Category Archives: 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

Goodnight Moon

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It’s been a few months now since we started doing the Bible lessons from the ABC Jesus Loves Me Three-Year Old curriculum.  Because I really want to focus on the Bible, I haven’t really put any effort into any other kind of lesson.  However, now that we’re pretty much in the swing of things, I’ve been wanting to start up again with Before Five in a Row.  I began introducing the books as soon as Ian turned two, and while he loved them, neither of us was ready to do any more than just read the stories.  All along I’ve planned on “re-rowing” each title, this time doing a few activities as we go.  I’ve been meaning to get started with that for the last few weeks, but for various reasons it just has not happened.  Until this week…

Months ago I had written out a calendar of what books I wanted to cover each month (not just B4FIAR but a few others as well, mostly those with activities I found at HomeschoolShare.com).  This week I had scheduled Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, and as it was also listed as the book of the week on the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 11 lesson plan, I figured it was a great time to dive in.

We started (of course) by reading Goodnight Moon.  When we got to the part of GM that talks about the cow jumping over the moon, he reminded me of the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle,” (which we talked about the last time we rowed this book) and I had to recite it several times.  We also read My World (a companion book by the same author and illustrator).  I’m not crazy about My World, but Ian really seems to enjoy it, especially the illustrations.

We played the easiest version of the Goodnight Moon game, finding the picture cards to match the pictures on each color game board.

Okay, so that’s Elijah playing with it, not Ian (he likes the pictures too!)  But Ian really enjoys this game, and even this easiest level makes him think.  Sometimes we play it together, but it’s also a great activity for him to keep himself entertained if I’m busy.

To do the “animal classification” activity described in the Before Five in a Row manual, I printed up the cards from HomeschoolShare, though I added rabbit, kitten, and giraffe to those they had in their set:

After all, the rabbit is pretty prominent in the story, and the kittens are mentioned more than once.  I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t have cards in the set but the elephant did.  (I had to go back to the book to figure out why the elephant was there, and then when I found it I wondered why they hadn’t included the giraffe as well, so I remedied that.)  Because it’s the first time we’ve done this activity, I kept the classification simple: big and small.  As we add cards with future books, we’ll see what other groupings we can come up with.  (I printed them on cardstock and laminated them, because we’ll probably use them quite a bit as we go through the rest of the books).

Since I had the laminator heated up (I LOVE that thing!), I thought I’d put it to good use.  Ian hasn’t been able to grasp the concept of rhymes yet, so I made these rhyme cards using pictures from Harper Collin’s Margaret Wise Brown activities and HomeschoolShare’s Goodnight Moon Lapbook components.

He enjoyed making matches with my help, but even after playing several times throughout the week, he just didn’t get it.  I had no idea this was such an advanced concept.  It seems so obvious, doesn’t it?  But it’s just not clicking.  Not that I’m worried–someday he’ll get it!

We talked a little bit about the phases of the moon. (We’ve observed the differences in the appearance of the moon with Ian a lot at night, but never really talked about why it changes.)  I liked the idea I found  here, but we didn’t just do it, just talked through it without using Oreo cookies.  That will have to wait until he’s old enough to really get it.  I really liked the instruction sheet though, and printed it out to refer to when the boys are older.

One last small thing we did was the counting activity from HarperCollins Margaret Wise Brown page.  I also thought about making cornmeal “mush,” but Ian’s such a picky eater these days, I doubted he would want to try it even if he helped make it.  (And since I’m still getting through morning sickness, I knew I wouldn’t want to finish what was left either.)

Posted in B4FIAR, Literature Units, Preschool

Train up a Child (10 Commandments Pt.2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

A little treasure (10 Commandments, part 1)

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

My number one goal in raising my children is to “make disciples.”  To accomplish this, I think the most important thing I can do while they’re little (aside from letting them see my own walk with God) is to build a foundation of knowing God’s Word, both stories and memory verses.  Hence the beginning of our homeschool journey.  Ian’s been enjoying our Bible story time each week, and he seems to be remembering the verses we’ve done, but I wasn’t sure until this morning. We had a sweet moment that showed me he really is understanding what I’m trying to share with him.

This week we’re learning about the Ten Commandments.  Yesterday at church I came across a little board book called The Story of the Ten Commandments that provided a good introduction for us.  (I’ve read a couple of books in this series.  For the most part I like them, but many of them talk about “school.”  Since I’m not planning to send my kids to school, I don’t want to confuse them or create an image in their minds of this wonderful place they won’t get to see.  So I edited the book a little as we read it, since following rules at school isn’t really an essential part of understanding the 10 Commandments.)

Anyway…

This morning I got our flannel board set and let Ian and Elijah play with the pieces for the week as I reviewed the story we talked about yesterday.  When I got to the part about God meeting the people at Mt. Sinai, I told them the Israelites were very scared. (“So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.” Exodus 19:16)  Ian made all the people hide under the mountain and told me, “Sing ‘Keep me safe, my God…’,” which had been our memory verse during the week we talked about Noah’s ark.  I had chosen that verse, Psalm 16:1 “Keep me safe my God, for in you I take refuge,” because I figured a three-year old could relate to being scared, as Noah and his family must surely have felt.  I wanted him to have a verse in his heart that would comfort him in such moments.  I LOVE that he thought of it when I talked about the people being scared.

Okay, so the Israelites didn’t really hide under the mountain.  We’ll work on the details of the story throughout the week.  What’s important to me right now is that he’s applying what he’s already learned.  I loved those moments as a teacher, and it’s one of the main reasons I looked forward to homeschooling my own children.  I just love it when they “get” it!

Posted in Bible lessons, Our Vision, Preschool

The Parting of the Red Sea (part 2)

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It felt good to be getting back in the swing of things, though I didn’t do the greatest job of it.  Monday slipped by before I knew it.  On Tuesday we told the story of Moses leading the Israelites through the Red Sea in a number of different ways (as I talked about in my last post).  We started with the flannel board, read in several Bible storybooks, and ended with a clip from the Prince of Egypt.  Later that day Ian watch VeggieTales: Moe and the Big Exit, but I’m not sure if he saw any connection.  We talked a little bit about the story over the next couple days, but life was busy, and not until today (Friday) did we get back into it.  And really all we did was talk about the story a little as we worked on the page for our Bible notebook.

We started with this craft from DTLK-bible.com.  Ian glued the pieces on cardstock (some of our pages have proved to be too flimsy, so I think that’s what I’ll use from here on out) and let Ian add some fish stickers we had lying around.  Then for a special touch, we painted over the water sections with blue glitter paint.

We did the verse from the ABC Jesus Loves Me week 8 lesson: “My God will supply all your needs.” Philippians 4:19.  As suggested in the lesson plan, I sang it to the tune of “London Bridge.” I sang it over and over while we worked on our craft, since I’ve neglected it since Tuesday!

“My God will supply all your needs, supply all your needs, supply all your needs. My God will supply all your needs.  Philippians 4:19.”

Luckily we’ll review it every week when we read through our Bible notebook, so I know he’ll get it eventually.  This was definitely a minimal week.  For some reason iTunes wouldn’t open for me and I never got around to reinstalling it.  So we didn’t have a playlist to listen to.  I had a Before Five in a Row book picked out to do along with our Bible story (and even had an activity planned) and we never once opened it.  On the other hand, we had some great “nature study” yesterday.  We went to a park with a lake, watched the ducks and some turtles, even found the dead body of some small crustacean that just fascinated Ian.  I’d love to be more intentional about including nature study in our schedule.  Ever since reading Charlotte Mason’s Home Education*, I’ve been determined to make it a part of my children’s education.  All that to say that our days without Bible lessons weren’t a total loss!  Weeks like this make me really thankful we’ve started trying to get into the “school” habit long before we need to worry about “officially” homeschooling.  It’s definitely going to take a while to make it a more solid part of our schedule!

* You can find the text for all Charlotte Mason’s writings for free online at Ambleside Online.  I downloaded the modern paraphrase and then read it on my Kindle.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Ambleside Online, Bible lessons, Charlotte Mason, Preschool

The awesome power of God (The Red Sea, part 1)

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“When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses.” Exodus 14:31 (NASB)

This morning I told Ian the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and God parting the Red Sea for them to escape from the Egyptians.  It occurred to me what an amazing privilege it is to be able to introduce Him to the wonderful things God has done through the ages.  He’ll be hearing this story for the rest of his life, but today I got to make that first impression on his heart.  As I tried to convey what an incredible event this was, I myself was overwhelmed at the realization of God’s magnificent love and awesome power.

“We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.” Psalm 78:4 (NASB)

First I told Ian the story using our flannel board set.  He definitely caught parts of it, especially the fact that they were leaving Egypt and following God in the pillar of cloud.  The parting of the waters was less dramatic than I would have liked (just a small picture that looked rather far off).  So I turned to some of our Bible storybooks hoping to find some pictures that would help him understand.  I love the pictures in Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury.  Most of them are the same as the original illustrations in The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, but the pages are bigger so it’s easier to focus on the details.  (I haven’t seen the illustrations in the new version, but I’ve read reviews from people who’ve seen both, and most of them seem to prefer the older pictures) Ian loves looking through both of those Bibles because of the the beautiful pictures.  They didn’t let me down.  The picture of the Israelites beginning to cross between the waters was gorgeous and powerful.

After studying that picture for a while we pulled out The Beginner’s Bible and I read the story one more time.  I usually really like the way the Beginner’s Bible breaks the story down into simple language while still including the important details.  (Incidentally, I have the older version by Karen Henley.  I guess it was republished under the same name but with different text and illustrations.  Not sure why they kept the same title when they changed everything else, but again, reviews from people who are familiar with both seem to favor the older version.)  I was disappointed with this story though.  It didn’t mention anything about Moses raising His staff to part the waters; it just said “God sent a strong wind to push the sea back.”  I guess they were trying to emphasize that God did the miracle rather than Moses, but the staff had been part of our flannelgraph story and was in the other Bible story books, so it just felt like something was missing.

After we’d read through the story Ian seemed to be catching on to what really happened, but I wanted to really leave a strong first impression.  I turned on The Prince of Egypt and cued it up to the beginning of the song they sing as they’re walking out of Egypt.  The enormity of what God had done in freeing his people hit me hard and I just started weeping.  Then came that amazing scene where the waters fly up and leave the dry ground.  I watched in awe as the people picked their way across the sea bed.  And then, when the sea had come crashing in over the Egyptians and the Israelites looked back across the now peaceful waters, I let out a big sigh.  I was so overcome with the emotion of what had just occurred.  And to my delight, Ian was all excited as well.  He kept trying to show me with his arms what had happened to the water.  “Holy Cows!” he shouted.  (Thank you, Grandpa, for teaching him this new favorite phrase.)  He got it.  That made me cry even more.

What plans does God have for my children’s lives?  Where will He take them?  What mighty works of God will they see before they die?  Only He knows the answers to those questions.  But I get to prepare their hearts to walk that journey.  They will expect mighty things of God because they will know “His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.“

Posted in Bible lessons, Our Vision, Preschool

Baby Moses

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We ended up doing two weeks on the story of Baby Moses due to a death in the family and the ensuing chaos.  Ian certainly didn’t mind.  From the first day, the story captured his heart in a way no other has.  He asked me to retell the story with the flannelgraph several times, and then he spent another half hour moving the figures around and telling it himself.  (I wish I’d gotten a picture, especially since it happened every time we got the flannelgraph out!)  Then he started wrapping his stuffed bear up in a blanket, calling it his “baby”, and for days he spoke to it in a soft little voice, rocked it in his arms, and lovingly carried it around in a basket I gave him once I saw how into it he was getting.  SO sweet!

For our memory verse, we used the passage from ABC Jesus Loves Me week 7: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you, in God whose word I praise.” Psalm 56:3-4.  It’s on Steve Green’s Hide ‘Em in Your Heart CD, and again I found myself lamenting that his songs don’t include the reference.  Luckily we review our verses every time we read through our Bible Notebook, so I’m hoping Ian will pick up the references that way for the songs that don’t include them.  Along with the memory verse (which is one of our favorites–we find all sorts of occasions to sing it), Ian really liked the song about Baby Moses from the Lullaby Bible (which I think has a CD, but we just have the book).  He kept asking me to wrap him up in a blanket, hold him like a baby, and sing it to him.

Because of of everything going on this week, I didn’t end up using an iPod playlist.  We did read the story from the NIV several times.  We also watched the first part of The Prince of Egypt  (next week we’ll be talking about Moses leading the people through the Red Sea so we’ll finish it then) and Veggie Tales: Duke and the Great Pie War (also available streaming on Netflix), which includes a story about Miriam taking care of baby Moses.

For our Bible Notebook we did this Baby Moses craft from Little Blots (you have to scroll down the page to find it).  First Ian colored the baby and the basket with crayons.  Then he used blue watercolor paint over it.

Finally, I traced his hands several times on green construction paper, cut them out, and glued them on to be the “reeds” where Moses’ mother hid the basket.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Joseph’s Colorful Coat

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In accordance with the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 6 lesson, we spent a week talking about Joseph’s colorful coat, his dreams, and how he ended up in Egypt after his brothers sold him.  I did use the Bible verse from the curriculum this week (Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21).  I love Steve Green’s Hide ‘Em In Your Heart CDs, because they do a great job of helping us memorize Scripture.  I just wish they incorporated Bible reference so we knew where to find the verses!  Here was our iPod playlist for the week:

For our Bible Notebook, Ian made a “coat” from a tissue paper collage.  I found a paper doll online, then saved the image and enlarged it so it would take up the full page.  Then used it to draw the outline of a coat for Ian to fill in with tissue paper squares.


After it was dry, I cut it out and helped Ian paste it over the Joseph paper doll, along with the hair he chose for him.

Every week when we add our latest creation to Ian’s Bible Notebook, we read through all the previous pages.  He’s getting very good at “reading” the memory verses!

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Noah’s Ark

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Here are some highlights from our week learning about Noah’s Ark.  The ABC Jesus Loves me Week 5 lesson focused on the part of the story where Noah builds the boat, but since we had just had this glorious rainbow over our house the week before, I wanted to do the whole story so we could get to the part about the rainbow!

Once again, I diverged from the lesson plan on the memory verse.  I wanted Ian to have a verse in his heart that would comfort him when he felt scared, as Noah’s family must have felt on the ark.  So we sang this to the tune of “Ring Around the Rosie”:

“Keep me safe my God, for in you I take refuge.  Psalm chapter sixteen, verse one.”

When I got out the flannel board with the figures for the story of Noah, Ian was a little disappointed.  He kept asking for Adam and Eve.  Luckily, he got over it (don’t they always?) and soon was enjoying telling the story himself.  Whenever he’d get to the part where it was just the ark all alone on the water, he’d call out to me to sing the Bible verse song.

Here was our iPod playlist for the week:

  • “Genesis 6-7” from the ESV Audio Drama Children’s Bible from Faith Comes By Hearing (including the song “Noah Walked With God”)
  • “Noah & the Ark” story on CD by the Paul Winter Consort (which I found at our library)
  • “Who Built the Ark?” from a CD of Bible songs I found at the 99-Cent Store
  • “Noah, Build A Boat” from The Singing Bible

For our Bible Notebook, Ian fingerpainted a rainbow (though I wish we’d done it directly on the paper, as our print didn’t turn out so well) and then I made this ark from www.janbrett.com* for him (though I had to cut it down a bit both to make it fit on our paper and to place it on the water rather than the land).  Then Ian glued a collage of blue construction paper to make the sea.  (You can’t tell very well in this picture, but the ark has “peek-a-boo” flaps to reveal animals underneath.)

*After reading the Amazon reviews of Jan Brett’s book On Noah’s Ark, I decided NOT to read it with Ian, as much as I enjoy her illustrations.  The main complaints reviewers had were that she 1) left God out of the story (!), and 2) made up a granddaughter who is not in the biblical account to be the main character.  I didn’t want to confuse Ian by reading something that told a story so different from the Bible.

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool
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