Lesson 24: Isaac and Rebekah

I am posting this lesson a little late.  We did the lesson over a week ago, but later that afternoon, Jenna started running a fever and both girls were really sick for a week.  I'm praising God that they are finally feeling better!  We were in survival mode for a while...so, I'm a little behind on posting!

The last story lesson that I did was about Abraham and Isaac.  I was surprised to see that my storybook Bibles skipped right on to Joseph in one and Leah and Rachel in the other!  I think there are a few important names and stories to introduce our preschoolers to in between those two stories!   So, for Isaac and Rebekah, I relied on Google to help me find a children's version of the story!  Here's the lesson:

1.  Verse - no new verse today.  This lesson comes from Genesis 24.

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review the past Bible story about Abraham and Sarah and how they had baby Isaac.
• Then review the story of Abraham and Isaac and how God provided a lamb.
• When Isaac grew up, his dad (Abraham) thought it was time for him to get married.  So Abraham asked his servant, to go to the place where his family lived to find a wife for Isaac.  Here is the story...
• Read a children's version of the story.  (Since this story was in neither of my storybook Bibles, I used this one I found on the web, at www.childrenstory.info:  http://www.childrenstory.info/biblestoryforchild/chdbblisaacandrebekah.html
  (I did add a couple of sentences to the story because I thought they helped the story a little. 
  After "When I ask a girl for a drink, let her offer to get water for all of my camels also." I added, "Then I will know that she is the wife you have chosen for Isaac."
  And also, at the very end of the story, I added, "So, Rebekah left her family and traveled back with the servant to be Isaac's wife and Isaac loved Rebekah very much.")
• Summarize the story and talk about how the people in the story were obeying God.  Abraham was obeying God by looking for a wife from his own family.  Abraham's servant obeyed Abraham and prayed to God for help and obeyed Him.  Rebekah obeyed God by leaving her family and her home to go marry Isaac.

3.  Craft - Coloring page.
I found this cute coloring page that nicely illustrates the story!

You can find it here at biblewise.com.

Jenna didn't finish hers...maybe another day!

4. Song - "The Lord is my Shepherd." #9 on Wee Sing Bible Songs

5. End by reviewing the main names in the story:  Isaac and Rebekah!

**Awesome side note:  I found our Bible verse cards that I had misplaced in our move!!  (very excited about this!) They were so "wisely" tucked neatly into a box of craft supplies.  Good thing Jenna was asking me for stickers, or I never would have found them!!

Lesson 23: God wants us to...be thankful

Even though it's not quite Thanksgiving season, this lesson fit perfectly with our family right now.  Being thankful/grateful is something we've been talking to Jenna about so it was the perfect time for a Bible lesson about it!

1.  Verse - "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good."  Psalm 107:1

Jenna asked why there was a pumpkin, and I told her because it reminds us of Thanksgiving, which is a holiday about being thankful.
(I still haven't found our other verse cards, which have become misplaced in the move!  I'm hoping they show up this weekend, when we organize the basement.)

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Read the verse.
• God wants us to be thankful.
• What does it mean to be thankful?
• God gives us many wonderful things.  What are some wonderful things that God has given us? 
• God gives us good things because he loves us!  When God gives us good things, they are called "blessings."  We should be thankful to God for all our blessings.  We need to tell God, "thank you."
• God also wants us to be thankful to other people.
• When people give us things, or do nice things for us, or help us, God wants us to be thankful to them.  That's why we say, "thank you" to each other and write thank you cards.  
• For example, when one of you teachers helps you with something at preschool, you should tell them thank you!  Or when Nana sends you something special, we write her a thank-you note. 
• God wants us to be thankful all the time, to him and to other people.
• Another word for "thankful" is "grateful."

3. Craft - "I am thankful" tree
I found the most perfect craft for this lesson on Ministry-to-Children.com!  It really is a blessing to find free crafts like this online and it was exactly what I was looking for!  So, I am thankful to them ;)
Here's the link: http://ministry-to-children.com/thanksgiving-coloring-pages/print/
It's two pages, a tree and leaves.

 Fill in the leaves with things that you're child is thankful for, cut them out and glue them on the tree.  (Jenna did the coloring and gluing and I had her practice cutting by cutting out a few of the leaves.)
This was Jenna's finished product:

4. Song - "Praise Him, Praise Him" #31 on Wee Sing Bible Songs

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

Review Lesson

As I mentioned in my last "taking a break" post, my next lesson would be coming to you from my new dining room!  So, just to give you a visual, here it is :-)

This was one of my favorite features of the new house because this table was a wedding present from my parents and the for the 8 years we've been married, we've never been able to sit all the way around it!  It's always been pushed up against a wall in an eat-in kitchen.  This is just one of the many ways God has blessed us!  (This is completely off the subject, but I'm in the process of redoing all the chairs, painting them red...that's why they're all unmatching right now!)  So, the girls and I sat down right here this morning and did our lesson! 

As I began planning this lesson last night, I felt completely off my game.  First of all, our Bible verse cards (which I specifically did not pack early because I wanted to keep track of them) have become lost in the move!  And I had no idea where the storybook Bibles were or my "Bible lessons" spiral notebook.  I also had been thinking that Jenna probably didn't remember anything because it had been so long and she's been completely obsessed with Wonder Pets lately and thinking of little else!  SO, because of this I decided to do a review lesson today.

Also, I used a new book today to help with the review.  It's The Baby Bible Storybook.   These books are so cute for toddlers and I had recently picked this up at a consignment shop to use for Madeline.  I used it today because Jenna loves it too, and it gives really brief reviews of the stories we had already done.

Review Lesson
1.  Verse - no new verse.  I need to find our other verses before our next lesson!!

2. Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review the Bible stories that you've already taught.  I did this by reading the first three stories out of The Baby Bible Storybook, "God Made Everything," "Noah and the Animals," "God's promise to Abraham and Sarah."  (These were all just one short page, so this didn't take very long to do.)
• Review all the previous lessons by going through our Bible Crafts binder. (This is a notebook we've put together of all of Jenna's Bible lesson crafts.)

3.  Craft - Writing Practice
Since the point of today was really to review names and stories, I decided to do something a little different and have Jenna practice writing/tracing the names from our stories.  If you go to this handwriting website, you'll find a worksheet generator for you to type in any words and it will print them as print-dot letters to use for writing practice.  I used the "Paragraph Worksheet Maker" and typed in "Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, Tower of Babel, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac."  Then Jenna traced the letters as we talked about each name. 

It was something different and it worked well for the review.

4.  Song -
I asked Jenna what she wanted to sing and she chose "The Noah song."  So we sang the "Who built the ark?" song from the Wee Sing Bible Songs cd.  (#29)


I hope this review lesson is helpful to you in some way!  I'm gonna go on a hunt for our Bible verse cards and plan a new lesson for next time! 
Bye for now!

Consider it all joy...

Hi friends! 
As I mentioned in my last post, I've had to take a break from our home Bible lessons because we moved two weeks ago.  I am determined to start those up again this week (on Tuesday), but in the mean time, I wanted to give you all a quick update. 

If I could describe my last four weeks in two words, I would say intense and chaotic.  First we packed our whole house and moved in two weeks, but on top of that there has been a complication (requiring an exterminator) with the new house which has made settling in extra difficult.  And on top of that, Madeline, my little one, decided to start protesting sleep time and figured out how to climb out of her crib!  Any mom of a toddler knows this brings on one response from the parents...AAAAAAH!!!  She is 21 months old and I had every intention of waiting til she was at least two to make the wonderful transition to a big girl bed.  So, this came as quite a shock to me.  House in boxes and general disarray, exterminator issues, two little ones, and sleep training one all over again...in a toddler bed.  **deep breath**

Now, remember the title of my post?  "Consider it all joy..."   I am coming off of an amazing year of studying Acts and the epistles through Bible Study Fellowship and then a summer, 8-week Beth Moore study on the book of James.   God has done immense work on my heart and, dare I say, changed my life through these studies.  And a few months ago, I wrote James 1:2-4 on a pink post-it note and hung it above my sink.  Then I set it to the tune of "Happy Birthday" and memorized it. 

"Consider it all joy, my brethren when you encounter various trials.  Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result.  So that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing." 

These verses stuck out to me because they are help to get through trials!  Trials have a purpose, they are a test of my faith and meant to make me more perfect.  So, as I was in the middle of these relatively minor trials (and I know they are definitely minor!!) God reminded me of these verses.  Of course, I was reminded AFTER I had already given way to a lot of whining and desperation.  But that's okay!  God reminded me of his perfect Word, and his perfect plan and his purpose behind all the odd things that happen to us.  I can say now, Oh, these things are a test of my faith?  Well, then I got this!  Really, this is a pretty easy test.  A few things have shaken up my world a bit, that's all!  The good news is...God has provided us with a beautiful little house to live in (which we will be settled into someday) and God has majorly blessed me with Madeline having a very easy transition to a toddler bed and showed me a lot about her personality through it.  But even if these good things weren't so, God is still good and I am still well cared for and loved by Him and I am learning to let that be entirely enough for me. 

So, all that being said, I am trying to get back to what's important for my time...and my lessons with Jenna are one of them.  A talk at church this morning on stewardship made me consider what I'm stressing about and instead put the important things first.  For example, the curtain project I've taken on for my new living and dining rooms needs to go lower down on my priorities list...and stop causing me stress!

Anyway, that's what I've been up to the last four weeks.  God is so amazingly good and I am determined to settle my heart and be faithful to his calling in my life everyday, no matter what's going on around me.

Taking another short break!

Hi friends,
My husband and I have been looking since October for a new house to rent.  We've been in a small two-bedroom townhome since Jenna was 4 weeks old, and over the past four years we've outgrown it a bit!  Since we have a limited budget and I have a long list of "home essentials" it took us many months to find the right place.  Well, just this past Saturday, we went to look a cute little house and ended up falling in love with it!  We signed the lease that day, agreed to move in two weeks, and have begun the mad rush that's called "moving."

I was hoping to continue with the lessons and blog this week and next, but I just don't think it's gonna happen!  Hopefully, I'll be back at it in a couple of weeks and I'll be doing the lessons in my new dining room!

Hope you all stay strong in your lessons!  I purposely did not pack our Bible verses, so that we can at least be reviewing them some in the midst of the move. 

Blessings to you all, and I'll be back soon!
Kristen

Lesson 22: God wants us to...obey our parents.

1.  Verse:  "Children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord."  Colossians 3:20

2. Lesson:

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• We've been learning about Abraham and Sarah.  Remember that they trusted and obeyed God?
• First, God told them to move to a far away place.  So, they obeyed God and packed up their stuff and moved!
• Then, God told Abraham to give Him Isaac as a sacrifice.  So, Abraham obeyed God and brought Isaac up the mountain to the altar.
• God wants us to obey Him too!
• What does it mean to obey somebody?  (Listen to your child's answer, then direct them to...it means you do what the the person tells you to do.)
• Mommy and Daddy obey God everyday.  God wants us to take care of our children and teach them about Him, so we obey God and take care of you and teach you about God!
• Now, God has a special message for children...(read the verse).
• God tells you to obey your parents! 
• What does "obey mommy and daddy" mean? (Do what they tell you to do.)
• God wants you to obey us because we keep you safe, we teach you how to be a good girl, we teach you how to be nice to other people, and we teach you how to obey God. And we love you so, so much and we will take really good care of you.  So, God wants you to obey us.
• Then the verse says, "for this pleases the Lord."  What does this mean?  It means that it makes God happy when you obey mommy and daddy!

3. Craft: "family" picture
For this craft, I found some pictures around the house that I could cut up and I cut out the heads of each of the four people in our family.  Then, I wrote the verse at the top of a piece of construction paper.  I let Jenna glue the pictures onto the paper (with elmers glue) and then I told her to draw our bodies.  I wasn't sure how this would go, but it ended up being a hilarious "family portrait" that I'll treasure forever! 

She asked me for a picture of Chaucer (her teddy bear) and when I said I didn't have one, she drew her own picture to add him to the family.  My husband and I laughed because it's just so appropriate that he's floating higher than everyone else in the center of the family!!  haha!  She's too in love with that bear!  (And this was the first time she successfully drew him by herself!)  But enough about Jenna...I hope you all have fun with this craft and get some cute family portraits of your own!

4.  Song -
"The Lord is my Shepherd."  #9 on Wee Sing Bible Songs  (I think we've done this song quite a few times.  I probably need to start mixing it up a bit with the songs!)

5.  End by reviewing the verse one more time!

Lesson 21: Abraham and Isaac

Hi friends, I am so behind on posting this lesson and I only managed to plan this one lesson this week!  I'm hoping to get on a twice-a-week rhythm in the fall, but we'll see!  Once again, this is a lesson that is a little hard to explain to preschoolers.  I think it'll be years before Jenna really gets what happened in this story, but I hope that by teaching it now, she'll gain some initial exposure to the story, the names, the details and it will provide a basic framework for learning it again later. One of my storybook Bibles skips it altogether, but I thought it was valuable to teach.

1.  Verse - no new verse this week, but the lesson is from Genesis 22.

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review the names of the people in our last story - Abraham, Sarah, baby Isaac.
• Review the last lesson - God wants us to trust Him.  Trust in the Lord and do good. Psalm 37:3
• Today's story is about trusting God because He loves us so much.
• Baby Isaac grew every day and he became a big boy.
• This story is about Isaac when he was a big boy and his daddy, Abraham.
• Read the story from a storybook Bible.  I read "The Present" from The Jesus Storybook Bible. 
•  
• Summarize the story on a preschool level:  (This is how I did it!)  Before Jesus came, God's people would make sacrifices to Him.  Sacrifices were like presents for God to ask for His forgiveness and to show Him their love.  Usually a sacrifice was an animal.  They would put the animal on sticks, called an altar, and burn it with fire.  Smoke would go up to God.  But, on this day, God asked Abraham to give Him Isaac as a sacrifice.  This was sad and scary for Abraham because if he gave Isaac to God to God, then Abraham wouldn't have him anymore!  BUT Abraham trusted od and he obeyed God.  He gook Isaac up to the altar.  BUT God loved Abraham and he was happy that Abraham obeyed. So, He gave Abraham an animal to use instead of Isaac.  He gave him a ram!  
• So, from this story we need to remember that Abraham trusted and obeyed God and God loved Abraham and took care of him.

3. Craft -  Cotton ball ram.
I thought this craft was so cute and just perfect for the lesson so I was really happy to find it!  You can find the printable for it here at childrenschapel.org.  In order to get it to print as the right size, I had to download and open it. 

First, Jenna colored it.  Then I cut it out for her.  She glued it to construction paper and finished by gluing on the cotton balls.   I wrote "God gave Abraham a ram." on the top of the page to help her remember the story later. 

Even little sis had fun making one playing with glue!

Jenna started out going with true-to-life colors and then at the last minute decided the face should be blue!

It's still pretty cute!

4.  Song - "Praise Him, Praise Him"   #31 on Wee Sing Bible Songs

5.  End by reviewing that Abraham trusted God and God provided a ram for him.

Hope this helps you approach a difficult story for little ones!  Of course, I've read/heard this story many, many times, but this time I felt like I read it with fresh eyes, as a mom.  You really can only read it in awe.  In awe at Abraham's level of trust and awe of the ultimate sacrifice that God gave us...His only son!  I love when God speaks to my heart through studying for these lessons! 

Lesson 20: God wants us to...Trust Him.

*Note about this lesson - So, I decided to do a lesson on trusting God to go along with the Abraham and Sarah story.  However, "trust" is kind of hard to explain to a preschooler.  I had trouble thinking of a picture to represent the verse (settled on a large "T") and I also had trouble finding any sort of craft or coloring page to go with it!  So, as I was planning the lesson, I thought, is it even worth trying to teach her this?  But I decided that yes, it was.  This lesson is WAY simple and basically just an introduction to the word "trust."  God reminded me this week, that with these lessons, friends, we are planting seeds in little hearts!  We are being faithful to teach our little ones about God and his Word, however simple the lessons, and we pray that God will use these seeds to grow beautiful fruit in their lives!  So, on to the lesson about trusting God...

1.  Verse - "Trust in the Lord and do good." Psalm 37:3

2.  Lesson -

• Pray about the lesson with your child.
• Review the Abraham and Sarah story from the last two lessons:
• Abraham and Sarah trusted God.  If you trust somebody, it means that you believe that what they say is true and you obey them.
• (at this point, I opened to the story in our storybook Bible to use the pictures to review the main points of the story.) God told Abraham and Sarah to move to a far away place.  They trusted God so they packed up their stuff and moved.
• God also told them that they were going to have a baby.  They trusted God and they had baby Isaac.
• God wants us to trust Him the same way.
• God takes care of us, He loves us, and He always keeps his promises.  So, if he tells us to do something, we need to trust Him and do it.
• One way that we trust and obey God is by reading and learning about the Bible, because God gave us the Bible to teach us about Himself and His promises. 

3. Craft - Bible coloring page.
Since I had trouble finding a craft idea for this lesson, I settled on this Bible coloring page and I wrote our verse at the top.  You can find it here.


Jenna enjoyed coloring it!

4.  Song - "The Lord is My Shepherd."  #9 on Wee Sing Bible Songs.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I'll walk with him always..."

5.  End by reviewing what "trusting" means.

*Note - There were two sweet moments during our lesson.  First, while we were singing the song, Jenna said, "We don't see God in the house.  But he can hear us right now when we're singing."  Of course, my mind flashed back to our previous lesson, "God knows me."  I agreed and said, "Yep, he can hear us and he loves to hear us sing to Him!"  Then little sis (20 months) caught on to the song and walked around the house all morning singing, "Ah-way, Ah-way!"  Even these were little reminders of the fruit already coming from these lessons!  How amazing that God is working in the simplest of things, quiet little Bible lessons at home with a 3-year-old.  :-)

Lesson 19: Abraham and Sarah, Part 2

1.  Verse - No new verse.  This story is from Genesis 18:1-16, 21:1-7

2. Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review the last lesson and the things they learned about Abraham and Sarah.  I showed Jenna her craft from last time and reviewed the main points from that.
• Remember that Abraham was a very old man, but God promised that He would give him a baby, a son, and that He would make all the people in his family as many as the stars in the sky.
• Finish the story about Abraham and Sarah. I continued reading from "The Beginner's Bible." I know I always mention how good the pictures are in this book, but seriously...how cute is this baby Isaac??
• So, God gave Abraham and Sarah a baby boy named Isaac.
• God gave Isaac to Abraham and Sarah the same way He gave you and Madeline to mommy and daddy.  Abraham and Sarah were so thankful, and so are we!

3. Craft - Coloring page
Today's craft is a simple coloring page.  You can find it here.

I wrote the names under the picture when Jenna was done coloring.  It was a good way to review!

4.  Song - "Father Abraham" (again)

5.  End by reviewing the main points of the story one more time.

Lesson 18: Abraham and Sarah, Part 1

 1. Verse - no new verse today, but the story is from Genesis 12:1-5, 15:1-6, 17:1-6, 17:15-16

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Quickly review the people that you've already done lessons about...Adam and Eve and Noah.
• Now there was a man that God thought was very special, his name was Abram.
• His wife's name was Sarai.
• They were married, but they didn't have any kids.
• They wanted to have kids, but they had to wait until God wanted to give them a baby.
• God decided Abram was special so he told them to move to a far away, special place...
• Let's read a story about it....I read "God Makes a Promise" from The Beginning Reader's Bible. I only read the first half because I thought that introducing Abraham and Sarah was enough for one lesson.  Remember, you can use your own story book Bible! 
• Review the details of the story by explaining the pictures in the book. (This particular book has fantastic pictures!!)  
• Since I split this lesson in half, I got as far as...God told Abram and Sarai to move to a far away place, God made a promise to Abram that He would make a great nation out of him with many descendants, and God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah.

3. Craft  - Abraham and Sarah "paper dolls"
You can find the printables for these paper dolls here at makingfriends.com (be warned there's a video on this page that automatically starts playing, so don't be alarmed if you're computer starts talking to you!!)
Anyway, choose the dolls, clothes, and hair that you want to use.  I chose these...

Then have your child color the pieces that he/she wants to use.

 Then cut the people and the pieces out and glue them onto a piece of construction paper.  We glued the people first, then the hair, then the clothes.  Here's our finished product:

As a great review, I wrote down what Jenna remembered from the story.  Of course, I helped her along with some of these!  We put all her crafts like this in a binder and regularly look back at them and read them.

*Note - this craft was fun, but it was definitely a little more work.  I did all the cutting and I helped with some of the glue application because the little pieces were hard for her to glue.  She was able to do the coloring and putting the pieces on.  She liked it a lot! 
Also, one other little problem with this craft is that it slightly misrepresents Abraham and Sarah.  Jenna said, "Abraham and Sarah were babies??" (because the dolls look like little kids!)  Whoops!  SO, I had to explain and clarify that Abraham and Sarah were actually very old.  So, just be warned about that glitch!

4.  Song - "Father Abraham"
# 23 on Wee Sings Bible Songs

5.  End by reviewing the important parts of the story again!

Lesson 17: God wants us to...be kind.

Hi friends!  It's great to be back and working on the blog!  I apologize for any cloudy/lousy pictures today.  I know my pictures have never been stellar, but today I'm having additional camera issues!  I think we left our camera battery charger at the hotel on our beach trip and so today I was using an old camera.  They get the point across at least!  Hope you all enjoy this lesson!

1.  Verse - "Be kind to one another."  Ephesians 4:32

When I drew this pictures, I was thinking of my two girls (because we're trying to teach sisterly kindness!), but you can draw the kids however you want to.  And simple stick figures will do!

2.  Lesson -

• It had been a long time since we had done a lesson, so I took some time to review all our previous lessons just by flipping through her crafts and coloring pages (which I've continued to save in a binder).  Before we started the lesson (during breakfast) we reviewed all of the previous verses.  So, if you have time, this might be something good to do!
• Read the new verse.
• Do you know what it means to "be kind"?
• "Kind" is another word for "nice."
• God wants us to be nice to other people.
• He wants us to be nice to everyone!
• God wants you to be nice to other kids that you play with and other kids that you know.
• Mommy and Daddy tell you all the time to "Be nice" to Madeline (little sis).
• We tell you this because God teaches us this in the Bible!
• God wants you to be nice to Madeline and other kids because He loves you and He loves them.
• Being nice or kind shows people that you care about them or that you love them.
• What are some ways that you can be nice to Madeline? (helping her, sharing with her, playing with her, reading to her, helping her learn to do something new.)
• What are some ways that you can be nice to other kids? (a lot of the same stuff)
• God wants everyone to be kind...kids, grown-ups, everyone!  
• Show the craft coloring page:  This coloring page shows people being kind.  What are they doing?  (talk about what is going on in each picture.)

3.  Craft - Coloring page
 
You can find this cute coloring page here at Sugardoodle.net.
It's super easy to print, too!

Jenna started out enthusiastic about coloring it, but then interest waned.  I helped a little!

4.  Song - "This is my commandment that you love one another..."
#19 on Wee Sing Bible Songs

5.  End by reviewing the verse one more time!

Another break...

Hi friends!
Well, it turns out summer has been busier than I anticipated!  I only managed to do one lesson last week and this week I won't be able to do any.  Since we've been back from our beach trip, we've been doing some major organizing and cleaning-out projects to get ready for a yard sale this past Saturday and then I've spent the last three days cleaning my house top-to-bottom to get ready for a super special visit from my parents and two sisters!  We haven't seen them since Christmas and we're all really excited.  Soooo...my lessons will be on hold for the next week while they're here, but I'll be picking them up again next week.  This is our last fun summer activity/vacation and after that life will pretty much be back to normal.  I'm looking forward to devoting more time to the lessons and the blog! 
Hope you all are having a wonderful summer!  Remember, while we're on a break from lessons, we can all be practicing the Bible verses! 
God bless!
Kristen

Lesson 16: 4th of July

I know it's a little late to be posting a lesson about 4th of July, but I got a little behind with my lessons!  We got back from our beach trip two days ago (which was wonderful, btw!!!) and came home to no internet (!) due to a really bad storm.  So, I wish I could have posted this yesterday, but instead here it is today!  It's a very brief lesson about 4th of July, which connects the holiday with God's blessings in our life.

1.  Verse - no new verse today, but try to work in reviewing previous verses in today's lesson.  We did it at the end while we were doing the stickers on the craft.

2.  Lesson -

•  4th of July is the day we celebrate our country's birthday.  It's the day it became a country.
• Our country is where we live and it's called the United States of America, or the U.S.A, or sometimes we call it America.
• At this point, I showed Jenna a world map in an atlas that we had.
• This is a wonderful country to live in because we are free to worship God.
• The men who made our country made it a place where everybody could worship however they want to.
• We are Christians because we worship God and Jesus.
• In some countries, Christians aren't allowed to go to church, read their Bibles, or talk about God.  If they do, they get in trouble with the police.
• But in our country, the U.S.A, we are allowed to go to church, read our Bibles, and talk about God.  
• So, when we celebrate the 4th of July, we do fun stuff like go to cookouts, where flag shirts, play with our friends, and watch fireworks, BUT we also praise God and thank Him for our country.
• We remember to thank Him for letting us live in a wonderful country where we are free to go to church, read our Bibles, and talk about God.
• Pray with your child:  "Dear God, Thank you for letting us live in a country where we are free to worship you.  It is a special blessing.  Amen."

3.  Craft -  Flag craft.
Start with a full piece of white construction paper, seven red strips the length of the page (for stripes), a blue rectangle cut from construction paper, star stickers, and a glue stick.  (All we had was gold stars, so we just used those!)

  Let your child do the gluing...starting with the stripes.

Then, glue the blue rectangle in place and put the star stickers on!  (I counted out fifty stars, but that's not necessary to get the idea!)  At the end, I wrote "Thank you, God, for our country!" on the bottom stripe so later she can remember the connection to the lesson.
Finished craft:

4. Song - "My Country Tis of Thee."  This isn't a Bible song, but Jenna had learned it in a previous Bible class, so we decided to sing it with this lesson!  We also followed it up with "Deep and Wide." just for fun!

5.  End by reviewing the previous Bible verses.

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!