Category Archives: ABCJesusLovesMe

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

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

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

In the Fiery Furnace

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We enjoyed another great story last week as we learned about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into a blazing funace for refusing to worship an idol!  Once again, as I planned I checked out what ABC Jesus Loves Me had to offer, and found some great ideas in the 4-Year Old Curriculum week 2 lesson plan.  Ian has had an affinity for the book of Daniel since shortly after he turned two, and while that mostly focuses on our next story (Daniel in the lion’s den), this story is also a favorite for him.  He couldn’t seem to get enough of it this week.

I told the story from Daniel 3 over and over using our flannel board set, as well as reading it several times in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and once in Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury.  He also requested it for his bedtime Bible story, which I read in the NIV.  (I would prefer to read it in the ESV, but he won’t have his own copy of it until Christmas, so I just use the NIV that we keep in his room.)

For our Bible notebook page, we used a craft from dltk-bible.com.  We used the sponge painting option for the fire since Ian had never done that.  Also, the craft only had the three men and I wanted to add the fourth, so I printed out both the color characters and a black and white copy to make the “one like a son of the gods”.

  

The only video we watched to go along with the story was Veggie Tales: Rack, Shack, and Benny (available streaming on Netflix), which was certainly fun, though there were so many elements that were different, I’m not sure how much connection Ian made with the Bible story.

We continued learning Proverbs 3:5-6 as our memory verse for this lesson, so much of our iPod playlist was the same as last week:

The new songs, however, were a big hit!  From the first day, Ian started singing along with the songs about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and I know this is one story that will stay with him forever.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Jonah and the Big Fish

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This week we talked about the story of Jonah.  It’s so familiar, but I actually got a lot out of our lesson as the repeated exposure brought new insights into my mind.  Somehow I developed more empathy for Jonah, yet at the same time I felt more frustrated by his lack of mercy than I’ve ever felt during previous readings.

We did tell the story with our flannel board set, but only two or three times (we usually do it several times throughout the course of a week).  It was just a hard story because the scene kept changing!  Actually, Ian liked helping with all the changes, but I found it challenging to keep all the pieces in a place where I could help the story flow smoothly.  We got plenty of exposure this week in other ways.  All four chapters of the book of Jonah were on our iPod playlist (see below) and Ian surprised me with how quiet he got almost every time we listened to the Bible reading.  This was one story that was in all our Bible storybooks, but we only read it in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers.  I had the pages marked, but we never got to the versions in Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury, The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes,  or The Rhyme Bible Storybook.  Hopefully we’ll hit those next time, because I know the boys would love the pictures.

I was thankful for the ABC Jesus Loves Me 4-Year Old Curriculum (lesson 25) on Jonah which provided some fun ideas of things to do throughout our week, such as a dot-to-dot of the fish spitting Jonah back out.  This was a really good activity for Ian.  We practice counting every night with our calendar activity (most people do this in the morning, but we have found it much easier to be consistent at bedtime), so he recognizes the numerals and is almost able to count up to 30.  I helped him find each numeral the first time, and then he wanted to retrace it over and over.  I’d never thought of doing that, but it was good practice.  (And Elijah worked diligently alongside us, which was good practice for him!)

Ian also played the game that goes with the story of Jonah on Charlie Church Mouse: Preschool.  When I first found out about the CCM computer games, I read reviews online (generally pretty good) and downloaded the free demos (which include one story from each CD-ROM).  To be honest, I was a little disappointed.  The animation seemed rather outdated compared to some of the kids’ games I’d seen.  But Ian really enjoyed playing the games.  So I went on Amazon and bought cheap copies of the Preschool and Kindergarten games from a Marketplace seller.  That was a few months ago, and he still plays them a LOT, and Elijah loves watching.  I know Ian’s caught details from the stories through them, as well as practicing some important skills.  So my opinion on them has definitely changed for the better.  I’m pretty sure I’ll buy the Early Elementary level once I think he’s ready for it.  (And Elijah’s just itching to be able to do “Church Mouse” all by himself.  He asks for it every day!)

For our Bible notebook page, we used a craft from sunday-school-fun-zone.com.  There were two pages to print out: the whale (with a lift up flap so you can peek “inside”) and a bunch of Jonahs.  (Ian got in some good scissors practice to get one of him praying.)  Simple, but so cute (at least before Ian decided to use almost every color marker he had on Jonah)!

  

I chose Proverbs 3:5-6 as our memory verse for this lesson.  It was a little long, but I always hear both verses together, and I think it’s an important passage to have memorized.  So we worked on just verse 5 this week, and next week we’ll add verse 6.  The memory songs on our iPod playlist include both verses, so I don’t think it will be too hard for Ian to learn the whole passage.

We watched two videos related to the story.  The first was Jonah and the Whale from the Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible series (which I recorded on the DVR a few months ago and saved for this week).  I have some reservations about this movie.  They took quite a bit of creative license.  It starts with a fictional back-story to explain Jonah’s antipathy toward the Ninevites.  There’s also a very unrealistic seen of Jonah in the water before the fish swallows him, and some odd moments inside the fish as well.  I found it confusing how they seemed to go back and forth in calling it a “whale” and a “big fish.”  And like the rest of this series, the men are wearing really short tunics with nothing underneath, so at least half their thighs are exposed, which just doesn’t sit right with me.  Ian’s never commented on the clothes though, so I try to bite my tongue.  He did get a lot out of watching it, and it prompted some good discussions about what really happened.  It also really captured Elijah’s attention and had him asking questions about the story, so he seemed to get more out of the story this week than I think he usually does.  At the end of the week we watched Jonah – A Veggie Tales Movie (available streaming on Netflix) for fun, which obviously takes a lot of license as well (but since I was expecting it with Veggie Tales, it didn’t stand out as much to me).  It was actually helpful watching two interpretations, because Ian really noticed the things that they had in common, as well as some of the differences.  It drove us to dig into our Bibles for the truth!

We had a rather long iPod playlist this week, but we listened to it a lot as we worked, played and rode in the car:

One thing I really loved about this week was seeing Elijah really participating.  I don’t know whether he’s just entering a new developmental stage or if something about the story really captured his attention, but he seemed like part of our lesson this week.  He kept asking questions, pointing out Jonah in the movies, and singing the Karen and Kids “Jonah” song over and over and over (at least “Jonah, Jonah.. Hey, Jonah! Jonah, Jonah….).  It’s so fun to see him learning and interacting with Ian about the lesson.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

David & Goliath

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This week we headed back to the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum for the Week 16 lesson plan on David and Goliath.  We had so much fun with this Bible lesson!

Ian already knew the story from church, so when he saw the flannel board set all ready, he was eager to dive in as soon as he woke up Monday morning.  I was cooking breakfast and told him I do it with him after we ate, but he just couldn’t wait.  I loved hearing him tell the story (as he remembered it) as I worked in the kitchen.  And then as soon as he’d eaten, he ran back to the board and asked me to tell it over and over.  I told it twice and then just left him to act it out on his own while listening to our iPod playlist (see below).  He especially liked making David’s stone knock Goliath down!

  

We made a lifesize Goliath picture on some mural paper.  Both boys were SO excited about coloring him.  At first I tried crayons and markers, but then I decided it would be much easier to break out the dot markers.

  

Proportions are hard when drawing something that big on the floor!  I thought his arms were too long until we got him posted on the wall.  Ian is exactly 3 feet tall, so he was only a 3rd of Goliath’s height!  Measuring him out even surprised me.  9 feet was taller than I had imagined.  He barely fit on our wall, even with our high ceilings!  On Friday I let the boys throw sock balls at him as I helped him fall down.  (Of course, then Ian wanted me to put it back up, but I was not up to dragging the ladder out again!)  For our Bible notebook, I just printed out a page with these pictures.

We enjoyed two videos this week: Veggie Tales: Dave and the Giant Pickle (available streaming on Netflix) and David and Goliath from the Nest Animated Stories from the Old Testament series (so thankful for my parents’ DVR).  We also read from our Bible story books.  Ian really liked it in The Rhyme Bible for Toddlers.  (The stories in that book are short and don’t have a lot of detail, but the rhymes are a lot of fun and it’s one of Ian’s favorites.)

For some reason, Ian really wanted to sing a song about David and Goliath, so I was glad to find one in the ABCJLM lesson plan.  I wasn’t familiar with it and it wasn’t on any of the CD’s I have, but it was in our Wee Sing Bible Songs  book, so I was able to play it on the piano, and Ian had a great time singing with all his heart even though he’d never heard it before.

Along with that song, here’s our iPod playlist from the week:

As you can see, we’re still working on Psalm 23 for our memory work.  Ian can now recite the entire psalm along with me, though he can’t do it on his own yet.  We still have one more lesson on David, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he gets there.  Even if he doesn’t he is definitely on his way, and I know it will be hidden in his heart for many years to come.

“Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”  Psalm 119:11 (NASB)

P.S.  For more ideas, check out Jen’s post over at I Can Teach My Child.  I love the way she brought the story to life for her daughter!

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Speak, Lord, for your servant hears!

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This week we continued learning about prayer through the story of Samuel as planned for us in the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Week 15 lesson plan.  I love that between the week on Samuel’s birth and this week on him as a boy, we learned both about presenting our requests to God and listening for his voice—both such important parts of our prayer lives!

Ian had a lot of fun this week playing with our flannel board set.  I just left it out all week and he kept coming back to it, usually asking me to tell the story as he manipulated the pieces to act it out.  I am SO glad that I went ahead and bought this great resource!  It seemed expensive at first, but it was worth every penny.  (And I used money from our tax return so it wouldn’t cut into our normal budget.)  It has been such a great investment, even if none of our other kids ever get as into it as has Ian.  It brings the stories to life and allows him to re-enact them over and over, planting Bible truths deep in his heart.  I highly recommend the Betty Lukens small deluxe set!

For our Bible verse, I deviated from the ABCJLM plan and went with 1 Samuel 3:10, which we sang to the tune of “Mary had a little Lamb.”

“Speak, Lord for your servant hears, servant hears, servant hears.  Speak, Lord for your servant hears.  First Samuel 3 verse 10.”

For our Bible notebook, I was inspired by one of the ideas from the ABCJLM lesson plan.  She had links to some print-outs of large ears, but instead of stapling them to a headband, I printed out a picture of Ian’s face and had him color the ears and glue them next to the picture along with the Bible verse.

We watched Samuel the Boy Prophet from Nest Entertainment’s “Animated Stories from the Bible” series.  (These DVD’s are great, but rather expensive for our budget, but sometimes you can find cheaper copies on Amazon marketplace.  I also discovered that they are shown on TBN and BYU’s satellite stations, so I took advantage of Grandma and Grandpa’s DVR and set it to record every episode.  Then I made note of what we have so I can use them when the appropriate stories come up in the curriculum.)

On our iPod playlist this week:

A few final words on ABC Jesus Loves Me.    Although I mainly use the Bible element of the curriculum there is SO much more to each lesson if you’re looking for ideas of how to teach your child all the basics.  And there’s now a whole schoolyear’s worth of curriculum for 2-year olds!  I love it because it’s not a structured program (which I don’t think is appropriate for little ones) but rather just a thoughtfully prepared plan for introducing all the sorts of things you want your child to know.  I would have loved to have this when Ian was two!  (I don’t know that I’ll use it with my younger ones simply because I think it will be easier to let them just tag along with my plans for Ian.)  My main goal in teaching during these “preschool” ages is to be intentional with giving the kids things to learn and filling their hearts with God’s Word.  This curriculum helps me in fulfilling that goal better than I could have dreamed.  I am so thankful for all the work “Momma C” has put into all three years of ABC Jesus Loves Me!

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Hannah’s Prayer

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This week we learned about Hannah, whose faithful prayers were answered when the Lord blessed her with a very special son named Samuel.  It wasn’t an ideal week.  We had another family funeral (!) which pretty much wiped out our entire Monday, but I didn’t want to let a short week derail us when we just got back on track with our Bible lessons.  So I plunged ahead with the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 13 lesson plan, which just happened to include the next book on my Before Five in a Row list (see my previous post on The Runaway Bunny).

As usual, I introduced the story using our flannel board set.  I love sharing Bible stories that are completely unfamiliar to Ian.  He seemed particularly charmed with the story of Hannah praying for a baby, I think because we’ve talked so much about the baby we’re expecting by the end of the year.  (And having the priest named Eli probably helped too, even though our “Eli” is really Elijah.)  It’s a simple story that contains such a wonderful message about the power of prayer.  We retold it several times in the morning, and then because I had left it out all day, Ian asked to do it later after dinner and again throughout the week. He liked putting the Samuel figure up in the air “so he could talk better” to Eli.

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I’m already excited for next week when we get to talk about how God moved in young Samuel’s life.  Our lesson challenged me to be more faithful in praying for each of my children, for I’m sure Hannah’s prayers did not end when Samuel was born.  On our first day (I’ve been really bad about remembering this the last few lessons) I started singing the Bible verse to the tune of “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” as suggested in the lesson plan:

1 Thessalonians 5:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing,” “Pray without ceasing,” 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

I tried to sing it throughout the week whenever I thought of it: bedtime, bathtime, in the car… Even Elijah was trying to sing along, though his gibberish didn’t make much sense to Ian.  “Pray without ceasing, Eli!”  Come on, 1-year old!  Can’t you get the words right?

The boys both enjoyed reading the story in various Bible storybooks: the original version of The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury, and the original version of The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes.  (I talked a little more about the different versions of these Bible storybooks in this post on the Red Sea.)

For our Bible notebook, we adapted a craft from Danielle’s Place.  It’s quite a ways down the page, but if you search for “Praying Hands Picture” you’ll find it.

    

First we did a tissue paper collage for the “stained glass” window. (Ian took this work very seriously, though he got tired of putting all the pieces of tissue paper on, so we ended up with him being mostly in charge of the watered-down glue and me leading the way with the paper.)  Then instead of using the premade silhouette from the pattern for the hands, I used Laura’s suggestion from ABC Jesus Loves Me and traced Ian’s hand along the fold of black construction paper so it would open up.  He LOVED it!  As soon as I had cut out his hands and explained that he could put them together to pray, he started playing with them and recited the memory verse, completely unprompted.  (Well, he managed, “Pray without ceasing.  5:17,” but I was pretty proud, especially because I hadn’t said anything about writing the verse in it later).  I tried to write the verse with a white crayon, but it was too hard to squeeze inside the hands, so I ended up writing it again on the outer portion.  If I were to do it again, I think I might have printed it out on white paper and pasted it on, because it was just kind of hard read.

    

I didn’t have much for an iPod playlist this week, but the three things we had were fun:

  • “1 Samuel 1 Hannah’s Prayer” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing
  • “God is So Good” (I had it on several CDs of Bible songs)
  • Karen & Kids podcast: “Samuel Part 1” (see this post to find out more about how we love Karen & Kids)

Even though we didn’t have time every day this week, I was really pleased with all we managed to do (including our Before Five in a Row activities).  Ian had so much fun with it all, and as we prayed at bedtime Thursday night he wanted to be sure to thank God for his paper plate bunny mask.  I’m glad he likes to share with God about all the things in his life.  I hope it’s the beginning of a long life full of prayer.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Gideon: Mighty Warrior!

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“The Lord is with you, mighty warrior,” says the angel of the Lord to the man cowering in a winepress as he threshes wheat to protect it from the enemies who have impoverished his people. (See Judges 6)  Mighty warrior.  I love how God sees the potential in us, because I’m certainly not feeling anywhere near mighty these days.  I have, however, learned a lot about having grace for myself.  I actually started writing this post about 6 weeks ago, when I was initially planning to teach Ian about the story of Gideon from Judges 7.  But more than a month of sickness, a week in the hospital, a family funeral, relatives in town, another death in the family, and a trip across the country for a family reunion all contributed to a less than stellar homeschool experience.  I shouldn’t say that.  After all, we’ve been learning a lot about life.  We just didn’t get to our Bible lesson very much.  And I can accept that.  We didn’t do even half of what we normally do for a Bible story, but you know what?  It’s time to move on.  Ian learned the story.  We’ll hit it again down the road.  Grace, Deanna, grace.  Here’s what we did manage to do:

This week Over the last 6 weeks, we talked about the story of Gideon from the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 12 lesson plan–not one of the most popular Bible stories, but a fun one nonetheless.  The first thing we did (once I actually managed to start) was to read the story from Judges 7 during bedtime Bible stories.  I’m not sure Ian remembered much of it, so the next Monday we started as usual with our flannelboard.  I whittled Gideon’s army down to just three men, rather than three hundred, both to show the point that God won the battle with only a few men (we talked about how many there really were) and also so we could give each man a trumpet, a torch, and a jar.

Ian really liked the story and wanted to do it again, this time helping me pass out the items to each man.  He couldn’t figure out why they had the jars, so to demonstrate how loud it must have been when the men broke them we went out to the garage and I shook our glass recycling box.  It definitely made an impression.  The boys wanted to grab the jars and smash them on the concrete, but thankfully they were quick to accept my explanation of why that would NOT be a good idea!

And that was pretty much all we did for Gideon.  Never read it in a children’s Bible.  No iPod playlist.  No Bible notebook page.  No memory verse.

But lots of grace and love flowing in our home.  So thank you, Lord.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

And the walls came tumbling down!

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I finally managed to be intentional about including Before Five in a Row in our week’s plan, and the book I’d scheduled months ago just happened to be the book of the week in ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 11 lesson plan.  So Monday was all about Goodnight Moon (see my post about our week with GM here).  On Tuesday I introduced our Bible story for the week: the Battle of Jericho!

As usual, the first thing we did was tell the story with our flannel board set.

Ian was curious about the picture of the covered ark.  I explained what it was and told him they were carrying it on poles because it was so special/holy no one was supposed to touch it.  Of course a minute later he took one of the men who had his hand raised and made him “touch” the ark.  I told him the story of Uzzah from 2 Samuel 6:6-7, who died after disobeying God by touching the ark.  He liked the way I took the man and threw him on down on the table to show he was “dead”, so of course then he just wanted to make men touch the ark and die.  I think he understood the story since we also read it in the old version of The Beginner’s Bible (see this post for more about the Bible story books I like), but I decided we should stop Bible time before that was all he got out of it.

The flannelboard pieces only depicted the story from in the distance, which missed all the excitement.  So on Thursday we built a “city” wall and marched around it seven times, trying really hard to refrain from blowing our trumpet until the last time.  Then we put on  “Be Strong” from Scripture Rock Vol. 2 (I decided to use “Be strong and courageous” Joshua 1:9 as our memory verse this week.)

Unfortunately, our walls didn’t fall down with a mighty shout.  Thankfully, Ian was more than willing to help with that part of the story.  He enjoyed it so much we had to rebuild the walls and do it again, this time with Elijah joining in the destructive fun!  And long after the blocks were cleaned up and the trumpet put away, he kept asking to do it again.  Glad it was a hit!

I had trouble finding a ready-made activity for our Bible notebook.  Everything seemed to be either just a coloring page or else something 3-D which obviously woudn’t suit our purposes.  So I made one up.  I have lots of color strips from trimming construction paper down to notebook size, so I chopped those into “bricks,” which Ian then glued onto the wall I had sketched onto his paper.

I searched Google images for pictures of the battle of Jericho, found a couple I liked, and printed them out.  Then I cut the figures out and we glued them in front of our “wall.”  I wish I’d shrunk them a bit, but oh well.  Ian liked them. (And again, he kept trying to make someone touch the ark so the would die.  Oh dear.)

We watched two videos related to our story: Veggie Tales: Josh and the Big Wall (available streaming on Netflix) and Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho.  He also really enjoyed listening to our iPod playlist this week:

He kept asking me to put on the “Jericho song” so he could march around with his trumpet.  I’m just glad he got something out of the story this week besides killing off men who touched the ark!

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool
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