Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Bible Journey Curriculum Part 10

Soap box (towards myself more than anything): Faith first.

As a teacher that loves creating curriculums for my little learner, I can be guilty of forcing concepts and/or having unrealistic expectations.  I was trying to teach Grace word families the other day and was getting frustrated because she wasn't "getting" it.  She is three years old for crying out loud...what was I thinking??? My thoughts and actions were conflicting.  You see, I want my little girl to learn about Jesus, put others first, share her toys, be forgiving, admit when she makes mistakes, and have all of these other Christ-like traits. However, my actions were saying that I want my little girl to glue things perfectly on her bible crafts, recognize her numbers correctly as I point to them, know which day comes after Monday, recite her letters in order, and now learn to READ??

I had a big gut check moment at bible study this past Spring.  Our teacher said if our ultimate goal is for our children to become followers of Christ, then everything else takes second place.  Of course reading, math, tracing, and other developmental things are important, but I was placing too much importance on them.  I want to expose Grace to developmentally appropriate tasks in a healthy way.  I say all of these things to be open and honest about parenting.  I think God has gifted me with teaching others, specifically my own children BUT I need to be more patient about things that are sure to come and focus on enriching Grace's heart.  Jesus doesn't really care if she can color inside the lines right now...I do.  Jesus doesn't really care if she skips the number 13 every time we practice counting...I do.  So, I'm going to focus on having realistic expectations rooted in important values for my baby girl.

"No matter how big you grow, never grow up so much that you lose your child's heart: full of trust in God.  Be like these children.  They are the most important in my kingdom." Jesus Storybook Bible

I have an alphabet tracing book that Grace was not really enjoying so I decided to practice with chocolate chips.  Now she enjoys it :)

Grace loves practicing with her special scissors.

This was our "Jesus feeds the 5,000" craft.  It was simple: she glued on five loaves of bread and then traced two fish. 

Lego stamp painting and Q-tip painting


Since I am always posting things to Pinterest for this curriculum, I needed a way to keep me focused week to week.  I just write down the ideas for the week on a post-it note and put it somewhere I see it often during the week.  

I like to bake something with Grace each week.  We made pizzas together and they were delicious!  We made them out of sandwich wraps, sauce, cheese, and happy face pepperoni.

As I was recycling some boxes, an idea struck me!  I started cutting out letters and numbers from different items that I was going to throw away or recycle.  I'm collecting these items for a larger project to come.

Great name practice!

I may have put them in my last post but we have been doing shaving cream trays and rice sensory bins A LOT these days!  I'll have to change up the sensory bins to another item since Grace loves it so much.  We had a cookout last weekend where both of Grace's sensory bins were outside.  The kids at the cookout sat and played with the bins for a while...it was fantastic for the parents!

We also learned about the story of the hidden treasure and how we are God's treasure.  I didn't end up doing anything treasure related but there are plenty of activities you could do with your learner to go with this story.

The other story we learned about was how Jesus loved the little children and sang "Jesus Loves Me".  This story is so powerful in the Jesus Storybook Bible, "You see, children loved Jesus, and they knew they didn't need anything special for Jesus to love them.  All they needed to do was to run into his arms."

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