Lesson 15: Tower of Babel

1. Verse - No new verse today, but the lesson is from Genesis 11:1-9

2.  Lesson -

•  Pray with your child about the lesson
• Review the people from the Bible that she's already learned about - Adam and Eve, Noah.
• After Noah and his family had lived on the earth for a while, there were lots more people.  Some of these people gathered together to build a great big tower.
• Read the story.  I used "A Tower Called Babel" from The Beginning Reader's Bible.   This book uses actual scripture for the stories and has beautiful pictures!  Love it!!
• Recap the story:  At the beginning of the story, all the people spoke one language.  (We stopped and talked about languages.  Jenna is familiar with the concept of English vs. Spanish (Thank you, Dora!), so I used that to explain how everyone in the story spoke the same language.
• The people started to build a great, big tower, a big building.  
• They wanted to be famous and show how big and strong they were!
• But they thought that they didn't need God.
• God didn't like this and he know it wasn't good for them, so he confused them and made them speak in different languages.  Then they couldn't finish the tower.  (Again, we talked about Spanish vs. English and I mentioned that there are lots of other languages now...German, French, Chinese, etc...)
• So, God wants us to always remember that we need him and everything we have and everything we can do is a blessing from him.

3. Craft - Tower of Babel Coloring page.
We used this coloring page and you can find it here!

 Both girls had fun coloring today!

4.  Song -
I planned this lesson late last night and I actually forgot to pick a song!  So, I decided to take requests!  Jenna chose "Jesus Loves Me."  So, that's what we sang.  :)

5.  End by reviewing the name of the tower and important parts of the story.

**Note -  This will be my only lesson this week!  The fam and I are headed to the beach for a few days!  We are very blessed to have this trip as we are just tagging along with my husband for a conference he's attending for work!  It was an unexpected blessing.  :)   We'll be back next week!

Lesson 14: God wants us to ...Pray

Hi friends!  This is a little lesson on prayer.  I don't know about you, but in our house we've been needing to work on "prayer time etiquette," so I thought a lesson was in order!  This ended up being a very sweet lesson with Jenna.  I hope it provides some good connection time between you and your little one!

1. Verse - I'm listing three different versions of this verse.  Pick which one you want to use!  I went with the  NLT version because I thought it would be easier for Jenna to understand.

Never stop praying.  1st Thessalonians 5:17 (NLT
Pray without ceasing. (ESV)
Pray continually.  (NIV)

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• So, we've learned that God made us, He loves us, He takes care of us, and He wants us to love and obey Him.
• Praying is how we talk to God.  He loves it when we talk to Him!
• When do we usually pray and talk to God?  (before meals, before bed, before our lessons.)
• God wants us to pray and talk to Him to thank Him, to tell Him we love Him, when we need to ask for His help, and tell Him what we're feeling.
• You can talk to God any time you want to!  When you're with mommy and daddy, at church, at Bible class, or when you're all alone in your bedroom.  God loves it when we pray and talk to Him any time!
• I (mommy) like to pray when... (share times when you like to talk to God.  For me it was when I'm driving, when I'm doing dishes, when I'm going to bed, and sometimes I pray when you and Madeline are napping.)
•  Now, when we pray, God wants us to be still and quiet so we're not distracted when we talk to Him.  To be still and quiet, we fold our hands and closed our eyes.  Let's practice...
• In the Bible, Jesus tells us how to pray.  This is what he says... Read The Lord's prayer, Matthew 6:9-13.  (I just read this and didn't explain this much.)

3.  Craft -  Prayer coloring page.
You can find this coloring page here.

This was Jenna's....

4.  Song - "Whisper a prayer." #34 on Wee Sing Bible Songs
"Whisper a prayer in the morning,
whisper a prayer at noon,
whisper a prayer in the evening,
to keep your heart in tune."

5.  End by reviewing the new verse one more time.

**Note - When I told Jenna that I like to pray when I'm driving, she proudly said, "Yes, like you pray when you need a parking spot!"  Um, whoops!  I immediately recalled the last time I was searching for a parking space and I had said out loud, "Lord, please give us a parking spot!"  lol!  Wow, they really are little sponges!!  This is why we need to start teaching them truth now....aaaand watch what we say.  :)  (I really was praying for that spot, by the way, because we were almost late for a kids play.  God gave us a spot, BUT later I got a ticket for parking there without a permit!  Hmmm, what was God trying to teach me??)  Anyway, hope your prayer lesson is precious and you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Lesson 13: Noah's Ark

Hi friends!  Hope you enjoy this Noah's Ark lesson!

1.  Verse - no new verse today.  The lesson is taken from Genesis 6:9-9:17.

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review previous Bible verses.
• Read the story to your child from a storybook Bible.  I read, "A new beginning" from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. 
• Recap after the story: God told Noah to build a giant boat, called an "ark."
• Noah obeyed God and God protected him from a really big storm.
• Sometimes it rains at our house.  Now, think about if it rained for forty days at our house.  The water would get higher and higher and our house would fill up with water!  That's called a flood.
• That's what happened at Noah's house!
• But God wanted to protect Noah and all the animals so he put them in Noah's boat.  There were two  of every kind of animal - a boy and a girl.
• When the storm was all over and the boat was on dry land, God made a promise that He would never flood the whole world again.  He put his promise in the sky - a rainbow!
• Whenever we see a rainbow, we can remember the story of Noah and God's promise!

3.  Craft - Ribbon Rainbow Craft
I came up with this craft idea because I already had this ribbon in the house (and the cotton balls).  If you don't have the ribbon, you could use the coloring page below or google "Noah's Ark craft" or "Rainbow craft" and find an idea that will work for you!
Here's what we started with: cotton balls, pieces of ribbon (about 6 in long) in rainbow colors (for some reason my purple ribbon looks brown in the picture!  It is actually a dark purple.), and a piece of construction paper cut in the shape of a cloud with "God's Promise" written at the top.  You also need a small strip of white paper, to cover the glue at the top of the ribbon (not pictured here.)

 1.  flip cloud over and let your child glue the ribbons on in rainbow order.  Then cover the glued ribbon with a piece of white paper.

2.  Then have your child glue the cotton balls on the front!  (Jenna really enjoyed this!)

Simple, but cute!  It's still laying somewhere in our kitchen, but I told Jenna we could hang it in her room!

Here's a nice coloring page, if you'd rather go that route!

4.  Song:  "Who Built the Ark?"  #29 on Wee Sing Bible Songs
"Who built the Ark?  No-ah, No-ah!
Who built the Ark?   Brother Noah built the ark!..."
It's a cute song!

5.  End:  By reviewing what a rainbow means!

*Note for mom - There was one quote from our storybook, that I just loved!
"But Noah didn't mind so much what other people thought, he minded what God thought.  So he just did what God told him to do."
Simple obedience!  And what an amazing example in Noah.  Oh that I would have a heart like his!
God bless you all!  I'm praying that your lessons are going well!

Lesson 12: God wants us to...love and obey Him

During the summer, my husband has Fridays off (yay!) and I had a hair appointment today, so I let daddy teach the lesson today while I was gone!  I prepared everything for him (and instructed him about what pictures I needed him to take for the blog!) and let them roll!  I think they had fun, but he told me later that the glitter on the table was a big distraction and she was really anxious to get to the craft!  Oh well!

1. Verse - "You shall love the Lord your god with all your heart."  Mark 12:30

*As I was writing this post I also found this verse that may be a little better for this lesson..."This is love for God: to obey his commands." 1John 5:3   You may want to use that one instead!

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review all the Bible verses (if you want to!) and introduce the new verse.
• Review the story of Adam and Eve and the very first sin. 
• Before you learned that God made us, He loves us, He takes care of us, He sees us and He hears us.
• God wants us to love Him back and obey Him.
• God made Adam and Eve and he made them to love him back.
• They could choose to love God and obey Him.
• They made a mistake when they ate the fruit that God told them not to eat.  They made a mistake, but they still loved God and He still loved them.
• God loves us so, so much.  He takes care of us and he knows what's best for us!  So, he wants us to love him back and obey him.
• This is just like mommy and daddy.  We love you so, so much!  We work hard to keep you safe and we know what's best for you.  So, we want you to love us and obey us.

3.  Craft -  Glitter heart craft

materials - construction paper, marker, white glue (like Elmers), glitter

The night before, write/draw this on a piece of construction paper:

Then, let you child trace the heart with glue and shake glitter onto it!  Simple, yet fun!  (If you do the glitter on a cookie sheet, it's a little less messy!)

 So, this is what I intended the finished craft to look like and this is the picture my husband took of the "finished product":

But, let's be honest here...He works in elementary education and he doesn't do any craft half-way...this is what was actually on my kitchen table when I came home from my hair appointment:

Haha!  So, feel free to let loose and enjoy the glitter, friends! 


4.  Song:  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.

So, I learned this song many, many years ago when I helped with a kids camp in high school.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find it online!  But here are the words:
"You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your heart.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind.
And you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind."

It is such a sweet little song that I wanted to teach it to Jenna.  Since my husband was doing the lesson (and he didn't know the song) I actually recorded a video on his phone of me singing the song.  I'm sharing it with you in case you want to learn the song!  Please keep in mind, I am NOT a singer!!  But, hopefully it will give you the basic tune!

5.  End by reviewing the new verse one more time!

Lesson 11: Adam and Eve - The Very First Sin

Hi friends!  We're home from our trip and starting back up with our lessons!  Here is today's lesson...
*Note - For this lesson, I used one of our storybook Bibles, The Beginning Reader's Bible, learn more about it here.

1. Verse - no new verse for today, but read Genesis 3 beforehand to prepare for the lesson.

2.  Lesson-

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review the last lesson (about the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve.)
• Read the story to your child.  I used "The Very First Sin" from The Beginning Reader's Bible.  You can use whatever storybook Bible that you have or read straight from the Bible, Genesis 2:8-17, 3: 1-23  OR, just tell the story to your child by summarizing it yourself.  While I read the story, I stopped and pointed out the different parts of the picture that illustrate the story.  (I love the pictures in this book!)
• After you read, summarize the important parts of the story to reinforce it and highlight the main points:
• God told Adam and Eve that they couldn't eat fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden, but the snake tricked them and told them God was wrong!
• Adam and Eve decided to disobey God.  He told them not to do something, but they did it anyway.  When they disobeyed God, they sinned.
• Disobeying God is called sin.
• Because they disobeyed God, they had to leave the wonderful garden and work hard.
• But even though Adam and Eve sinned and had to leave the Garden, God still loved them very much!  He made them clothes and he took care of them.

3.  Craft -  pasta snake/coloring page.
So...I read this craft idea on a blog and created it myself (without directions!).   Admittedly, it was a bit of a flop!  Jenna did have fun stringing the noodles and was mildly excited about her snake, but it's a little sad-looking and as we were making it, I thought, "Why are we highlighting Satan's part in this story?!?"  That didn't occur to me until we were actually making it!  I was just trying to do something other than a coloring page!  So, I just reminded Jenna a few times that the snake was the "bad guy" and he tricked Adam and Eve.  Then we colored a coloring page to kind of make up for it!
But, here are directions for the snake...in case you want to try it!
This is the finished product...

(Kind of pitiful for a blog, I know!!)

Materials - pasta (I used rigatoni), rubbing alcohol, green food coloring, yarn, two googly eyes, two large beads, hot glue gun

 Directions -
1.  Dye the noodles the night before.  I found directions for this on this blog.  But I only made this much...

Basically, I just put some alcohol in a large ziploc bag, added about 6 drops of food coloring, then added about a half a cup of noodles, swished it around and let it sit for about an hour and a half.  Then I took the noodles out and let them dry overnight.
2.  Cut a piece of yarn (the length of your snake).
3.  Tie a bead to one end of the yarn.
4.  Let your child string the noodles to make the snake.
5.  Tie the second bead on the other end of the snake, as tightly as you can to the noodles.  Leave a little extra yarn to be the "tongue."
6.  Hot glue two googly eyes to the second bead.  And you have a snake!

Soooo, if you don't want to go through all of that, here is a nice coloring page to go with the story...

4.  Song - I decided to repeat a song we did recently to help her learn it well...
"My God is So Great."  #45 on Wee Sing Bible Songs

5.  End with reviewing the important parts of the story one more time!

Taking a Short Break!

Hi friends!   I wanted to let you know that I'm taking a break from our lessons this week.  I'll be out of town this week and away from a computer, so we'll just pick it back up next week!    Look for the next lesson on Tuesday June 12th!  Hope you're own home lessons are going well!  This would be a good week to work on the Bible verses.  That's what we're gonna try to do!

A couple of things I'm working on for the blog...figuring out how to upload or link pdf documents to the blog so I can create and share my own coloring pages and crafts.  Not sure if I'll be successful at this, but I'm gonna try (and get my husband working on it, too!).  IF anybody reading this has any insight on how to do this, I would love it!!

Also, I'm considering adding a new type of posts to go along with the lessons, something for the moms, thoughts and encouragement through sharing what God's been doing in my life.  I would love for this blog to be uplifting and encouraging in your own life and not just when it comes to teaching your children.  I say this, but I've had this idea for a while and I haven't actually had the time to write one yet!  haha!  So, we'll see!  Staying faithful to the lessons is my first priority! 

So, come back next week as I continue with another lesson on Adam and Eve!
God bless!