Category Archives: Bible lessons

Fruit of the Spirit: Love

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When I first starting putting this Fruit of the Spirit unit together in my mind I planned to use one Bible story each week to help illustrate whichever “fruit” we were discussing, covering it in a way similar to what we’ve been doing.  However, as I started planning, I realized that was going to draw the focus away from the point I was trying to make.  This week, for instance, I want Ian to know that our Bible lesson is about “Love,” not about Mary anointing Jesus with perfume.  So while I do plan to use Bible stories throughout this unit, I won’t be covering them as in depth as I usually do since we’re using them mainly to make a point.  In addition to a Bible story and a children’s book (this week we read The Little Rabbit, which I posted about separately), there are also a few things I found that we’ll be doing for each week throughout the whole unit.  We put on “tattoos” to help remind us about “Love” all week.  And we watched the episode on our Auto-B-Good DVD Fruits of the Spirit that had to do with love.  (The boys really enjoy this show!)

  Auto-B-Good Faith Collection: Fruits of the Spirit

As I thought about the broad topic of love I wanted to narrow our discussion down a bit.  Since the fruit of the Spirit is about what’s being produced in our hearts, I decided to steer away from talking about God’s love, except as it is the basis for the love we show to others.  Mary showed love for Jesus by using her expensive perfume to anoint him.  Sarah (in The Little Rabbit) shows love for Buttercup by providing for her, spending time with her, and caring for her.  Ian and Elijah show love for each other by sharing things, speaking respectfully to each other, and helping one another.  (Okay, so we’re still working on all that.  But really, they do have a wonderfully loving relationship.)

We also wanted to practice showing love to others by reaching out.  I loved what Amanda at Impress Your Kids did for this by sending something to their sponsor child.  This spring when we decided to sponsor a child, I looked for one who shared Ian’s birthday so he could feel some connection.  We were blessed to find a little boy in Brazil who is the exact same age as Ian (and he even had on a Lightning McQueen shirt in his picture, so Ian liked him right away)!  We haven’t yet taken the time to write to him, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  We made “scratch and sniff” paint from unsweetened Kool-aid powder and used it to paint a picture of a heart.  I looked up our Bible verse on BibleGateway so we could write “God is love,” on it in Portuguese.   “Deus é amor” 1 João 4:8  I hope he enjoys his sweet-smelling picture!  A word of warning if you want to try this activity: let the “paint” sit for a while so ALL the powder dissolves.  I only waited about five minutes, and it made kind of grainy pictures.  Also, I would water them down quite a bit.  Ours took a few days to dry to the point of not being sticky!

  

We also made pictures for our own “Fruit of the Spirit” notebook, though I haven’t quite decided how I’m doing that.  For now, I’ll just save the pictures.  In addition to reading the story about Mary in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), we also read The Best Thing is Love by Dandi Daley Mackall , which is based on 1 Corinthians 13.  Ian really liked the repetition on each page and read it with me after he’d caught on to the patter.

Throughout this unit, the only real “memory verse” I expect Ian and Elijah to have down is Galatians 5:22-23 (But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.)  Still, I am planning on have a verse the relates specifically to the “fruit” of the week, especially if I can find a song about it.  So this week we did 1 John 4:7-8, which I will forever know in the King James Version because of this song.  “Beloved, let us love one another.  For love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.”

The boys have really been enjoying the songs for this unit, so I kept most of the general “Fruit” songs around to help them memorize the verse and mixed them in with some new ones related to Love:

We listen through the list at least once a day, and I’m often getting requests to “do that one again,” especially from Elijah.  They really like singing along, and I think both of them will definitely have their memory verse down by the end of this unit!

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool

Fruit of the Spirit: Introduction

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Over the summer  our Bible lessons will be about the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; against such things there is no law.”  Before we start focusing on each of the traits Paul wrote about, I wanted to spend a week introducing the whole idea.

I think the most important thing to remember about the fruit of the Spirit is that we can’t “make” them grow in us any more than we can “make” apples grow on a tree.  The first step is planting the seed in the ground.  Is the Spirit living in us?  I honestly don’t know how to answer that for my kids.  I’ve taught them about Jesus and they believe the truth of the gospel, but they haven’t come to a point of decision saying, “Yes, I want Jesus to be my Lord.  I want to follow Him.”  Still I think their faith is true, if immature.  So I do believe the Holy Spirit can work in their hearts.

Our job is to carefully tend our hearts (and those of our children).  If we were trying to help a tree produce apples we would clear away any weeds that might hinder its growth, fertilize the soil, and make sure it got plenty of water and sunshine.   With regards to the “fruit” of the Spirit, we carefully monitor the influences around them, feed them a steady diet of Scripture, and bring them to church with us so they can experience the presence of the Lord as we worship.

If Jesus Lived Inside My HeartOn our own we can only go so far in trying to exhibit the love, joy, etc. that naturally grow when we surrender our lives to Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to change our hearts.  I want to be be careful throughout this series to make it clear that these virtues aren’t the result of our efforts; they come when we humble ourselves and let Jesus truly be our Lord.  Along these lines, we read If Jesus Lived in My Heart by Jill Roman Lord, which talks about how having Jesus in us affects way we treat others and the choices we make.

My objective this first week was simply to familiarize the boys (especially Ian) with the names of all nine “fruit” in preparation for talking about them in greater detail over the next couple months.  As usual, one of the most effective tools was music.  We listened to our iPod playlist throughout the week as we played at home and drove in the car.  By Friday Ian was singing along to most of the songs, so I’d say I met my objective!  Here’s what was playing this week:

We also read two books that briefly go through the list of the fruit of the Spirit: 9 Fruits Alive by Mindy MacDonald and Jesus in Me by Dandi Daley Mackall.

 

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQnBdu-9DQu4BY8DFi4dydmMZBMI31G0txInCnZsRfq5julV29kHgWe played two games that helped plant the names of the fruit in Ian’s head.  The first was a Fruit of the Spirit board game that is played just like Candyland.  I just casually commented on what the pictures showed and how they related to the areas of love, joy, peace, etc. as we passed through.  The second was a Memory Match game from Christian Preschool Printables which I printed and laminated.  Elijah was able to match up the pairs.  With Ian, we laid them all out upside down and played “memory.”  He loves this type of game.

  

As we start exploring the individual “fruit,” each week we’ll focus on a particular Bible story as well as children’s literature that that help illustrate the concept.  (I want to try to hit most of the Before Five in a Row  books that we haven’t gotten to, but there are a few others as well.) I don’t think we’ll go quite as in depth as we have been during the regular “school year,” but we’ll see.  I’m just trying to give myself permission to relax a little.  Coming up next week: LOVE!

Posts on each week:

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool

…He is a New Creation (Paul’s Conversion)

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This past week was our official end of the year!  To finish our chronological walk through the Bible, we spent talked about the Apostle Paul’s conversion (found in Acts 9:1-22) and the idea of being a new creation in Christ.  (The final Bible story lesson of the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum was on the “Wordless Book,” but I just couldn’t get excited enough about it to end on that note.  It might work better for us when my kids are a little older.)  Paul was certainly a changed man after his encounter with Christ along the road to Damascus, and while my children may never have such a dramatic conversion experience, the truth is that we ALL become a new creation in Christ. I tied the Bible story into our book of the week, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to help illustrate the idea of being changed.  Our memory verse was “If anyone is  in Christ, he is a new creation,” from 2 Corinthians 5:17.

We told the story with our flannel board set and read it in Ian’s ESV Seek and Find Bible, as well as The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley).  We also read The Very First Christians by Paul l Maier, which is full of beautiful illustrations and tells many of the major stories from the book of Acts.

Acts 9:8 says “Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened,  he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.” To help the boys get a sense of the story, I blindfolded them (one at a time) and led them around the room to try to find a specific object.  Ian loved this game and promptly had me blindfold myself so he could lead me around as well.

  

To finish odd our Bible notebook for the year, I did the laziest easiest page ever.  I  just printed off this fun page of the memory verse from Christian Preschool Printables.   Ian really liked just spending time reading this to himself.  Obviously not something we would do often, but once again, there’s room for grace.

Our iPod playlist was fun because we got to listen to a few songs from the old Bullfrogs & Butterflies albums, which went perfectly with our week:

Whew!  And that’s the end of our first full year of lessons!  We’re going to spend some time talking about the Fruit of the Spirit this summer and then we’ll plunge back into another chronological journey through the Bible!

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool

Peter and John Went to Pray…

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“Peter and John went to pray. They met a lame man on the way.  He asked for alms and held out his palms, and this is what Peter did say: ‘Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!’ He went walking and leaping and praising God…”

Do you know that song?  The language may be archaic, but it sure sticks in your head!  It tells a wonderful story of how the Holy Spirit enabled two of Jesus’ disciples to walk in the same authority and power they had seen Christ exercise time and time again as he healed people. (Acts 3:1-10) It also included our memory verse: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Acts 3:6

This is one of the best stories in the Bible for acting out.  What preschooler doesn’t love leaping and around the room?  And since I have a reputation for being “anti-fun” (I just don’t do silly very well), it was a wonderful opportunity for making my kids laugh.  They couldn’t get enough of me singing the song and bounding across the living room.

For our Bible notebook, we did a simple handprint print (I figured it could either be the beggar’s palm asking for alms, or else Peter taking him by the hand and helping him to stand.)

Here was our iPod playlist for this lesson:

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool

The Holy Spirit (Pentecost)

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We’re almost through the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum, but I wasn’t ready to end our Bible lessons with Jesus returning to heaven, so for the next few weeks we’ll be on our own as we finish up the New Testament.  This week we talked about the disciples receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  It’s a hard story for me as an adult to fully wrap my mind around, so my goal was just to present the whole event as told in Scripture, touch on some basic concepts, and then let it go.  Sometimes I’m content with just laying a foundation for future learning.  Here were the concepts I wanted Ian to understand:

  • Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His followers.
  • If we follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts and helps us become more like Christ.
  • The Holy Spirit helped the disciples speak other languages so everyone could hear the good news about Jesus.

For our memory verse, I chose Romans 5:5, which we sang to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”:

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts, through the Holy Spi-rit. Romans chapter 5, verse 5; Romans chapter 5, verse 5. God’s love has been poured into our hearts, through the Holy Spi-rit.”

Most of my teaching centered around listening to our iPod playlist and having LOTS of discussions.  Here’s what was playing this week:

We talked about what languages are and I shared little bits of French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swahili with Ian.  (I SO wish I were fluent in another language, but unfortunately I just know a few basics in lots of languages.  Helpful for finding my way around in foreign countires, but it doesn’t exactly help me really communicate!)  He was really fascinated by the whole concept.  He’s heard people speaking Spanish and Korean, but I don’t think it really clicked with him what was going on until this week.

I’ve kind of slacked on our Bible Notebook with the last few lessons.  I hope to do a few more pages this year, but then I’ll have to rethink the whole thing.  I don’t like being so inconsistent, but neither do I want to let myself get so caught up in “producing” something tangible that our lessons suffer.

Posted in Bible lessons, Preschool

Jesus Returns to Heaven

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We are rapidly coming to the end of the Bible lessons from the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum!  This was Week 34, covering the ascension of Jesus into heaven from Acts 1:8-11.  I also extended the lesson to talk about Jesus’ Second Coming and heaven in general, since the Bible memory verse was, “In my Father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:2.

Retelling the story for Daddy

We had a great time discussing the lesson this week.  We started out bright and early Monday morning reading through the story in ALL our story Bibles: The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, The Rhyme Bible Storybook, Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury.  (Confession: the kids had woken me up much earlier than usual and I was just trying to fight off the grumpies.  Pulling them into my lap and reading Bible stories was the only “good mom” thing I could come up with in my drowsy state.  Luckily it satisfied them until I was more fully awake and in control of myself.) Later that day we listened to the actual Bible passage on our iPod playlist (see below) as we ran errands.  On Tuesday I retold the story from the ESV Seek and Find Bible using our flannel board set.

I loved the questions that came up this week!  Ian and I talked a lot about heaven.  He asked if I was going to be there, and I told him yes, because I love Jesus and follow Him.  I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but Ian expressed his own faith for the first time in course of that discussion.  He’s usually very reserved about making faith personal (doesn’t like praying on his own, at least out loud), so it was very sweet. We followed up on this discussion by reading Heaven is for Real For Kids.  I loved how it was full of Scripture, as well as being told from a child’s perspective. (There are some details that are extra-biblical, but they don’t contradict Scripture, so we just talked about what the Bible DOES say.)

One idea I liked for telling this story was releasing helium balloons and watching them ascend into the clouds like Jesus.   Sounds great, right?  Well, it helped the boys visualize what happened.  NOTE TO SELF: next time, buy balloons to KEEP as well.  Every time we read the story after this activity, Ian would comment, “I do NOT like letting balloons go.”

  

  

It would have been worth an extra $2 to have balloons to play with for a couple days rather than just two sad boys who associate the Ascension with losing balloons!

That was it for us this week (at least for our Bible lesson).  No notebook page, but here’s the Bible portion of our iPod playlist:

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Resurrection Day!

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I think this was the most meaningful Easter I’ve ever celebrated, probably because we were so intentional about focusing on the story of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection all week with the children.  Actually, I think from now on I want to take more time (as in 2-3 weeks) to focus on it, the same way we do with Christmas.  There were so many things I wanted to pack into this past week, and we didn’t get to half of them because I wanted to take at least a bit of time to really enjoy what we did choose to include.  I’ll definitely have to keep a file full of ideas to use in years to come!

I’ve been timing our Bible lessons so that we would be on Week 32 of the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum, which covers the story.  However, I ended up pretty much just doing our own thing.  Not only did we not get to everything I planned, we ended up changing our focus completely.  I had intended to use The Parable of the Lily by Liz Curtis Higgs as our “book of the week”, but we never even got to it because Ian got so into Benjamin’s Box and “Resurrection Eggs.” (In case you’re not familiar with them, a Resurrection Eggs set is made up of a dozen plastic eggs, each a different color and each containing a small object that represents part of the Passion story–except for the last one, which is empty to represent the empty tomb.)

Resurrection Set

Resurrection set from Oriental Trading

Okay, confession time. I had heard of Resurrection Eggs before, but to be perfectly honest, I was skeptical of how well they’d be received.  It just seemed a little too commercial somehow.   I was SO wrong!  Something in me (hmm, Holy Spirit maybe?) prompted me to go ahead and buy some the week before.  (I know some people have put together their own sets, but I just wasn’t sold enough on the idea to devote that much time and energy to it.) I put them out on Monday with the resurrection scene I’d gotten from Oriental Trading Company and all our Easter books.  Ian was immediately intrigued and wanted to know more about them.  I had him come over to sit with me and told him he could open one egg at a time as we went through the book Benjamin’s Box.   (Another confession: I wasn’t so sure about this book either.  It seemed like a gimmick to get me to buy the eggs.  So I hadn’t bought it, just put it on my Paperback Swap wishlist after hearing people talk about it last year, and lo and behold, it became available and I thought, “Sure, why not?”  Again, SO glad we had it!)  I don’t think Ian would have sat through the book if it hadn’t been for the eggs, but having them there kept him engaged the whole time.  He really enjoyed getting out each object and talking about how it fit into the story of Passion Week.  Later, when we watched watched The Animated Passion video together, Ian kept the eggs with him and opened them as we got to each part of the story.  So I am now an avid fan of Resurrection Eggs!  They helped Ian grasp the details of the story in an incredible way, and he enjoyed using them to tell the story to himself and to others in our household over and over.  Even after Easter Sunday, he wanted to keep going through them.  (We’re taking a “Spring Break” this week so I hadn’t rushed to put away anything from last week.)Anyway, that became the main focus of our week.  (For our Bible notebook, I kept it pretty simple: “He Lives”  Cross Make-a-Sticker Scene sticker set from Oriental Trading Company.)  We did read through a few other books, though we didn’t get through everything on our list (but I’ll share the whole thing):

We also attempted to make “resurrection rolls,” which I’ve seen mentioned on more blogs than I can count.  We learned one very important lesson: USE FRESH MARSHMALLOWS.  At least I think that’s what went wrong.  (I thought I’d use up what we had in the cupboard. Oops.)  We had SO much fun “anointing” our marshmallows in melted butter, rolling them in cinnamon sugar, and wrapping them in crescent roll dough.  I didn’t do the greatest job at pressing the seams together, so a number of them split open.  But the bigger flop was that our marshmallows didn’t melt away the way they were supposed to!  They still tasted great, but I’m afraid the boys are going to be pretty disappointed next year when the “tombs” are actually empty!

  

I think my favorite thing about this week was listening to “Easter carols” on our iPod playlist.  Most of them were songs that have played a meaningful part in past Easter celebrations in my life, and I found myself tearing up several times throughout the week as we listened.  Do you have any favorite Resurrection-related hymns/songs that we can include in the future?  Here’s our playlist from the week (including our memory verse, John 3:16):

All the things we did this week created such anticipation for Sunday morning.  Some of the songs we sang at church were songs we’d been listening to.  Ian was so excited when he heard, “He is risen!” and he knew to respond, “He is risen, indeed!”  Worship with our congregation was a beautiful, joyous celebration.

I’m already excited about celebrating again next year. I’m hoping to incorporate a lot of the “Sense of the Resurrection” ideas Amanda posted over at impressyourkids.org.  (She also listed tons of other ideas to help you plan a “Meaningful Easter.”)  I also loved some of the ideas from Desiré at whenyourise.com.  What sort of things did you do with your kids to focus on Christ this Easter season?

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Jesus Rides on a Donkey (Palm Sunday)

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A few years back, our church started what has become one of my favorite traditions.  On Palm Sunday all the children and youth come into the sanctuary toward the end of the music time waving palm branches as the entire congregation sings “Hosanna” and makes a joyful noise.  It is one of the few times throughout the year that we all worship together, and it is a beautiful experience every time.  So as we went through the Week 31 lesson plan from the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum I was not only trying to teach the Bible story but also prepare Ian and Elijah for this joyous Palm Sunday celebration.  I wanted them to know why we wave the palm branches and to be able to sing along because they had been hearing the song all week.

We kept things pretty simple.  I introduced the story by singing “Hosanna” to the boys.  They looked at me kind of funny, so then I told them it was part of our Bible story and they eagerly gathered around the flannel board to hear Mark 11:1-10.  To be honest, I think they still thought I was a little crazy, but they got into the story more as the week went on.  We read from The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, and The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers, as well as listening to our iPod playlist (see below) several times.  By the end of the week Ian was singing “Hosanna” at the top of his lungs as we drove in the car and asked me to stop singing so he could “do it by myself” (luckily he couldn’t see the Elijah was still singing quietly or I’m sure we would have had some issues).

Of course when Sunday came along, he was too shy to sing along with the congregation, but I think he was pleased that he could have done it if he had so chosen.  And Elijah knew just what to do with his palm branch when he heard the worship team start singing “Hosanna”  I didn’t take any pictures during the service, but the boys brought their branches home to play with later.

Here was our iPod playlist:

I also got out a few of our Easter books that mentioned Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem, but I’ll include those in my post on what we do next week as we talk about the death, burial, and especially the resurrection of our Lord.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Jesus Loves the Little Children

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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

Feeding the 5000

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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
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