Category Archives: Preschool

Adam and Eve eat the fruit

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I’m still trying to catch up to what we’re actually learning about, but I do want to put up at least basic posts for the Bible stories we’ve already covered.  A family crisis last week has kept me from writing, but I’d like to be caught up by the end of the day today (which will be a little easier since we ended up taking about a week off of any “school”.)

Ian was already familiar with the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, but it’s a favorite so he didn’t mind spending a week on it.  This was the first week we incorporated a “letter of the week.”  Ian really liked writting the letter in a rice tray, and he enjoys the pictures in Big Thoughts for Little People so much, he always wants more than just the page for our letter.  I let him look through the rest of the book, but I tell him he’ll have to wait until “K” week (or whatever) to read about the pages that catch his interest.

For our memory verse, I strayed from the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 3 lesson.  As I was looking at the activities in the lesson plan I came across this verse and it seemed more appropriate.  I want verses that Ian can really internalize, words that will express the feelings in his heart as he grows in his relationship with the Lord.  Psalm 119:10 seemed more “personal,” so I set it to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”:

“I will seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.  Psalm one-nineteen, verse ten.  Psalm one-nineteen, verse ten.  I will seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.”

I did go with her suggestion of teaching “Oh Be Careful, Little Eyes, What You See.”  Ian loved this song and asked me sing it over and over.  I love the message and know we’ll refer to these lyrics many times in years to come.  Here was our iPod playlist for the week:

Our Bible Notebook was a big hit this week.  I saw this idea for a fingerprint tree and used the “alternate paint idea” of pudding.  Since I’m always battling with Elijah not to smear food all over his high chair tray, I thought he’d love being a part of this project.  Not so much!  He screamed and refused to touch the pudding, even after I smeared a little on his lips.  Ian, on the other hand, had a blast!

I mixed up a batch of chocolate pudding to use for the trunk (and for us to eat for dessert that night), plus a batch of vanilla to dye with food coloring for play and our notebook page.  Here’s the finished product!


Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool

Creation

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Here we go!  I’ve been a little slow getting this blog up and running, so I wanted to look back over the last few weeks since we started “officially” doing some school work.  As I’ve said, the most important element of school to me is studying God’s Word and helping my kids hide it (“treasure” it) in their hearts.  So while we are touching on a few other things, the main priority is our Bible lesson each week.  If for whatever reason we don’t have time to get to anything else, that’s fine.

We actually spent two weeks talking about Creation.  Our memory verse was Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Ian loved holding up a 1 on each hand, and had it memorized in minutes!  We sang it to the tune of “Are You Sleeping?” as suggested in the ABC Jesus Loves Me Week 1 lesson plan, as well as the Scripture Rock version on our iPod playlist (see below).

Although I purchased a Betty Lukens Small Deluxe Set (flannelboard and felt pieces) on eBay to use with our Bible lessons, I borrowed these felt circles from our children’s ministry at church to help talk about what was created each day because I liked the way each day was visually distinctive.

There is a seventh circle in the set, but I didn’t think it clearly communicated the message “God rested” to my three-year old, so we didn’t use it.

I want to keep a record of the stories we study, so we started a Bible notebook.  It’s just a 3-ring binder that provides a place for our memory verses and some sort of craft to remind Ian of the story.  For Creation, I’d already been thinking I wanted to do something for each day, so I started brainstorming and looking for inspiration.  I got some good ideas from this Creation book, raided my sticker stash and some magazines for pictures, and to label each day, I printed out these flash cards and just cut out the text and numbers.  Here’s what we ended up with:

Pretty simple: just yellow chalk on black paper.

Ian got a fingerpainting set for Christmas, and everytime he makes a masterpiece, I save it to use for collages.  So we cut the water for each of these days out of one of his blue paintings.  He loved spreading the cottonball clouds on Day 2, and collecting the leaves for the plants on Day 3.  (The flash makes it hard to see, but that was a magazine picture of a pink flower as well!)

For Day 4 we found several “suns” in magazines, so Ian chose his favorite.  No luck with a moon, so I just cut a crescent out of a fun print I found, and Ian loved the star stickers.  He found some feathers on one of our walks that week, so we figured they could represent birds and added them to our collection of stickers and magazine pictures. (My favorite was the whale’s tail.)

Animals for Day 6 were easy to find, but I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do for Day 7.  The best I thought I’d find was pictures of babies sleeping.  Then I came across this picture advertising a spa around Christmas time, and while it may be a little stereotypical with the white beard and all, I figured a resting Santa was more appropriate than babies.

Here was our iPod playlist for the week, which Ian just listens to as he plays:

We also worked a bit on recognizing the numerals 1-7 since Ian doesn’t know any of those yet and it tied in well with this story.  And that was our week!

Posted in ABCJesusLovesMe, Bible lessons, Preschool
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