His Treasure Seekers

This week we did ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 10 on the Ten Commandments.  (We skipped Week 9, which was a review, since we’re really just focusing on the Bible part of the curriculum.)  It seems like we had more discipline issues than normal this week, so we found lots of opportunities for talking about various commandments.  I decided not to do a specific “memory verse” this week because I cared more about Ian becoming familiar with all the commandments, but “Honor your father and your mother,” (which was the suggested verse) did come up a lot over the last few days!

In keeping with my objective of building familiarity with all the commandments, our Bible Notebook work centered around short summaries of each one.  I really like the website BibleStoryPrintables.com (and its sister sites).  Momma C from ABC Jesus Loves Me sent us there to find a few different ideas for activities.  I had trouble making up my mind, so I ended up choosing two (a little reinforcement never hurt anyone!)

First we did this 10 Commandments train craft.  I wanted to put them all on one page, so I shrank the images down.  Ian’s not very into coloring, but he paid close attention as I talked about each commandment and added it to the train.  (In case the “Thomas” jammies didn’t give it away, he LOVES trains!)  The engine has Proverbs 22:6 on it: “Train up a child in the way he should go.  And when he is old he will not depart from it.”  I loved this idea!

For some reason I don’t think we’ve ever talked about the fact that we have ten fingers.  (How did I miss this???)  So I thought I’d work on associating 10 fingers with 10 commandments.  I got out Ian’s fingerpaint set and just let him have fun.  Once his hands were covered, I helped him make handprints.We’ve been trying to work on numerals and counting, so I printed up these 10 commandments cards.  The cards were meant to be full page images to use on a bulletin board, but like the train cars, I shrank them down so we could put them all on one page.  Again, we talked through each commandment (and number) as we glued the cards on.  (Ian and I both liked the little pictures that went along with each one.  He spent a long time looking at each one and wanted to read through the whole page several times.)

I put together an iPod playlist for the first time in a couple weeks, and it was really nice to have something to listen to that went along with our story.  Here’s what we played throughout the week:

• “Train Up a Child” (Proverbs 22:6) and “Honor Your Father and Your Mother” (Deut. 5:16) from the Hide ‘Em In Your Heart CDs
• “Honor Your Father and Your Mother” from Sing the Word from A to Z CD by the Harrow Family
• “Ten Commandments” from The Singing Bible
• “Exodus 20” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing (also includes a song about the 10 Commandments)
• “Trust and Obey” from “100 Ways to Know God Loves me & 100 Songs to Love Him Back“

Once again, I intended to do a Before Five in a Row book, but I just didn’t get to it other than one read through.  I’m trying to give myself grace.  After all, I’m battling the nausea and fatigue of the first trimester, so my life is all about priorities right now.  Ian’s only three.  As long as we do our Bible lesson, I’ll consider myself on top of things!  🙂