Sunday, February 9, 2014

Grace's Bible Journey Part 3 (and confessions of a mom)

This post covers the past several weeks of Grace's bible journey (a new curriculum I am developing in case you haven't visited this blog before).  We learned about the Exodus, parting of the Red Sea, and the 10 Commandments.  I would like to be doing more with Grace during the week but between working part-time, an extra child, (Wesley, that is) and life in general...it has been challenging!  I was stressing about it to be honest. Then God spoke to me through a Christian parenting article.  Let me share a quote with you:
 
"If you tell them (your children) the gospel, but live to yourself, they will never believe it. Give your life for theirs everyday, joyfully. Lay down pettiness. Lay down fussiness. Lay down resentment about the dishes, about the laundry, about how no one knows how hard you work. Stop clinging to yourself and cling to the cross."
 
Y'all, I totally live to myself (my desires, wanting things to be perfectly clean, being a control freak) so this article spoke to me in big ways.  I have been able to step back, and slow down.  How ironic is it that I am doing these bible lessons with Grace so that she will learn the gospel, but I wasn't being intentional about living out a real life example of a Christian to my child?   I was teaching my child the ways but not fully living it myself.  That kind of honesty will slap you in the face.  I'm not the perfect child, wife, mother, or teacher.  I never will be.  Thank goodness.  I feel better already :)
 
Confession time over!

We made a 10 plagues booklet.  Grace especially enjoyed the "boils" page because we used stickers for the spots.
 
Each page had a different picture for the plague.  We like retell each page saying, "God said, let my people GO!" and "Pharaoh said, NO!".  It's a big hit.
 
 
Chocolate chip snack/learning time

Grace wasn't interested in identifying numbers out of chocolate chips...I guess I can't blame her.  I tried making groups of numbers and that didn't interest her, either.

So then we started making shapes...and THAT was way more fun!

Parting of the Red Sea science experiment: olive oil, water, red food coloring drops.

Shake it up

And watch it separate!

Just some fun play doh time.  A kid never gets too old for this.

 Parting of the Red Sea snack: graham cracker and icing
 
Grace loves making hand prints and foot prints (probably because we did it a lot for crafts with the previous curriculum AND it's messy).  I figured, hey, there are 10 Commandments and we have 10 fingers. 
 
No, I don't expect my daughter to understand all of these.  It was a cute way to display that there were 10 commandments.  The sticks are taped together on the backside with scotch tape.
 
10 Commandments snack: bread, peanut butter, and craisins

Books on CD are great for kids that love books parents that have cleaning to do.  The story makes a chime each time you are supposed to turn the page.  Grace is really into them right now.  I even found some extras in all my teaching stuff from when I taught 1st grade.

Lowercase letter pick-up: throw them on the ground and choose letters to pick up

You can do the same with numbers

Big books are another way to enjoy reading.  You can rent them from local libraries.  Again, I just had some from my teaching days.

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