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!