Tag Archives: preschool curriculum

The Little Rabbit

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Last week we very lightly “rowed” The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn (from Before Five in a Row).  I chose it to go along with our “Fruit of the Spirit” study, in which we were talking about love.  Since we were focusing on the kind of love that entails doing what’s best for someone else even when they can’t give anything back, a book about caring for a pet seemed appropriate.100_7213

This really is such a sweet story about a girl and her rabbit.  We didn’t do a whole lot of “extras” beyond some of the discussions from the Before Five in a Row manual.  One thing Ian specifically requested was to make bunny masks like we did back when we rowed The Runaway Bunny.  (For some reason, he really wanted his bunny to look angry.)

I also found a Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood episode “Pets: Children Take Care of Their Pets” which goes along well with this book.   It even has a little segment comparing a drawing with a photograph, which was great since this story uses photos instead of drawings or paintings for illustrations.

And that was pretty much it for this book!

Posted in B4FIAR, Literature Units

Night of the Moonjellies

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Last week for Five in a Row we read Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha.  I chose it  to go along with our Sea World field trip on Wednesday, and I’m glad we started doing activities/discussions from the book over the weekend, because we were too wiped out to do much after that long day!

The one thing about the book that was a little hard to explain to Ian was identifying true moonjellies.  Mark Shasha used it as a nickname for comb jellies (ctenophores), but there actually is a different sea creature named a “moon jellyfish” (Aurelia aurita).  Since they’re not really fish, the new trend is to call them jellies, which means when you come across things labeled “moon jellies” (such as we did in an aquarium at Sea World, much to Ian’s delight), they may not be the same creatures you were reading about!  I decided it really didn’t matter.  Ian enjoyed the story and seeing the Aurelia aurita just as much as if it had been a ctenophore.   Still, we talked about the differences (comb jellies don’t sting) and enjoyed looking at online pictures of the ctenophores Shasha was remembering in his story.  There was a lot of good information on the author’s website, as well as fairly basic descriptions and good pictures from the Simple English Wikipedia and  earthlife.net.

To add to our look at ocean creatures, we watched the Magic School Bus episode “Take a Dive” and read The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole.  Ian loves this series, and while I don’t read all the information on every page, he still learns a lot.

I’m sure we’ll come back to this book in a couple years and do some of the more advanced activities in the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1).  Right now every book has something new and exciting for a 4-year old.  We’ve got lots of time to dive deeper into all there is to explore!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Posted in FIAR, Literature Units, Preschool

Make Way for Ducklings

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This week for our Five in a Row (FIAR) studies we read Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey.  I chose it because we’ve been enjoying watching the webcam of a hawk nest at Cornell University.  All three eggs hatched this week and we got to see them in almost every stage of the process.  It was amazing!  I left the site open on my computer and often we would just sit watching in awe.  It seemed like the perfect time for this story!  I know I saw this book as a child, but I don’t remember ever reading it.  I missed out!  Ian and I both enjoyed reading this one over and over throughout the week.

On Wednesday we went to a local park to try to find the mama duck and ducklings Grandma had spotted the day before, but to no avail.  Instead we just enjoyed watching the adult ducks and I taught the boys the differences between the males and females.  Ian was really disappointed not to see any ducklings, so we prayed that God would give a chance to see some.  On Friday morning as I was getting Arianna dressed, it occurred to me that we should try another park that day.  The boys were thrilled at the sudden plans (I am NOT a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment type of person) until they found it we were returning to the scene of our unfortunate duck incident back in January.  (Elijah still reminds me at least once a week out of the blue, “Mommy, the duck ate my chicken.”)  Ian insisted as we drove there, “I do NOT like that park.  I don’t EVER want to go there again.”  Mean Mommy wasn’t giving in.  Thankfully, the ducks and geese were all on their best behavior.  The boys relaxed and we enjoyed the warmth of the sunshine along with the cool breeze as we walked along the water’s edge.  And lo, and behold…

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard!  Hello, Ducklings!  There were only 5, but of course Ian started to call them by name: “Jack! Kack!.. Mack!… Pack!… Quack!” We spent quite a bit of time watching the family before moving on towards the playground for lunch.  Needless to say, this is now Ian’s FAVORITE park.

  

Other things we did at home this week (in addition to many discussions out of the Five in a Row manual (Vol. 2):

  • I found lots of ideas from this unit study, including a great collection of “uck” word family activities.
  • I also used some of the pages from the lapbook at HomeSchoolShare to do one of the math activities in the manual.
  • We watched the Reading Rainbow episode “Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones,” which talks about other animals that lay eggs.  Ian was so fascinated and delighted in telling all about how turtles lay eggs too!
  • For our mapping activity, we went on a Google Lit Trip, which was fabulous!  It was so much fun to see Boston on the map and “travel” around the city to all the places in the book with real pictures of what it looks like today.  (We first watched it on YouTube, but the pace was a little quick for me.)  Someday I hope we’ll make it to Boston to see the Public Garden in person!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.

Posted in FIAR, Literature Units, Preschool

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 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

Index of Bible lessons

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Preschool Bible Lessons

Here’s a list through the Bible, when Ian was three, turning four.  The indented bold ones were from our second time through, starting when he was four and a half and Elijah was two and a half and going until he finished “preschool”:

Once Ian started Kindergarten, we needed a routine that fit well into our school schedule.  I described what a week of Bible lessons looked like in my post “One Year Into Long Story Short.”  At that point I stopped posting regularly about our Bible lessons because we pretty much just followed that plan every week.  Unless that changes, I’ll probably only be posting when I come across something really helpful that I want to remember with regards to a particular Bible story.

Posted in Index

Index of Before Five in a Row (B4FIAR) posts

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We’ve also touched on a couple of the books without thoroughly rowing them as part of our unit on the Fruit of the Spirit:

And finally, this isn’t a B4FIAR book, but we spent time with it in a similar manner:

For more ideas from other blogs, check out Michelle’s Before Five in a Row link-up page over at Delightful Learning, where people have shared links organized by book.

Posted in B4FIAR, Index, 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
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