Beginning Bible: Gideon

I am changing the way I do my curriculum, in the past every activity has been focussed around our weekly Bible Story.  It's getting nice out and we want to be outside a lot more.  I'm still doing a lot of focus on the story and relating other "subjects" to the story as much as possible, but we're going to veer away from only learning through the Bible story for the time being.  The story of the week will continue to be a major daily focus though.

Story – Gideon

Pretend play with instruments

Pretend Play with little people

Make horns

Campfire craft

Letter G worksheet

Math concepts

Counting rocks

Sorting toy cars

MonkiSee Shapes video

Measuring while cooking

Science

Nature Hike/Exploring

Planting Seeds

Foods

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Slicing banana

Practice Paper

Monkey is learning to cut!  We've been working on this off and on for a while and he just really struggles with the coordination, and getting the right angle on the paper.  It's a tough skill!  Tonight at dinner he noticed some scissors and picked up the tortilla that he decided not to eat.  He looked at me and said, "wanna cut".  You know what?  Kid's scissors work GREAT on corn tortillas for my little man.  Corn tortillas are stiff enough not to fold in half when he cuts, and soft enough that he can cut through them.  He had a fantastic time cutting his tortilla into little bits!

Beginning Bible: Joseph

This week's exciting Bible fun has been from Joseph.  As noted below, we had a day off because of a doctor's appointment.  Monkey had fun learning and playing at his Aunt Elizabeth's house instead.  I'm working on transferring pictures from one computer to another, so haven't taken a ton for this week.

Monday
Story - Read Joseph Story from Adventure Bible Story book
Writing Skills - Practice Writing Letter "J", say "J" words
Reading - Watch MonkiSee, use Flashcards "circle, star, oval, square, heart"

Tuesday
Fun day at Aunt Elizabeth's House
Big mess with flour and cars, bath with cousin Bugsy
(Visit to the doctor for Crackers)

Wednesday
Story - Veggie Tales "Little Joe"
Math - Counting Brothers
Reading - Watch MonkiSee, use Flashcards "circle, star, oval, square, heart"

Thursday
Story - Read Joseph from a level 1 reader
Art - Design special coat with stickers
Reading - Watch MonkiSee, use Flashcards, "circle, star, oval, square, heart"

Friday
Story - Read Joseph story from one of our other toddler Bibles
Free play - Acting out the story
Reading - MonkiSee, use Flashcards, "circle, star, oval, square, heart"

Beginning Bible Break

Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't - but I have not posted my pre-school Bible curriculum for a few weeks.  Oi.  It's been kind of crazy around here with all sorts of things that have gotten in the way.  I feel so guilty when we miss lessons, but it's happened.  We did do some activities related to Jonah the week of our last preschool party, and we did a few activities about Joseph the week before that.  I didn't even get pictures of any of those things, and I really think I need to go back and re-do those lessons.

SO.. today I am working to set out my lessons for the next month.  I think that is my biggest problem - I tend to plan for the upcoming week, and if I get busy, it doesn't get done well.  We will be back to our daily lessons starting on Monday.  We've got some added materials too, like Monki See videos.  I can't wait to share with everyone about those!

What's coming up in the next month?
Joseph (again)
Moses (the week of our next preschool party)
Samson
Gideon

It's going to be a fun month!

Beginning Bible: Week 3

Story: Noah's Ark

Monday -
Story - We read the story from the Adventure Bible Story Book
Art - Building a Boat out of a cardboard box
Science - Water play (bath) - identifying animals while in the tub, washing off paint
Math - Sorting animals by color
Language - Identifying animals

Painting our ark

Bath time = Water play & Noah's animals!

Tuesday
Story - We read the story from A Child's First Bible
Art/Sensory - Tearing Paper in rainbow colors
Free Play - Using our boat to tell the story
Music/Movement - "Arky, Arky"

Putting the animals into the ark

Watching Monkey to figure out how to tear paper

Wednesday
Story -On Noah's Ark by Jan Brett
Art/Sensory - Gluing torn paper into rainbow shape
Movement - Acting like animals
Science - Making rain (I used the torn paper for rain and dumped it over the boys)

Using torn paper from yesterday to make a rainbow today!

Proud of his artwork.  I love this shot, in spite of his dirty face.

Thursday - DADDY TEACHES
Story - Noah's Ark by Lucy Cousins
Life Skills - Hammering a nail
Math - Counting Noah's animals
Science - Ocean in a bottle (from 60Quick and Easy Science Experiments with Everyday Items)

Monkey is practicing hammering, just like Noah hammered to make the ark.

Ocean in a bottle

Friday - FIELD TRIP 
Life Experience - Visiting the pet store (because the zoo is closed)
Media - Watch Noah video (didn't find one at the library, so we're not watching one)

All of the boys loved the birds

The fish at the pet store were fascinating

This lady looked a little unsure about her audience while grooming a poor dog.

Monkey gets some advice about caring for fish.

And for your enjoyment...

Beginning Bible: Week 2

Adam & Eve
(I didn't do so well keeping to my plans this week, but here they are.. no pictures because someone decided my camera wanted to swim).

Memory Verse: You must not eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden.  Gen 3:3

Math - Shape story (recreating the story using shapes to make characters), observing colors in nature

Science - Tasting Fruit, Identifying animals and plants in nature and pictures

Language - Shape Story (using shapes to tell the story, see above), felt people - flannel board

Art - Making Felt people, apple print

Music - ????

Movement - "ah the snake" (running from the serpent)

Free Play - Little people, felt people.


Next week: Noah.. and this should have a lot of crazy fun activity!

Beginning Bible: Week 1

This week our story was Creation from Genesis 1-3.  We read our story from different books at least 1 time every day and said our memory verse together several times a day.  (Monkey likes to tell me "no" before every line, I don't mind because he's still saying the verses).  We did 2 activities each day to help us practice and remember the story.

Daddy read the Bible story on Wednesday

Creation:
Memory Verse - Genesis 1:1.  In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Math Activities - Counting toy animals (up to 5), Counting days of creation (1-7), Identifying written numbers (done while counting), Animal puzzles (these can easily be made by using magazine or book pictures and gluing them to construction paper, then cutting them into 2, 3, 4+ pieces)

Science Activities - Water play with water animals that God created, Identifying toy animals

Science - Water Play

Art - Finger painting God's earth, Play-doh creation (we created something that God made on each day)

Monkey is helping make the sun out of play doh for art

Free play - Name animals like Adam did using little people for Adam and animals

Crackers is not so good at matching, but he is good at free play

Language - See animal names, matching animals to flash cards with pictures/words

Monkey can match animals to pictures with no trouble

Movement - Creation dance (In truth, I was going to make a dance with the days of creation and do this with my boys every day.. but I did not get this done, bummer).

What a fun week!

Beginning Bible

If you have read my blog for very long, you know that I have been frustrated because my kids are not learning the Bible in the church nursery, and also we are doing a poor job teaching it at home.  If you know me personally, you may know that I would like to homeschool my boys when they are ready to start a school program.

I've decided that this is the week we will start both, school and Bible learning.  Both of my boys are attending and participating as we go through the Bible story book with fun activities and memory verses.  We have a theme for each week (we are just going chronologically through the story Bible for now).  Our lessons are done through play and broken down into Math, Science, Art, Free play, Language, Movement, and Memory.  Some of the activities overlap into multiple categories, but I only listed them once as I thought through our plans.  I would like to begin sharing our Bible lesson plans with my readers who are interested in helping their preschoolers learn the Bible at home.