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.  :-)