Lesson 10: Intro to Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve

1.  Verse - No new verse today.  We've collected quite a few verses.  So, I felt like we could use a break to review them.  BUT, this story is based on Genesis chapter 2.  I recommend that you read the chapter beforehand to prepare for the lesson!

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review previous verses and the days of creation (from the last two lessons.)
• As I told the story of today's lesson, I used the pictures from the craft (see below) to illustrate the story.
•  When God was making the earth, he used the dust and the dirt on the ground to make a man. He named the man Adam.
• Then God made a beautiful garden and it was called Eden.  That's where Adam lived!  What kinds of things are in a garden?  (flowers, plants, etc.)  All of those things were in the Garden of Eden and also trees and rivers!  It was a very beautiful place! (show the garden picture)
• God also made animals and the Garden of Eden was filled with all kinds of animals. (show the animal pictures)
• It was Adam's job to take care of the garden and the animals.  He gave all the animals their names!  What are some animal names that you know?(name the animal pictures and add others)
• Now, God decided that Adam needed a helper to help him take care of the garden and the animals.  So, God made a woman and he named her Eve. (show picture of Adam and Eve)
• So, Adam and Eve were the first two people that God made!  They were husband and wife and they lived in the Garden of Eden.
• God loved Adam and Eve and they loved God.  

3.  Craft - Garden of Eden coloring page/craft.
So, as I come up with crafts, my goal is that everything is a free printable. For this craft, I pieced together a few printables to come up with one craft.  So, you'll need the following pages from this link:
http://www.easy-child-crafts.com/bible-coloring-pages.html

Then you'll need the the "Adam and Eve" page from this site: http://www.coloringpagespot.com/joomgallery/printable-crafts/fall-of-man-puppets-coloring-page-175

I cut blank part off the bottom of the garden and then cut out the Adam and Eve and the lion, fox, and giraffe.  So, here are the pieces:

Then write "The Garden of Eden" along the top of a piece of construction paper.

Then have your child color the pieces.  Trim the smaller pieces.  Glue the garden onto the construction paper first.  Then glue the people and animals onto the garden however your child wants to!

Finished product:

*Note about the craft - This craft requires a lot of coloring!  You may want to plan to help your child with some of the coloring.  You can see, I colored the giraffe and Jenna got a little tired of coloring by the time she got to Adam and Eve!  :)


4. Song -  "Praise the Lord Together"  #44 on Wee Sing Bible Songs
"Praise the Lord together singing Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!" (2x)

5.  End by reviewing the names in this story...Garden of Eden, Adam, Eve

Lesson 9: Creation, Days 4 - 7

1. Verse - No new verse this time, use the same verse as last time: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review previous verses.
• Review the last lesson, the verse and Days 1 -3 of creation.  We used the coloring pages to review the first three days of creation.
• So, that's what God made the first three days, today we'll talk about what God made during the next three days!
• On the fourth day, God made the sun, moon, and the stars.  Have your child look at the coloring page for the fourth day while you read Genesis 1:16 out loud.
• On the fifth day, God made the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea.  Have your child look at the coloring page for the fifth day while you read Genesis 1:20-21 out loud.
• On the sixth day,God made animals and people.  Have your child look at the coloring page for the sixth day while you read Genesis 1:24, 26.
• When God was finished making all that he made, he said that it was all good!
• Now, making all these things was a lot of work.  So, on the seventh day, God rested! Have your child look at the coloring page for the seventh day while you read Genesis 2:2 out loud.
• Talk about what he made...What kinds of animals live in the ocean? the sky? on land?
• Pray - Thank God for all of the good things that you have made.

3. Craft - Creation coloring pages
Have your child finish coloring the pages from the set of creation pages that you chose last time (from this link  http://www.coloring.ws/creation.htm)

We had a bit of a rough morning, so the coloring got finished later in the day (after naps!).  We also (later in the day when we needed something to do) stapled the pages into a book.  For the cover, I took some construction paper and wrote "Jenna's Book About Creation" at the top.  Then I asked Jenna to draw things that God made.  It was a great processing, summary activity.  Jenna's just barely starting to draw recognizable things, so it was fun to see what she came up with!

Madeline walked over and showed some interest..."Look, Madeline, this is you and this is Jenna!"

It was a fun activity!

4.  Song - "My God is so Great."
"My God is so great, so strong and so mighty.  There's nothing my God cannot do. (2x)
The mountains are his.  The rivers are his.  The stars are his handiwork, too.
My God is so great, so strong and so mighty.  There's nothing my God cannot do.  For you!"

5.  End by reviewing the verse one more time!

Lesson 8: The Creation Story, Days 1 - 3

This is my first Old Testament lesson.  I plan to spend a few days on Creation because there's a lot to it!  
With this lesson, I'll start doing Bible stories, but along the way I'll work in lessons about things God wants us to do (love Him, Obey, Share, etc.).  Just a reminder, I'll be using two different Bible story books to illustrate some of the stories...you can see them here.  And now to the lesson...
 
1. Verse - "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1 

 2. Lesson - 

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review past Bible verses.
• Read today's verse and explain that "created" means "made."
• Before God made the earth and people, there was nothing.  Everything was just dark, really dark.  What does it look like when it's dark?  (night time, really black, etc.)
• Then God made the earth and he did it in 6 days.
• Use the coloring pages from the craft to explain the story of the first three days:
• On the first day, God made day and night.  Have your child look at the coloring page for the first day while you read Genesis 1:3-5 out loud.
• On the second day he made the sky and the water.  Have your child look at the coloring page for the second day while you read Genesis 1:6 out loud.
• On the third day, God made dry land, seas, and plants and trees.  Have your child look at the coloring page for the third day while you read Genesis 1:9, 11 out loud.
• Talk about what we know about these things:  What do we do during the daytime/nighttime? What kinds of things are in the sky?  What kinds of things grow outside in our yard?
• God made all these things and God says the things that he's made are really good.
• Pray:  Thank God for night, day, the beautiful sky, the land, oceans, beautiful plants in our yard.
• Extension of the lesson - The next time you are outside with your child, point out the plants, trees, skies, etc. and talk about how God made these things!

3. Craft - Creation Coloring page booklet
Go to this website, http://www.coloring.ws/creation.htm, and choose one of the Creation coloring page sets to use.  Have your child color the first three pages.  In future lessons, they'll color the rest of them and staple them into a booklet!

Here are Jenna's!  She got a little bored of coloring today and asked for some help from mommy...
  

4.  Song:  "The B-I-B-L-E"  (#20 on Wee Sing Bible Songs)
"The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me!  I stand alone on the word of God.  The B-I-B-L-E!"

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


Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, spending extra time with family and friends!

Lesson 7: Jesus is God's Son

*Note - This lesson wraps up the "Who is God?" unit.  In the future, I plan to do more lessons on Jesus and stories from the Gospels, but for now I just wanted to do a short lesson on Jesus to explain a little bit about who he is as part of explaining who God is.  Some concepts (like the Trinity) are a little hard to explain to preschoolers.  So I did the best I could and I mainly stuck to Jesus is God's son and he loves us, knows us, takes care of us, etc.

1. Verse - "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased."  Mark 1:11

2. Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review previous Bible verses.
• We've learned a lot about God.  Today we're going to learn a little bit about who Jesus is.
• Jesus is God's son.  God is Jesus' father.  Just like you are mommy and daddy's daughter, Jesus is God's son.
• God sent Him to the world to love us and save us from our sins.  (At this point I did a very quick explanation of sin - when we do things that God doesn't like.)
• What holiday is the day that Jesus was born? (Christmas)  Right!  Jesus was born on Christmas and he was a little baby.
• Then when he grew up he died on the cross.
• On Easter, he became alive again!  Then he went to heaven to live with God forever.
• Now he sits on a throne in heaven with God.
• Jesus loves us, he knows us, he takes care of us, just like God!  Because he is God too!
• There are lots of stories about Jesus in the Bible that you'll learn about in more Bible lessons.

3. Craft -  "Jesus loves me" heart hand-print
I got the idea for this craft from this blog...http://catholicicing.com/2011/07/how-to-make-jesus-loves-me-shirts-with-kids/
Instead of doing a shirt, we made a paper craft out of it.
Here's the finished product (that's supposed to be a heart in the middle.)

First, I typed out the words "Jesus" and "Me" in Word so that they would could be colored.  I'm trying this out, but I think you can find them here.  If you can't get that link to work, I used size 150 "Allstar" font in Microsoft Word.
She colored the words, cut them out and glued them to the paper, leaving space for the hand prints.

Then we took some washable paint (I thought I had red, but we were out of it...so we used purple.) and painted Jenna's hand with a sponge paint brush.  Then, I helped her make the prints in the shape of a heart!

And Madeline made one too...

You kind of need to use your imagination to see the hearts, but it was fun!

4.  Song - Jesus Loves Me.  (I'm sure everybody knows this song!)

5.  End with reviewing the verse one more time! 

Lesson 6: God teaches us about Himself in the Bible

Note* For this lesson, I used a small Bible that we've given to Jenna.  It was one we already had (a Bride's Bible given to me for my wedding) and Jenna had taken a liking to it.  So, I used it today to help teach her about the Bible.  I also had a flashlight handy to illustrate the verse.

1. Verse - "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Psalm 119:105

2. Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review past Bible verses.
• Today:  God teaches us about Himself in the Bible.
• The Bible is like God's letter to us. 
• All of the Bible is God's words to us.  We call it the Bible, but it is also called "God's word."
• It's very important to read the Bible because that's how God teaches us about Himself.
• We read the Bible to learn about God.
• We read the Bible to learn about what God wants us to do.
• He gave us the Bible to help us through life.
• Explain the verse:  When it is dark and you can't see, you can use a flashlight or a lamp to help find your way.  God says the Bible is like a lamp that lights up the darkness and shows us where to go.
• It was morning when we did the lesson, so I planned a very short activity to do before bed with the flashlight.  I put Jenna's teddy bear in a dark room and had her use the flashlight to find her way and find him (while holding my hand.)  After she found him, we talked about the verse again.  She loved doing this.)   
• We finished up the lesson by showing her where this verse is found in her little Bible and highlighting it.  Then, we went through and highlighted all her verses.We also talked about how all these words in the Bible are from God. 

                                                  
3. Craft - Coloring Page.
I'm sure there are many creative crafts you could do with this verse, but I found this coloring page that is just perfect, so we kept it simple! 
Go to this site...http://godstruckkids.com/coloring-pages and click on "Your Word's a Lamp" to download and print the page.
Jenna enjoyed coloring it...

4.  Song - "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet."
We're going old-school here!  This song isn't on the Wee Sing Bible Songs CD, but I decided to teach it to Jenna.  She liked learning a new song!  Here's a Youtube video of the song with the words, if you want to learn it!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SLHWFpSlq4
We mostly just sung the chorus about 20 times! 

5.  End by reviewing the verse one more time!

I'm happy to say that little sis was much happier during today's lesson!  I've just finished three weeks of lessons and I am really enjoying doing them.  Not only is Jenna learning about God, but it's also nice to have focused time where she's getting my full attention (except when Madeline needs some thing :) when we're working on something together.  God is so good and I know he's working through these simple, short lessons!  I hope things are going well for you, too, and I hope you all have a great weekend!

Lesson 5: God Takes Care of Us

1.  Verse - "My God will meet all your needs." Philippians 4:19

2.  Lesson -

• Pray with your child about the lesson.
• Review past Bible verses and past topics.
• Today:  God takes care of us.
• He gives us all the things we need to live and grow.  
• What are some things that you need to live and grow? (food, a home, clothes, warm bed, money to buy things, mommy and daddy to take care of you, etc...)
• God is the one who gives these things to us.
• God is so good.  He loves us and he takes care of us.
• When someone gives you something, what do you say back to them?  (thank you!)
• This is why we pray to God and thank Him for giving us everything we need.  
• Stop to pray with your child again.  Ask your child, "What do you want to thank God for?" and invite your child to do the praying.

3. Craft - Food collage

• Materials - one piece of construction paper, printer, paper, glue stick, scissors, crayons or markers

The night before - Write on the top of a piece of construction paper "God takes care of us."  Then go to this website http://www.classhelper.org/coloring-book-pages/food-and-drink/page_4.shtml , click on the cheeseburger and print out a couple of the food pages (whichever ones you like!)

Have your child color the pictures of the food.  Then cut them out and glue them to the construction paper:

 When we did it, Jenna did everything but the cutting!  :)  You gotta love glue sticks!

4.  Song - He's got the whole world in his hands." (#39 on Wee Sing Bible Songs)
"He's got the whole world in His hands. (4x)
He's got the itty bitty babies in His hands (3x) He's got the whole world in his hands.
He's got the mommies and the daddies in His hands (3x) He's got the whole world in his hands."

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

Notes -
I thought I'd share how our lesson went today because I'm sure some of you can relate!  During the "lesson" part (which is supposed to take all of 5 -10 min), Madeline (17 mos) was not cooperating.  Within those 5 - 10 min I had to get her out of her booster seat because she didn't want to join the lesson, take her down from standing on the tricycle, put the tricycle outside so she'd stop climbing on it, clean up cheerios she spilled all over the ground, bring a basket of toys into the kitchen for her, and then just when she was content again, a random alarm started going off in the other room!  All while Jenna sat patiently waiting for me to finish explaining how "God takes care of us."  :)  So, we were FULL of distractions this morning!  But the good thing is that I remembered to pause, take a breath, and ask God for help!

Also, I wanted to encourage you to let these simple, simple truths fill your own heart today.  How quickly we busy adults forget that God provides our every need!  We are currently facing some uncertainty regarding my husband's job and we are learning to be at peace and trust in God's perfect provision.  He touched my heart in a special way singing the simple line, "He's got the mommies and the daddies in his hands."  So simple, yet so able to restore our hearts and fill us with hope.  Praise God for His goodness and care!

Another, more administrative, thing I wanted to share is something I came up with to organize the crafts we've been doing.  I got a one-inch binder (that I already had :) and let Jenna color a page for the front of it.  We're gonna hole-punch anything that will fit in it and make it into a book for her to look at later.  If you go to www.twistynoodle.com , you can change the text on any of the coloring pages to what you want it to say (love this!).  We chose the Noah's Ark page and typed in "Jenna's Bible Crafts."  This is just an idea you might want to use!

Lastly, As I've been looking at crafts online, I've seen a lot that use paper plates.  So, while I was at Walmart today, I picked up some paper plates and more glue sticks!  If you're following along you may want to pick up some paper plates for future lessons.

That's all for now!   God bless!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day, moms!!  This was the card from my little Jenna that she worked on for days.  :)  If you're like me, you might feel like it's a little odd to be celebrated on Mother's Day because if it weren't for the enormous blessing of my wonderful husband and precious kids, I wouldn't even be a mom!  It's a blessing and a privilege to be called a mom.  Mother's Day is one of the special days of the year when God reminds me of this precious gift.  All the things that seem like hard work, or stress, or whatever, just fade away in the light of His goodness and the reminder of how loved and blessed I really am!  I feel humbled on Mother's Day.

  Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.  Psalm 127:3

I pray that you all have had a wonderful Mother's Day and are feeling refreshed and ready to start your week!!  Look for the next lesson on Tuesday..."God cares for us."