes of the paintbrush”, putting on a LIGHT coat until I have the time to go deeper in study)

3. Individuality of Living Things

- plants

- animals(same as continent study)

Subjects Covered: ART (of Creation)-(I’m excited about this one…I was NEVER into art until now…of course, I understand it now!)
Leading Ideas/Content:

1. Primary colors are each uniquely individual

2. Primary colors combine(union) to make more unique colors/shades

3. Color comes from God

4. Individuality of artists and their art work- Each individual is unique and will produce unique things whether from writing(poetry)/music/art, etc.

I still need to chose which artists we will study…I desire to study artists who painted (or sculpted, whatever) scenes of creation or of God creating man, trees, etc…..I still need to research that)

Subjects Covered: Music (of Creation)
Leading Ideas/Content:

1. Notes are unique and have distinct sounds

2. Notes combine to make more unique sounds-melody, harmony

3. Melody forms unique songs to give expression to what is in our hearts

4. God gave us sound/music/notes for our pleasure and for His.

As I post in a previous entry I’m endeavoring to write some simple unit studies for each link on the Chain of Christianity. Several people on our yahoo list expressed an interest in how I was doing it so I decided to post it to my blog.

One thing I had to overcome was the feeling that every link/unit had to be structured the same or incorporate many of the same subjects…they don’t. I just saw this revelation this evening….that each link is INDIVIDUAL. Just like people we each have our ‘personality’ and individual bent/gifting/contribution/emphasis in this world…so does each link. Each link/unit will have it’s own ‘personality’ so to speak..it’s own ‘flavor’. This has freed me up tremendously from wondering “Am I doing it right?”. As long as I go with what I feel the Lord is instructing me to emphasize in each link for my children then it is right.

Since the ‘flavor’ of the Creation link speaks of God Himself…everything coming from Him…He is the beginning of all things then it is quite easy to incorporate many if not all subjects. Once you look at my outline you may wonder where is Science? For some strange reason I could not come up with anything for Science…it’s as if I’m at a brick wall or something so I just left it alone..maybe God will show me later. Until then I have Dr. Hooker’s book that I plan on using.

The Moses link has it’s own ‘flavor’/uniqueness and so it seemed to lend itself more towards delving into a ‘broad’ study of Egypt, even the art forms(Art of Antiquity) or from the Mesopotamian era.

One thing I like to do when I write my lessons is to use AT LEAST 2 scriptures to support my leading idea or principle…no less than 2. I see examples everywhere of just one scripture but the word of God tells us to let every word be established in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses(II Cor 13:1). So that is the principle I live by in my study of God’s word, even before I came to know BPA. I also want this to be an example to my children of not taking scripture out of context…b/c the Word supports and confirms itself there will always be another scripture or principle in scripture to support one you already have.

I am excited about writing unit studies. Unit studies was the way I was leaning even before I found BPA. So now that I’ve found BPA I am attempting to unite my unit study inclination and BPA. I pray the following helps you in your own journey to give you a jumping off point for writing your own.