Author Archives: Deanna

Jesus Loves the Little Children

Posted on by

Jesus Loves the Little Children

The story of the children coming to Jesus takes up only a few short verses in each of the synoptic gospels, but its message is crucial for our little ones to understand.  Jesus wasn’t a distant, untouchable celebrity, nor was he too busy or self-important to be bothered by the impressionable youngsters whose parents brought them to be blessed.  The King of Kings saw the value of these precious babes and made sure his disciples learned the priority of welcoming children into the Kingdom.  Not only should we adult disciples “let them come,” but we should learn to “become like” the little children.  What an encouraging message for preschoolers!  We had a lot of fun going through Week 30 of the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum

This week I introduced the story with a song from a lesson at missionarlington.org. It is set to the tune of “Are You Sleeping” and goes like this:

Jesus sat upon a hi—ll, with His friends, with His friends.

All the little children wanted to see Jesus

So they ran, so they ran.

“Stop the children, stop the children,” said the men, said the men.

Jesus said, “I love them, and I want to bless them.

Let them come. Let them come.”

It was a fun way to change things up a little bit, plus it required the boys to practice their listening skills to know what we were talking about.

We read the story from Mark 10:13-16, which I love because it specifically says that Jesus “took them in his arms and blessed them.”  What a beautiful picture!  Imagine what it would have been like to be a small child nestled in the arms of the kindest, gentlest, most loving person to ever walk the face of the earth.  What pure delight to gaze into his twinkling eyes and feel his tender touch!  I’d guess they never wanted to leave.

We acted out the story with our flannel board set, read from Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible, as well as from Read Aloud Bible Stories Vol. 1 and The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley).  We played a version of”Red Light/Green Light,” like the disciples telling the children to “STOP” and Jesus saying to “let them come” (another idea from the missionarlington lesson). We also looked through Precious In His Sight, a beautiful photo book of prayers for children around the world.

For our Bible notebook page we made a collage of pictures of different kinds of children.  First I cut a picture of Jesus holding a child out of a story book that had beautiful illustrations but such poor theology I didn’t want to read it to my kids.  Then we looked through old magazines to find pictures of children.  Ian has a little trouble cutting things out, so it was good practice.  (I found it helped if I tore the whole page out so he could maneuver it as he cut).

Much to my disappointment, I couldn’t find a reading of the actual Scripture for our iPod playlist this week, but the songs did a pretty good job of telling the story, as well as our memry verse for the week (“Let the children come to me…” Mark 10:14)

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Index of non-FIAR literature, Fairy Tales and Folk Tales

Posted on by

Here are some of the books we’ve done units on outside of Five in a Row:

I want my children to be familiar with all the major fairy tales and folk tales, though sometimes we just read the story.  Here are ones we’ve spent a little more time on:

Posted in Index

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Posted on by

Over the last couple weeks (sickness and weather dragged it out a lot longer than I intended), we’ve been “rowing” Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. Many of the activities in the Five in a Row (Vol. 2) manual were geared toward slightly older children, so I’m sure we’ll enjoy rowing it again later on.  We kept it simple and had a lot of fun!

As with all our school books, I made Ian wait until Monday morning before I would read it to him.  He’d seen me get the book out on Saturday and was itching to get going.  We read the story many, many times over the course of three weeks, as well as enjoying Harold and the Purple Crayon: Let Your imagination Soar  on video (which I found at the 99-cent Store a couple years ago and have been saving for our Five in a Row time.  (Both boys loved it and requested it repeatedly.)  We also watched a Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood segment on how crayons are made, which Ian found fascinating.

We took out all the purple crayons and markers we could find to compare the different shades of “purple”.  Then we each took one purple crayon and drew a picture.  This is one area where I feel like we should be spending more time.  Ian never “draws”; he just scribbles color and doesn’t even attempt to make it look like anything.  So I was very intentional about drawing a real scene.  He attempted to copy me all on his own.  He was worried that it didn’t look like mine, but I tried to reassure him that the point of art is making something that is unique.  And actually, I thought his picture turned out pretty well considering what I’m used to seeing out of him.  I think we’ll start being more intentional about “art lessons,” since he does really seem to enjoy it (and Elijah is really into it).

The highlight of our time with Harold, however, was the lesson on “Gaining a View from Altitude” (FIAR (Vol. 2), pg. 152).  We live up in the hills, so we are fortunate to be able to look down upon the “flatlands” below and see places we go on a regular basis.  (Target’s big red sign is an easy landmark for us to find.)  But we were able to take this idea even further with an awesome field trip that only cost us the gas to get there.  In the book Harold tried to figure out where he was by climbing a mountain, and he ended up coming down in a balloon that looked a lot like this one.

  

Orange County Great Park has a helium balloon that can take passengers 400 feet up in the air.

  

We loved looking down and seeing the parking lot, the carousel, the playground, the freeway, etc.  What a view!

It was a fun way to finish off our time with Harold!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Posted in FIAR, Literature Units, Preschool

encouragement from Spurgeon

Posted on by

“O dear mothers, you have a very sacred trust reposed in you by God! He hath in effect said to you, “Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages.” You are called to equip the future man of God, that he may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work. If God spares you, you may live to hear that pretty boy speak to thousands, and you will have the sweet reflection in your heart that the quiet teachings of the nursery led the man to love his God and serve Him. Those who think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of worship, but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty. Christian women, by teaching children the Holy Scriptures, are as much fulfilling their part for the Lord, as Moses in judging Israel, or Solomon in building the temple.” — Charles H. Spurgeon

A friend posted this quote on Facebook today and I just had to share it.  Read more at http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/cyc16.htm

Posted in Our Vision

Index of Composers we’ve studied

Posted on by

Here’s a quick alphabetical list of the composers we’ve studied:

Also, here are two posts I wrote with lots of ideas for music to listen to with children:

And finally, here’s a post about Christmas Music for the Whole Family.

Posted in Charlotte Mason, Composer Study, Index

Where to Go Next With Our Bible lessons?

Posted on by

We still have a couple months’ worth of Bible lessons to get through for the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum, but I know the end is going to sneak up up on me more quickly than I would like.  So for the past few weeks I’ve been searching and praying for the right path for our family to take when it comes to Bible teaching once that time is here.  A few thoughts:

We don’t use the majority of the material in the lessons from ABC Jesus Loves Me.  It’s not that they’re not wonderful. On the contrary, I think they are amazing, and I’m so blessed by Heidi’s willingness to share all her hours and hours of hard with us for free!  I just choose to focus on Bible and let most of the other stuff happen in its own time.  The main thing I utilize the curriculum for is the suggested activities to enhance our time with each Bible story.  Those suggestions have led me to many wonderful resources which have made it easier to plan lessons around stories not in the ABCJLM-3YO scope and sequence.

That leads me to ask myself, if I can plan my own lessons, do I really need someone else’s curriculum?  Well, no.  I tend to tweak any curriculum I get to suit our needs (one reason I’m not willing to pay big bucks for something all laid out).  Still, it’s helpful to have something there to provide a basic framework and provide ideas.  So then I start thinking about the big picture.

I think eventually I’d like to help my kids develop habits of both reading the Bible daily (maybe going through it once a year) and devoting time to in-depth study of the Bible at a slower pace.  But that’s still a few years off, so I find myself torn between reading something new every day or taking our time and spending a whole week on a story as we’ve been doing.  I see positives to both approaches.  I want to try to include Elijah more so a slower, focused approach (like we’ve been doing) might be better.  I started doing Bible lessons when Ian turned 3, and Elijah will be 3 in the fall.

My next dilemma is what sort of framework I want: chronological or topical?  I tend to lean towards the former, both in my personal devotions and with my lessons for the kids.  But that means spending a long time on all those fabulous Old Testament stories, which leaves me missing Jesus for a big chunk of the year.  And I’ve found a number of programs I like that are more topical that I don’t want to just dismiss without due consideration.  Broaden your mind, Deanna!  Think outside your little box!

Here are some of the ideas I’m tossing around for where to go from here (all would just be spines; I plan to pretty much do my own thing no matter what I choose):

  • ABC Jesus Loves Me 4-Year Old Curriculum  Bible portion (topical, based on character traits)
  • Bible and Rhyme from Hubbard’s Cupboard (chronological; pretty even split between OT/NT)
  • “Little Ones” Calvary Curriculum (could do chronologically or according to their schedule, which alternates OT/NT)
  • My ABC Bible Verses (topical, based on Bible verses, using ABC as framework; would require more planning)
  • Long Story Short devotional book (OT only, but a companion NT book to be released.  Would be a LONG time on OT.  I’ve actually already purchased this because I’m excited to use it in the future–just not sure if now is the right time.)
  • Fruit of the Spirit (I’ve found a few good online resources for spending time on each “fruit” with preschoolers); could use this for Bible “study” and read through at a faster pace for devotions; could lead into character trait focus to finish out the year
  • OR… do I just write my own outline.  Once it’s done it could be just as useful as most of these since I don’t plan on following any of them to the letter.

So why am I processing all this “out loud” with you?  Well, for one, it just helps me clarify my thoughts to put them down in writing.  But my main reason for sharing my thought process is because I’d love feedback.  What have you used?  What have you considered?  What factors have I NOT considered but should?  My oldest child is only four, so I’ve still got a lot to figure out (and thankfully a lot of time in which to do so!)  Input! I need input!

Posted in Our Vision, Preschool

Feeding the 5000

Posted on by

We missed a week due to sickness, but now we’re back in the swing of things, just finishing up Week 28 of the Bible lessons from the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum.  I chose to use the story as it is told in John 6:1-13 instead of the suggested passage in Matthew because John mentions the little boy who shared his food and I thought Ian would appreciate that detail.  Our memory verse was “Nothing is impossible with God” Luke 1:37.

To introduce the story, I told it to the boys using our flannel board set while I read out of Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible.  The story was in several of our story Bibles, but I just had a lot of trouble getting into it this week.  We listened to the ESV story several times on our playlist and enjoyed watching a video, “Bread from Heaven,” together.  It took some artistic license, creating a back story for the boy with the fish and loaves, but it definitely helped Ian understand the story better.  There’s also a a game on the Charlie Church Mouse Preschool CD-ROM that goes along with it.

I have to admit, I was feeling very uninspired this week.  There wasn’t much I could find to go with this lesson from my usual favorite resources.  Then I stumbled upon whenyourise.com. Basically it’s a blog by two moms doing a fantastic job at what I’m attempting to do here.  After perusing their site, I realized I haven’t been tapping into my own creativity very much (something I hope will change!)  I also borrowed one fun idea from them.  We set up all the bears and dolls we could find to be our “crowd.”

 Then I showed the boys our basket with 2 “fish” and 5 “loaves” (goldfish crackers and croutons), though I’d really hidden more of each under the napkin. (Yes, I miscounted my “loaves.”  We fixed it when we started reading from the Bible.)

The food just kept coming!  It was a fun way to have our snack, and Ian enjoyed acting it out so much we had to do it all over again.  Thankfully I had a big carton on goldfish, because it would have been hard to explain that we’d run out of food!

  

I printed out a basket and some fish and loaves (I set my printer to print 2 pages on 1 sheet so they’d be smaller) to put in it. I just let Ian color, cut, and paste them onto a page for our Bible notebook.  This was the first time I’ve had him try to cut things out himself.  It was definitely a learning experience!

  

Our iPod playlist this week was short and to the point, but we listened to it a lot.  This is one of my favorite teaching tools since we can use it in the car or during playtime at home.  Here’s what was on this week:

I’m looking forward to the next few weeks as we talk about Palm Sunday and the Resurrection.  (I try to keep “Easter” as a fun spring celebration with bunnies and egg hunts, etc., while keeping “Resurrection Day” about Christ’s triumph over death.  That way we can still enjoy the fun cultural stuff without diluting the sacred nature of the true holy-day.) Okay, so I got a little ahead of myself!  But at least my planning is done for a while–now I just need to plan THIS week!

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Counting the Hours

Posted on by

A post I read this morning, “Counting the Hours” from fiveintow.com really blessed me, and I thought I’d share it with you.  I’m so thankful to have really good sleeper this time around (Praise the Lord!) so I don’t feel quite as stressed as I might by three young children.  Still, I do sometimes get caught in the trap of “counting the hours”: of sleep, of laundry, of refilling sippy cups… you get the picture.  Then I remember a moment from years ago, when I (still single) was chatting with a friend (married with a baby and a toddler) as she folded her laundry.  Oh, those precious tiny little socks!  Those miniature jeans!  For her, they were probably just every day items representing the hours of work she put in as a mom, but to me they were symbols representing dreams I was longing to see fulfilled in my own life.  I think of that moment often as I find myself tackling mounds of laundry.  I try to be thankful for each filthy little sock from my boys, for those precious onesies stained with spit-up after being worn by three babies, even for the countless prefold diapers that are fraying and starting to fall apart after so many washings over the last four years.  How I love my life!  How thankful I am to be a mom, to be able to stay home with my children, and to spend my time caring for them and my husband! And so instead of counting the hours, I hope I’ll remember to devote my mental energy to counting my blessings.

.

Posted in Uncategorized

The Good Samaritan

Posted on by

http://www.frilloblog.com/uploads/1/2/0/4/12042002/849463109_orig.jpg?260

Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is such a beautiful (and rather convicting) picture of compassion.  It was also our Bible story for the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum Week 27.  Once again, I chose a different memory verse (mostly because we just did the suggested verse with a different story).  So we memorized, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  I didn’t include a reference because this phrase is found several times throughout the Bible (in Leviticus, 3 gospels, and even a few of the epistles).  In other words, this is a really important concept for us to grasp!

To be honest, I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water this week.  Our calendar suddenly got crazy last week, and between multiple birthday celebrations, multiple doctors’ and dentists’ appointments, a marriage seminar this weekend, and a few other “extras” this week, I’m surprised we did anything at all!  (And I’m considering taking next week off, since I’m writing this Sunday night and haven’t even started getting things ready for the next lesson.)

Here’s what we did manage to do this week.  We read the story from Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible and acted it out with our flannel board set.  I printed out a hidden picture puzzle and maze for Ian’s “workbook.”  We watched two videos: The Good Samaritan from Nest Family Entertainment and Veggie Tales: Are You My Neighbor? (available streaming on Netflix).  And we listened to our playlist quite a bit as we drove around town:

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Knights, Castles and the Armor of God

Posted on by

Knights, Castles and the Armor of GodThis week we took break from our usual school routine in honor of Ian’s birthday.  Instead, we spent the week focusing on one of his favorites subjects: knights!  It seemed like a good tie-in to the armor of God, so I combined the two, anachronistic as that might be.  Our memory verse was “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” Ephesians 6:11 (I just focused on the bold part, but Ian picked up a lot of the rest due to the memory songs on our playlist (see below).

Rather than focusing on one book this week, I kept out a whole basket of books (both fiction and non-fiction) related to our theme.  Some I purchased; some were from the library.  Here’s my booklist:

  • The Armor of God by Dandi Daley Mackall.  (Not bad, but not fabulous.  Just the only book I could find on the subject.)
  • Castles (Usborne Beginners) by Stephanie Turnbull(Highly recommended.  Lots of great information kept Ian going back to this one.)
  • I’ll Be Your Hero by Kathryn O’Brien (Great book about character traits we want to encourage.)
  • Knights in Shining Armor by Gail Gibbons (Another wonderful book packed with information yet simple enough to read aloud to Ian without being over his head)
  • In the Castle by Anna Milbourne (A great introduction, especially for younger kids with shorter attention spans)
  • Will: God’s Mighty Warrior by Sheila Walsh (Fun story to introduce the armor of God, but didn’t go into any specifics about the different parts.)
  • Saint George and the Dragon retold by Margaret Hodges (I thought this would be too wordy for Ian, but he loved it.  I think the beautiful illustrations were what sold him.)
  • Brave Young Knight by Karen Kingsbury (A nice idea, addressing the important qualities of a true knight, but the story seemed a bit too contrived and predictable to me.  I preferred the next book.)
  • The King and the Seed by Eric Maddern (I really liked this story about a simple young boy who becomes king because of his honesty.)
  • Medieval Knights by David Nicolle (Too advanced to read with Ian yet, but I got it for a quarter and it was well worth more just for the pictures.  I’m sure he’ll appreciate the info later.)
  • The Bravest Knight by Mercer Mayer (Fun story, even if there’s not much substance)
  • Good Night, Good Knight by Shelley Moore Thomas (Silly beginning reader.  Ian liked that he could read it with me after a couple times through.)

For his workbook I printed off mazes, dot-to-dots, and some of the printables from Homeschool Creations.   Included in those were some pattern cards (Ian surprised me with how well he did–something has clicked since the last time I tried patterns with him) and Ian’s favorite item: the game.  I guess you’d call it a folder game, but I didn’t put it in a folder.  I just laminated each side separately and then used packing tape to connect them.  The first time we played we used jelly beans for markers, but I decided I didn’t really like handling them so much before we inevitably ate them so we switched to different coins.  So it was a great math lesson all around as we identified the coins, counted the dots on the die, and counted the spaces as we moved.

100_6713  

I also printed and laminated the Armor of God cards from 1+1+1=1‘s Raising Rock Stars page.  Elijah played with these for 20 minutes the first time!  Sometimes he would hold them up one by one for me to read, then he’d go through them himself for a while, then come back to me and so on.  I think he really wanted to memorize them.  Totally unprompted.  (To be honest, I hadn’t included him in my objective for the week.  I usually just plan for Ian and count on Elijah coming along for the ride when he’s interested.)

I had planned on making a set of  “full armor” as described at Danielle’s Place, but we were so busy all week we never got around to it.  We did have fun making our own shield and sword.  For the sword, I folded a piece of of cardboard around a stick, added the handle from a milk jug, and bound it all together with lots of duct tape.  Ian loves blue, so I used some blue painter’s tape on his so we could easily differentiate between the boys’ sets.

  

The boys enjoyed watching “Knights are Brave and Strong” from The Backyardigans Season 1 (streaming on Netflix and Amazon).  For our Bible notebook we dressed up a paper doll in the “Armor of God.”  (Yes, we lost a shoe.)

Most of our memory work came through our iPod playlist (which also had several poems this week):

Most of those activities came to a screeching halt on Thursday, when Ian opened his birthday present.  This Playmobil Lion Knights Castle (thank you, credit card rewards points!) became our sole focus for the next day or two.  The boys had lots of fun acting out everything we’d been reading about.  (It has now taken up semi-permanent residence in the boys’ room on their train table.)

  

We finished out the week with two birthday celebrations.  First, we went to Medieval Times to see a jousting tournament and lots of other things we had read about this week like falcons, various weapons, etc.

  

  

Then tomorrow we’re having a small party at home with our extended family.  There were lots of fancy castle cake ideas online, but I get easily frustrated when it comes to frosting cakes, so I decided to keep it simple.  Well, fairly simple.  I really liked the idea of using ice cream cones for towers, but I wish I’d doubled the cake recipe so the main part of the castle was taller.  Oh well.  He’s four.  And he thinks it looks great.  And it’s not like it’s going to stick around that long anyway.

Whew!  I’m tired just writing about our busy week!  It will definitely be one of our more memorable “preschool” experiences!

Additional note: The Armor of God notebook page was a hit, and we did it again a couple years later, only this time we used pictures of the kids themselves:

Armor of God Collage

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool
« Older Entries Recent Entries »