His Treasure Seekers

The story of Noah’s ark is possibly the best-known Bible story ever.  Seriously.  You can find books, toys, and even find nursery decor depicting the ark and the animals going “two-by-two.”  So I was certainly not at a loss for ways to fill our days with things related to our Bible study this week.  The challenge was choosing what to pick and helping impress the story upon my children’s hearts.  Our devotional, Long Story Short by Marty Machowski, spends two weeks on the account of Noah, so we’ll save some of my plans, though it may be difficult to top the fun we had this week.

As usual, we filled in two nights of Bible time on top of the five devotions in the book.  One night we read the story from The Gospel Story Bible, and another we chose one of our “Go-Alongs” and enjoyed the beautiful illustrations.

Go-Along Books

There are SO many books out there that retell this Bible story.  We had a couplealready, and I added a few to our library based on their illustrations or unusual perspective.

• The Story of Noah and the Ark illustrated by Gennady Spirin (KJV text)
• Inside Noah’s Ark by Charles Reasoner
• The Real Story of the Flood by Paul L. Maier
• Naamah, Noah’s Wife by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
• Naamah and the Ark at Night by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Noah’s Crew Came 2 by 2 by Mindy MacDonald
• Noah’s Ark by Jerry Pinkney
• Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos De Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden (poems written from the perpective of various animals)

Reading Practice

Confession: I slacked in this department this week.  In my defense, I did succeed in getting Ian back into his Reading Eggs lessons.  (He’d gone through them so fast he got a bit ahead of his abilities and it was no longer fun, so I’ve been giving him a break while he caught up.)

We did practice reading with our Bible memory verse cards.  This week’s verse was short and easy: “Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.”  Genesis 7:5.

Bible Notebook

I kept our Bible notebook page simple.  My original plan was using an image of the ark drawing from Jan Brett’s website and then having the boys put animal stickers around it.  However, when I went to my sticker collection I realized I didn’t have a very good selection.  So instead, we just used the Oriental Trading Company’s Make-a-Bible Story Stickers.  I was afraid it was going to be boring, but both boys really enjoyed making their pages.

Activities

We are still in the throes of summer heat, so I’m all about keeping cool these days, whether that means quiet indoor activities, water play, or air-conditioned field trips.  For Ian’s “workbook” I printed out DLTK-Bible’s Picture Clue Read and Trace pages, a “hidden pictures” page, a maze, and a dot-to-dot.  The boys had fun playing with their Playmobil Ark set in the wading pool one day.

The highlight of our week was our visit to the Noah’s Ark exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center, which is kind of combination of a children’s museum, an indoor playground, and a playhouse.  All three kids were entertained for the full two hours we were there.  We went on Thursday, which meant free admission, so the only cost was the gas to get there.  Woohoo!

Because we hadn’t paid for the exhibit, I splurged in the gift shop on a 200-piece Noah’s Ark puzzle.  It’s a little too challenging for Ian to do on his own, but it gave us a fun activity together, and since he really enjoys puzzles I know it’s one we’ll pull out again and again as he gets older.

Multimedia

As you can see in the picture above, while Ian and I “puzzled,” Elijah was busy on the computer playing with the Noah’s ark activity from Charlie Church Mouse Preschool.

The boys really enjoyed our “Listening Lesson” this week:

•  “Holy, Holy, Holy” ffrom Hymns for a Kid’s Heart Vol. 1 (our “hymn of the month”)
• “Gen 6 Noah Builds an Ark” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing
• “Gen 7 The Flood”  from the ESV Audio Drama from Faith Comes By Hearing
• “SongNoah Walked With God” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing
• “Noah” from the Bullfrogs & Butterflies CD God is My Friend
• “Noah Build a Boat” from The Singing Bible
• “Who Built the Ark?” from a CD of Bible songs by Great American Kids I found at the 99-Cent Store
• “Noah & the Ark” story on CD by the Paul Winter Consort
• Karen & Kids podcast episode “Trust and Obey”

As a final note, I’ve discovered that I enjoy our homeschooling experience even more when I enter into our lessons and try to learn something myself.  This week I indulged myself with a little “biblical fiction.” A few years ago while browsing at the library I found a book called The Heavens Before by Kacy Barnett-Gramckow, which is set at the time of the Flood.  I remembered enjoying it so I decided to get the whole Genesis Trilogy to read on my Kindle.  It has caused me to think about the biblical account in new ways, which is one of the things I appreciate about this genre.  I’m already into the second book, which takes place at the time of the tower of Babel.  I have a few other favorites and newly discovered novels from the Genesis time period waiting for me when I finish these!