Author Archives: Deanna

Jesus Heals the Little Girl

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This week our Bible lesson (about Jesus healing Jairus’ daughter) came from the Week 22 lesson plan of the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum.  It was a pretty simple lesson, which helped me with my main objective: to help Ian understand the meaning of the words “heal” and “miracle.”  I know that seems basic, but I realized as we read through such stories that an almost four-year old really has little framework for understanding those concepts.  I’m glad that by the end of the week, he really seemed to get it.

Our first time through the story, I used our flannel board set, (and the boys both enjoyed retelling the story on it throughout the week).  Immediately afterward Ian and I read the story in his ESV Seek and Find Bible.  (The passage is from Mark 5:21-24, 35-42.)  We also enjoyed reading the story in two of our Bible storybooks with Elijah: The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, and The Rhyme Bible Storybook.

  

Ian really enjoyed “The Miracles of Jesus”  video from Nest Family Entertainment.   I think this was the main tool that helped me meet my objective of teaching him about healing and miracles.  He kept asking why the people were sick and trying to figure out what was going on.  Over and over he watched as Jesus healed people and everyone talked about it being a miracle.  As soon as the movie was over, Ian wanted to watch it again.  (Actually, I think he watched it at least three times this week.)  I love this whole series because they really bring the stories to life.   (We don’t have the budget to buy all the DVDs, but they broadcast on a couple different DirectTV channels, so I record them on the DVR each week and then save them for the appropriate lesson.)

I didn’t have a lot to go along with this lesson for our iPod playlist, but here’s what we listened to:

  • “Woman Healed and Little Girl Lives” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing
  • “Wonderful Words of Life” from the Lillenas Kids Hymn Project
  • Karen & Kids podcast: “God Can Do Anything” (another resource I record as it’s available and save for when I want it)

For our Bible notebook page I just didn’t have any great inspiration, so for the first time I opted to just include a coloring page.  As long as I don’t make a habit of this, I’m not going to beat myself up over it.  I didn’t even do a memory verse, although it would have been an easy week because the verse in the curriculum was one we’d already done.  (I find it much easier to help Ian memorize when I have a song to put on our playlist.) I’m just glad we spent more time on our Bible lesson this week than we did last week.

That’s not all we did, though.  You can read more about our week in my post on “The Snowy Day” (from Before Five in a Row).

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Wise and Foolish Builders

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This was one of those weeks that just didn’t turn out quite the way I planned it.  But that’s okay.  I’m learning to go with the flow and grab those teachable moments.

Our Bible lesson was from ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum Week 21: the wise man who built his house upon the rock and his foolish counterpart (found in Matthew 7:24-27).  For literature, I thought we’d spend some time with the Three Little Pigs, since the stories fit so well together.  My main objective was for Ian to associate being “wise” with doing things God’s way (which often means being patient), and being “foolish” means just doing whatever we want.  For a memory verse I wanted to begin working on Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”  That was the plan anyway.

But things happen.

#1.  I forgot to put the memory verse on our iPod playlist. Plus, Ian enjoyed LAST week’s playlist so much, that was all he really wanted to listen to. So while I tried to spend time listening to this week’s lesson, I figured I’d go with his interest.  After all, he’s going to hear this Bible story many times over the course of his life.

#2. We finally got to have a playdate with some of our good friends.  So we lost a day there.

#3. We discovered ReadingEggs.com (more to come on this one!)  We lost most of Thursday morning to this, but I have to say it was time well spent as by the end of it, Ian had read his first sight words!

#4. We decided to use our tickets to Ian’s favorite children’s museum, which are only good through the end of the month.  So there goes Friday as well.

We did spend a little time on the Three Little Pigs.  We read the classic story from English Fairy Tales collected by Joseph Jacobs (great for learning to just listen and FREE for Kindle), as well as a simple mini-book from Scholastic. The boys also enjoyed a free storybook app on my Kindle Fire and listened to the story on a CD from the library read by Holly Hunter.  Ian especially got a kick out of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivisas.

There were a number of ideas at Making Learning Fun (tracing numbers, mazes, concentration cards, etc.), but the closest I got to any of them was introducing Ian to cuisinaire rods, which I loved playing with as a child.  They are a great tool for building “number sense,” and I hope to use them in many different ways in the future.  My goal this week was to help him get familiar with them and be able to do at least part of this addition activity, but alas…

I don’t want to linger on this lesson (it’s such a short passage of Scripture and the meaning is too abstract for Ian to really grasp anyway), so we’ll just move on next week and work on being more intentional about focusing on the Bible.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Literature Units, Preschool

Madeline

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My plan for literature this week had been to “row” The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats from Before Five in a Row, but the weather has turned so warm, I just couldn’t get enthusiastic about such a wintery book.  However, as I thought about some math lessons to do with our Bible story on the 12 disciples, it occurred to me that this might be a good time to introduce “twelve little girls in two straight lines.”  I had intended to start introducing some of the simpler books from  Five in a Row (FIAR) after Ian turns 4 next month, so we just jumped in a little early with one of my childhood favorites: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (with lessons from Five in a Row (Vol. 1)).

We still have a few B4FIAR books to finish up, but I want to start including at least one FIAR book a month now that Ian’s getting older, though we won’t pase out of B4 completely because I’ll want to re-row them with Elijah (and then later with Arianna).  I don’t think we’ll do a lot of extras yet, but I’m looking forward to rowing “conversationally.”

For math we used twelve little stones to see how many different ways we could group them.  (Since we were also talking about the disciples this week I wanted to use something neutral.    Otherwise I would have used the “Madeline Girls” from Homeschool Share’s Madeline resources.  We also got out a measuring tape to measure how tall the boys are, just like the man measured Madeline in one of the illustrations.

For geography, we found Paris and placed our story disk (from the FIAR Vol. 1 manual) on the big world map on the wall in the boys’ room.  We also looked at some pictures andsouvenirs from when Grandma visited Paris a couple years ago.  It was fun seeing the Eiffel Tower ond other Paris landmarks represented in many different ways.

For science, we talked about the appendix and the parts of the digestive system.  Ian’s fascinated by anything to do with the body, so I also purchased the My Body unit from Teacher Created Resources (available digitally on CurrClick or as a hard copy from Amazon).   I drew life-size outlines of both boys and let them color them.

   

We printed out the pages on the digestive system and taped them on to the drawing of Ian.  (I know we’ll get to more from the unit at some point, but that was enough for now).  We also read The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body several times.

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For language arts, we talked about rhyming words, which Ian is finally starting to catch onto and have fun with.  One time when I read through the story, I pronounced “again” as “uh-GANE” to emphasize the rhyme with rain.  Ian corrected me, saying, “It’s ‘uh-GEN.”  I explained that I was trying to make it rhyme, and sometimes in poems you’ll see “again” paired with words like “rain.”  From that point on, if I tried to pronounce it the way we usually do, he’d get upset.

We went to the library and checked out a few other books about Madeline.  Madeline’s Rescue was my favorite (after the first one).  Toward the end of the week we watched the original Madeline special  and Madeline’s Rescue. (Ian loved them so much I ended up buying digital copies on Amazon so he can watch them anytime, anywhere on my Kindle Fire.)

I wasn’t sure how Ian would like a story about a bunch of little girls, but he LOVED this book.  He brought it to me to read several times every day, and he would have watched the movie over and over all day if I’d let him.  Even Elijah was asking for Madeline and pretending to read the book to himself by the end of the week.  Our first FIAR book was a hit!

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

Jesus Calls His Disciples

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The holidays are over, we’re settling into life with a new baby, and we’re ready to get back to “school” with the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum, picking up where we left off with Week 20: Jesus calling the 12 disciples.  I’m so excited to be getting back to our Bible lessons for a number of reasons.  First, Elijah is growing up so fast, and he’s showing more interest in what we’re doing so he’ll be joining us a lot more.

Also, we’ve spent so much time in the Old Testament and now it’s time to focus on the New Testament.  I’m excited to “introduce” my boys to Jesus.  Obviously they’ve heard His name at home and at church, and they know a few stories about Him, but we haven’t spent any time really intentionally going through the gospels.  (Elijah flips through The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers saying, “There’s Jesus, there’s Jesus, there’s Jesus… The End.” It makes me smile, because really, isn’t that what the whole Bible is about?  But I’m hoping he’ll soon be able to differentiate between the stories of men in the Old Testament and the stories that are actually about the Lord.)

The last reason I’m excited is because Ian got a new Bible for Christmas and I’m looking forward to using it with our lessons.  He loves bringing his Bible to church, and we’ve enjoyed spending time just flipping through it, getting familiar with where certain stories are, the maps at the back, etc.  I want it to be a part of his daily life.  I chose the ESV Seek and Find Bible because it uses the full ESV text while making the Bible accessible to kids 5 to 9.  Okay, so Ian’s still a couple months shy of 4, but it was the best I could do when searching for a “real” Bible.  I love that has so many full-page color illustrations, each accompanied by a clearly written story that can be read separately from the text.  (These stories aren’t exact copies of the Scripture passage, but they use a lot of the same wording while telling the story in a way kids can easily understand.  So it’s almost like a really good Bible storybook integrated with a full Bible translation.)  I’ve read a few of these stories to Ian and they really keep his attention, probably because he can see the picture right there.

My two main objectives this week were to help the boys 1) understand that that the disciples followed Jesus to copy what He did, and 2) start becoming familiar with the names of the Twelve.  I used a few different passages for this week’s lesson.  The curriculum suggested Luke 5:1-11, but I focused on Matthew 4:18-23 because it contained the verse I chose to have the boys memorize: “Come, follow me… and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19 (NIV1984).  I also referenced the list of the twelve disciples from Luke 6:14-16.

Rather than introducing the story using our flannel board set as I’ve always done, I started out our week by putting on our iPod playlist as we ran errands Monday morning.  Here’s what we listened to several times throughout the week:

We listened to the whole list a couple times through as we drove, and both boys started asking questions about what they heard.  As soon as the story started, Elijah asked, “What’s this movie, Mommy?” so I knew he was interested.  After hearing it, he tried to list the disciples from the passage (Peter, Andrew, James, and John) all on his own and only needed a little help from me before he had them down.  Ian wanted to know why we were singing about being a disciple, so we talked about how we can choose to follow Jesus just like those fishermen in the story.  It was a great introduction so they were really receptive when we got out the flannel board set later on.  (There weren’t really pieces to tell the story of Jesus calling the men in their boats, so I just chose 12 men and a Jesus figure and did the story on my own.)

I read with Ian from his Bible, but I wanted to make sure Elijah really understood it as well, so we also read from The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury

Other things we did were to play “Follow the Leader,” and sort (these) disciples picture cards, putting them into three groups as a memorization tool, as they seem to be grouped in the lists in the Synoptic gospels and Acts. (Oops, is my nerd side showing? Sorry. I just love studying the Bible, and if my children can start learning things like this while they’re little I want to jump on it!)  At first I tried to teach the boys this song about the 12 Disciples (to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me”), but then I realized the Karen & Kids episode on our playlist used this one (to the tune of “Bringing in the Sheaves”).  So I switched since it was more fun singing along (though it breaks up the groups by putting Bartholomew at the end).

For our Bible notebook page I combined a fun fish craft from DLTK with a “Fisher of Men” idea from Danielle’s Place.  We colored with markers on coffee filters, then sprayed them with water to make the colors run.

After they dried, I cut a fish shape out of Ian’s and glued on a boy I drew (which he didn’t want to color, so it looks pretty dull).  We taped on a thin stick to be a fishing pole and tied on a piece of yarn.

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So it was a fun first week back!  Along with our Bible story, we rowed a Five in a Row (FIAR) book, Madeline, which was a big hit.  My post on that will be coming soon.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

The Snowy Day

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I introduced The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats a few weeks ago because we were heading up to the mountains for some snow play, and neither of the boys really knew anything about snow.  I’m glad we got that experience in, because the weather quickly turned warm and we wouldn’t have been able to find any snow to play in if we’d waited until we were ready to row the book.

  

We also enjoyed some other books about snowy days.  First we listened to an audio recording of a Ukrainian folk tale in The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt.  Then we read the same story told a little differently in Jan Brett’s The Mitten, as well as its companion book, The Hat.  Ian especially liked the last one because he could read the title all by himself, thanks to a few lessons at readingeggs.com.  (See my post about it for more information and a promo code if you have someone eager to begin reading!) And we all enjoyed this fun video on YouTube.

I think the boys’ favorite part of the week was when we made “snow” by throwing some ice in the blender.  I presented it as a “special treat” (which in Ian’s mind means dessert), prepared to add some cranberry juice if they caught on and protested that I was passing off water as something more delectable.  They were thrilled with it plain though.  They enjoyed trying to make miniature snowmen, but mostly they just had fun eating it.  We turned it into a science lesson by trying to predict what would happen if we left it out in our warm kitchen.  After it had melted down to water we boiled it to see how it turned into steam.

  

There were a number of things I had planned that we never got to: some of the suggested discussions in the Before Five in a Row manual, the pages I put in Ian’s “workbook” from Homeschool Creations, and the sequence cards from HomeSchool Share’s Snowy Day Lapbook which I had printed and laminated.  We’ll try to get to all those when we re-row this book with the younger kids in a couple years!

For more snowy fun, check out our time with Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening.

Posted in B4FIAR, Literature Units, Preschool

Back to School soon!

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After our Baby/Holiday break, we are ready to find a new groove and get back to school.  (At least I am!)  It seems like so long since we’ve done anything intentional as far as work.  Ian’s forgotten most of his Bible verses.  He never asks for his flannel board Bible stories anymore.  He’s only asked for his workbook once in the last 6 weeks.  Was everything we’ve done for naught?  No.  I know once we get back in the habit of doing preschool that it will all come back.  And I think we’ll probably revisit all the Bible stories we’ve done in a year or so when Elijah’s ready, so I’m trying not to feel like we’re starting back at square one.

We haven’t been completely idle during our hiatus.  Our lessons have just taken on a little different flavor.  Allow me to introduce our main subject: Arianna Joy.  The boys are absolutely in love with her, and she has taught them so much about caring for others, putting their needs ahead of your own, and sharing.  I know that sounds like I’m just putting a positive spin on things, but I’m completely in earnest.  I have been so amazed at how positive the transition has been.  In the month since Arianna was born, we haven’t had a single episode of resentment or jealousy.  Instead the boys fawn over their sister, comforting her when she cries, singing to her, talking to her, taking turns holding her all day long, waiting patiently for what they want while I tend to her needs… I know such utter bliss won’t last forever, but I’m enjoying this “honeymoon” period and encouraging the relationship-building as much as I can.  My heart was melting this morning as Ian cuddled Arianna on the couch and was able to get her to stop crying with his hugs and soothing words.

I had prepared a number of “schoolish” activities for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we ended up just mostly reading books.  Maybe next year I’ll share a list for each holiday, because I was really pleased with some of the ones I found.  (But right now, after the fact, I’m just not inspired enough to ignore the hungry babe on my lap to track them all down.)  Now I’m packing up the books and activities (many of which we never got around to), feeling very prepared for next year already.

We’ve enjoyed the change of pace, but it will be good to get back into our routine next week.  I have a few books in mind for January, but I think we’ll start with Bible to make sure that remains our top priority.  We’ll be jumping back in with the Bible lessons from the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum, moving on to the New Testament.  (Yay for Jesus stories!)

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The Angel Visits Mary

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This isn’t traditionally the time of year the church celebrates the Annunciation (the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she was going to conceive Jesus), but since we’re in full “expecting a baby” mode, and a few weeks seem like at least nine months when you’re only three years old, it seemed like a good time for a Bible lesson on getting ready for Baby Jesus.  I figure we talk about waiting for Jesus, spend some time on Thanksgiving, and then voila!  Arianna arrives and we can soak in the joy of the Christmas season.  I’m not playing Christmas carols yet, but boy I’m looking forward to it!

I introduced the story to Ian with the flannel board set as I read Luke 1:26-38 from my Bible.  It definitely triggered a memory with him, but it still seemed new enough to be exciting.  He was so curious about the story, I decided to show him the clip from The Nativity Story where Gabriel comes to Mary.  He wanted to watch more, so we jumped to the end when Jesus was born and the shepherds and wise men arrived.  Ian was so excited by the whole scene.  He kept saying, “He’s so cute!  I wish we could go and see Him!”  I think his excitement was more about the tiny baby than the fact that it was Jesus, so I said, “Well, God’s sending us Arianna soon, so we’ll get to hold her instead.”  He wanted to make sure we had a blanket to wrap her in like the one Joseph and Mary wrapped around Jesus in the film.  There are plenty of scenes in the movie that Ian’s not ready to see, so we won’t be watching the whole thing this year, but just seeing those two scenes was very powerful and seemed to really affect him.

I was surprised to find that two of our storybook Bibles didn’t contain any mention of the angel coming to Mary.  We read it in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), and of course Ian didn’t want to stop there.  I was trying to save the birth of Jesus and the shepherd’s visit for December, but I decided not to fight him on it.  After all, with a newborn in the house, who knows how often I’ll get to sit down with him and talk about it!  We also read the story in Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury, which was accompanied by a beautiful illustration (my favorite thing about this book).

Our Bible verse is Luke 1:37 “For nothing is impossible with God.” (This had been the Bible verse assigned to the lesson on Daniel in ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 17, but I’d gone with a different one.  Since it actually comes from this story, it seemed like good time to use it!).  As suggested in ABCJLM, we sang it to the tune of “London Bridge”:

For nothing is impossible with God, impossible with God, impossible with God.  For nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37

I was kind of surprised I couldn’t find any songs in my library that went with the memory verse to include in our iPod playlist for the week.  Here’s what we did listen to (short list this week!):

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool

Angus Lost

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Over the last week or so, we’ve been casually “rowing” our latest Before Five in a Row book: Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack.  It’s a cute little books about a Scottish terrier who is bored of all the same old things at home and decides to explore the neighborhood, only to discover he can’t find his way back home.

The Before Five in a Row manual had lots of wonderful ideas, especially for discussions.  We talked about what it would feel like to realize you were lost and what to do if it happened to you.  I also shared with Ian about the expressions “home sweet home” and “there’s no place like home,” which connected well with us since Elijah makes every homecoming a celebration worthy of applause and cheering, even if we’ve only been gone for an hour.

We also talked about dogs and being safe around them, as well as introducing the idea of different breeds of dogs.  Homeschoolshare.com had a lot of lapbook resources for the book, but the only one I felt suited our needs was the “Dog Lotto,” which I printed on cardstock and laminated.  It was great for discussing how different dogs can be from one another.  We didn’t play the game as suggested, but instead just used it as a matching activity, where Ian used the cards to try to find the same picture on the gameboards.

I’m so happy that Jolanthe at  www.homeschoolcreations.com added Angus Lost printables to her B4FIAR resources in time for us to do it this week as planned.  As I mentioned in my post on Daniel in the Lion’s Den, I was inspired by these charming worksheets to put together a little “workbook” of pages associated with our lessons for the week.  I just slipped each page into a plastic sheet protector, and then Ian completed them with a dry erase marker.  Not only did that allow him to erase each page and enjoy it several times throughout the week, but I’ll just file them away to pull out again when Elijah and Arianna are ready to do them.  (I also printed out a few activities that were too advanced for Ian, so when we “re-row” the story later, there will be new things for him as well.)

There are other “Angus” books out there as well.  I believe the first in the series was Angus and the Ducks, but we didn’t have access to a copy.  We did enjoy reading through Angus and the Cat, however.  Elijah is such an animal lover, any of these books would appeal to him.  I think Ian just liked the idea revisiting Angus in a new book!

Posted in B4FIAR, Literature Units

Classical Music My Preschoolers Love

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Bernstein Favorites: Children's ClassicsYesterday as I was driving Ian home from his music lesson, he requested the same music we’d listened to on the way over.  It made me smile that he enjoyed it so much, and it got me thinking about some of the classical music that has really “clicked” with him over the last year or two.  So I thought I’d share some of our favorites.

When Ian was two, I decided to start being intentional about providing him with classical music to listen to and enjoy.  The first thing I thought of was Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.  There are many different recordings available, but I chose the one from the CD Bernstein’s Favorites: Children’s Classics because it also contained some other pieces I liked.  To introduce the story I read it to him from a couple different books.  I bought the first one because it was a nice stand-alone story even without referencing the music.  Then I ran across another version at the library bookstore and figured it was worth 50 cents for another one that talked a little about the instruments that play the themes for each character.  (It’s an older copy and I couldn’t find it on Amazon, but it’s similar in idea to this one, which comes with a CD.)  Ian also loved the old Disney video of the story.  (I saw a number of VHS copies on Amazon, but as far as DVD, I could only find it on Make Mine Music, a collection of different musical vignettes).  Ian was enchanted by this story right from the start, and it continues to be one of his favorite things to listen to in the car.  (His enthusiasm is contagious, because now Elijah is really getting into it as well.)

The second piece I thought Ian would like was the Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens.  This one took a little longer to grow on him, but we’ve listened to it a lot, and there are certain parts he really likes (the “Royal March of the Lion” and the “Fossils” are his favorites).  We have two recordings of this.  It is also on the Bernstein’s Favorites: Children’s Classics I mentioned above.  In this recording, Bernstein provides some explanation for the music that goes with each animal, which can be helpful at first, but I find it a little tiresome after a while.  I prefer listening to the straight music on the CD that came with a book that helps kids know what they’re listening to with each piece.  The book is better for older children, but I just summarize the information for Ian, and he loves looking at the pictures.

Hansel & Gretel/ Alice in WonderlandThe latest addition to our children’s classical library was Hansel and Gretel.  I wanted to introduce Ian to the music from Humperdinck’s opera without overwhelming him with the entire thing.  I was hoping to find a CD version of the Disney vinyl record I listened to growing up, but it doesn’t seem to exist.  So then I searched for something with just highlights in English, preferrably with some narration.  The only album I found that met those criteria was this one that also included a telling of Alice in Wonderland set to music.  (However, Ian’s been so thrilled with Hansel and Gretel, we keep going back to listen to it again and haven’t made it to the second half of the CD, so I can’t comment on that yet!)

If your preschooler has become attached to a particular piece of classical music, please add a comment–we’d love suggestions!

Update: For more ideas, check out “More Classical Music My Kids Love“!

Posted in Composer Study, Homeschool Resources, Parenting Resources, Preschool

Daniel in the Lions’ Den

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Daniel in the Lion's Den

We’ve all been looking forward to this week, when we spent time on Ian’s favorite story Bible story: Daniel in the lion’s den.  It also got us back on track with the  ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum, picking up where we left off at Week 17.  It’s the last Old Testament story we’ll be studying this year, both because of the way the curriculum’s written and because we’re getting so close to our new baby arriving.  I have a few ideas we might do if I’m feeling up to it before she gets here, but we’ll probably just spend some time enjoying getting ready for the holidays and our new addition!

I got the pieces for the  flannel board set cut out and set up a few days early, and Ian got excited as soon as he spotted them.  Even though he could probably recite all of Daniel 6 from memory (we read it every night for almost a year at his request, and we still read it several times a month at bedtime), he wanted me to tell the story using the figures.  I did that first day, but he returned to it many times to act out the story himself and tell it to Elijah.  (We didn’t read from any Bible storybooks this week, but we’ve probably read the story in all the ones we have at some point due to Ian’s fascination.)

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For a little change of pace and excitement, on Wednesday we headed to the zoo to enjoy all the animals, but especially to see lions.  What a disappointment!  The only lion there was a female who never woke up the whole time we were in that part of the zoo!  Ian wanted to go back later and see if she was awake, but this very pregnant mama did not feel quite up to trekking back up the hill to that exhibit.  Maybe next time.  Thankfully, all the other animals we wanted to see were much more satisfactory, so overall the trip was a success.

Ian’s been enjoying figuring out mazes on the computer, so printed out a Daniel maze from www.dltk-bible.com.  I slipped it in a plastic page protector so that using a dry erase marker he could do it over and over again.  Then as I was preparing our literature unit for the week (see my post on Angus Lost) there were a number of simple worksheets I printed out as well.  That inspired me to go one step further.  I had printed out most of the pre-writing worksheets from ABC Jesus Loves Me a while back, and Ian has enjoyed doing them occasionally, but it’s not like there’s a lot of variety.  So I decided to make Ian a workbook for the week combining the Daniel maze, the Angus pages, and some prewriting worksheets.  He LOVED it.  I used a small 3-ring binder with plastic page protectors and he did each page with a dry erase marker so we could erase and reuse.  He did these several times throughout the week (at first with my guidance, then on his own) and delighted in showing Daddy how he did them.  Plus he was very proud of himself as he got better at them through the week.  I think we’ll keep this idea in mind and change out the pages each week with various appropriate activities.

(NOTE: If anyone had asked me if a 3 1/2-year old should be doing worksheets, I would have answered with an emphatic, “NO!”  However, Ian started Yamaha music lessons a little while back, and they’ve got him starting to write music notes.  I didn’t want him to build bad habits, so we’ve been working on how to hold a pencil, starting a circle in the right place for letter formation, etc.  He’s been enjoying that kind of activity so much I thought I’d extend it to school time.  I don’t make him do this work (I don’t even usually suggest it unless he’s bored and looking for something to do, and then I include it in a list of options), but I leave it out and if he asks to do it then I help guide him through it.  As soon as he wants to quit, I let him.)

I came up with my own idea for our Bible notebook page since most of the lion crafts I saw online used paper plates, which I just didn’t think would lay flat enough for our notebook.  Ian is fascinated by handprint activities, so we made a ring of handprints with brown paint for a mane. Then later I just cut out some simple shapes from construction paper to make the rest of the face.

  

We watched a few related videos this week.  I really like the Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible: Daniel in the Lion’s Den because it covers most of the major parts of Daniel’s life as recorded in the Bible (NOT just the title story).  We also enjoyed Animated Stories from the Bible: Daniel (I could only find it in VHS on Amazon, but we had it on our DVR), and Veggie Tales: Where’s God When I’m Scared? (available streaming on Netflix).

Our memory verse for this lesson was Psalm 56:3. “When I am afraid I will trust in you.” (NIV1984).  It was the first song on our iPod playlist:

  • “When I Am Afraid” from Hide ’em in Your Heart Vol. 1 by Steve Green
  • “Daniel” from The Singing Bible
  • “Daniel 6 The Lion’s Den” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing
  • “Royal March of the Lion” from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens (I love to throw in a little classical music when I can find something appropriate!  The recording we used came with a wonderful book that helps kids know what they’re listening to with each piece.)
  • Karen & Kids podcast: “Old Testament Stories” (also talks about the 3 men in the furnace, Noah, and Jonah)
Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool
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