Psalm 23

Wow, it has been ages since I have posted anything on here!
The Fall/Christmas time always is fully packed with my photo biz schedule and family things.  So I on purpose did not do any blogging.

But here is something I ran across today.  And I post it now, probably 4 months after we did it, and this little art project/lesson has really stuck with them.
I taught them the first verse of Psalm 23 doing this little quick lesson.
I read them the Psalm, then we talked about each part of it, then made a song book about it.  We even talked about David who wrote the Psalm.  Here is out final product.
And to this day, they still know this verse....

 Ella's is the one on the left.  I did the letters like that so she could practice her letters.  And I drew some notes so she could also cut them out and glue them on the cover.  Dean's, I just wrote it for him.  Since any mark he made then was chicken scratch.

The rest of these pics are of Dean's song book.  I gave him cotton for the sheep and cut out the waters.  But for Ella, I let her cut out waters and grass and mountains.

We still have these and they like to play with them and recite the verse every now and then.
Really easy and simple...
Here is what you would need:

-construction paper
-pen
- scissors and glue stick
-cottton
-tape or staples to fasten the book together

Puppet time!

We made puppets!  Cloth and paper.  Check it out here.
I posted the pics on my family blog.
Scroll past pictures of the kids to get to the puppets.

Here are the materials I used:
Paper puppets:
-stiff paper
-markers, crayons...whatever makes a mark
-packing tape
-large Popsicle sticks
These puppets we are using for a Noah's Ark lesson.  We are collecting animal puppets to fill an ark we painted.  Post to come!

Cloth puppets:
-felt like material, you can find it in a fabric or craft store
-thread, buttons, needle, sewing machine if one

I am not including instructions on how to make these.  It is pretty easy cheesy.
For the cloth puppets here are instructions.  They are but trickier.  Er...more tricky...

Bible Drill

Did you ever do Bible Drill growing up in church?  I grew up Baptist so Bible Drill was always a nervous/fun experience.  As well as performing "Father Abraham" on stage with an audience.  Eek.
Well, on most mornings when I have my devotional after the kids are up, we have a "Reading Time".  I read the Bible and the kids read books quietly ( quietly is key) in the room next to me.
Well that almost always bombs.
They are always interested in my Bible and coffee.  Or they want to sit in my lap and draw in my journal.
So a way to help them to obey and stay in the other room, AND get to join in what I was doing, I started a Bible Verse box for Ella Reese.

If there is something that we are working on that day or week.  Like being patient, or kind etc....we would find what the Bible says about it.  Then on some index cards I would write out the verse and then she would draw a corresponding picture to help her remember the verse.
We do not do it every morning.  It becomes boring to her if we did it every day.
But here are some of the ones we did.

And as the day continues, or later that week...I will remind her of the verse we studied and I have found that it has helped her to remember God's word better.  As opposed to it just coming out of my mouth.

 This is Ella and Dean in the picture.

 Whenever I draw people or Bible people, I will draw a cross on their heart to help explain that when you Love God Jesus is in your heart.
So Ella Reese put crosses on our hearts.  That is our family if you can't tell.  We all look more like zombies....

Jesus Feeds the 5,000

We did this as a Bible lesson a few weeks back.
I read her the story from the Bible about Jesus feeding the 5,000 in the book of Matthew.  Then made a quick storyboard.  By quick, I mean I literally grabbed some paper and color pencils and sketched as I told her the story.  She was interested,...so I went with it.

Easter Lesson

The week prior to Easter I dropped the Bible lesson we were going through and started to teach her about Jesus Resurrection. Yeah, try teaching that to a 3 year old. So I think she kind of got most of it.

I tried to integrate it with other activities. So along with the Bible Story I tried to do other short lessons that integrated the theme of transformation and life.

We talked about insects. Well, really caterpillars and how they turn into butterflies. I showed her videos online of caterpillars transforming into butterflies. We even ordered some live caterpillars that will turn into butterflies. ( http://www.shop-insectlore.com/Butterflies/Live+Butterfly+Culture+3-5+Live+Butterfly+Larvae.axd ) . We talked about dead things and live things etc. I had these little pill things that you drop into water and little sponge insects would come out. It was cool.

And just when I thought she was kind of getting it she would look up at me and say, "Can I watch Sesame Street now?" then hop off my lap. Hilarious.