Homeschooling during Missions Week

For school during missions week, I found an uncolored map of the world on the internet and printed a copy out for each child (thanks Becky for the map idea!). Each day, we learned about one or two of the missionaries from our church. We discussed where they are in the world and what they do there. Then, we colored their country in with a chosen color and made a key to the side of our map that included the missionaries and a little box showing what color their country is. We also looked up their country on Google Earth and 'zoomed' to where they live (I have a link for Google Earth on my 'Link' side bar). To make it a little more involved for my 3rd grader, she also wrote a paper on each missionary. Then, she made a book out of them with the map as the front page. Each paper had to answer the questions: Where are they? What is their mission? Why did they leave their families, home, friends, and personal comforts to go there? How can I specifically pray for them?
Here's one of her papers,
The Parrettes
The Parettes are a missionary family in China. They are there so they can teach people about Jesus and take care of orphans. The Parettes are in China because they love Jesus more and want to serve God! I can pray that the orphans will get adopted. I can also pray that the people will have an opportunity to open their hearts and listen to God's word! I can also pray that the Parettes will be safe.

Now, she has a book to refer to which will make her prayers for these people more in depth, specific, and informed.

Weeks like this give us the opportunity to corporately pray and be more informed about our missionaries. Home is a great place for us as parents to inform our kids. My prayer for my children (besides their own salvation) is that they will grow up with a passion to reach the unheard people of the world with the gospel of Christ. Remember, we are God's slaves commissioned to do his will. His commission to us before returning to heaven was to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. (Mark 16:15)