Kids in the Word: Jonah

Although we're all recovering from illness here, we did get through our Bible story from last week, which was Jonah. 

As usually, we read the story in our toddler Bible. And then we read these stories to supplement:

Jonah and the Big Fish

This is an easy-reader story that recounts the narrative of Jonah. It focuses on the themes of obedience as well as God's forgiveness. Jonathan has loved this series of books and this one is no exception. It focuses mostly on Jonah 1-3 and includes the fact that the people of Ninevah repented and turned to God. 

Jonah and the Very Big Fish 

This is another Arch book which recounts the biblical narrative in rhyming verse. I like that it actually includes all four chapters of Jonah and therefore also includes Jonah's attitude at the end of the book after Ninevah repents as well as God's response. 

Whoops! (Jonah and the Fish) by Mary Manz Simon

This is another easy reader that tries to tell the story of Jonah and the fish in about twenty-five words. Jonathan really liked the illustrations in this story-- he would pound his fist with Jonah as Jonah declares he will not go to Ninevah. What I don't like is that the book solely focuses on Jonah's obedience and never mentions how Ninevah responds. 

Games 

We talked about obedience a lot with the Jonah story, so we played Simon Says and Red Light Green Light. 

Art 

We made Jonah and the fish. We cut two sides of a fish out of cardstock and colored it and added a googly eye. Then we glued a picture of Jonah to another piece of cardstock and taped yarn to it. We glued the two fish halves together with the yarn in between and Jonathan could use the yarn to pull Jonah into the fish's belly:

He loved it! The only drawback was that it was played with so much it ripped. But he had fun! You can see other Jonah art projects on my Pinterest board. 

Movie 

We didn't get to do this, but I was planning on watching the Veggie Tales movie of Jonah. (You can stream through Netflix). We've seen it before, and it's a fun retelling of the story. 

So that's our week on Jonah. Next up- Daniel.... 

Update

Curried Cream of Chicken Soup (excuse the messy rim!)

I haven't posted in a week! Wow! Well, illness hit our home pretty hard last week and we're still catching up. Croup. Bronchitis. I lost my voice in the midst of it all and my wonderful husband worked from home to help me with the kids.

We had a lot of soup. Curried Cream of Chicken Soup, to be specific.

In other updates, Grace is also to a point where she's getting ready to go down to one nap. Part of me is thrilled because we can do more with our mornings, but part of me isn't sure how to entertain her while I have a project for Jonathan. Sometimes I feel like I'm just skating by.

I've also started working part time [5-7 hrs a week] for our church's children's ministry. I'm coordinating curriculum, supplies, etc. for grades 1-5. I'm excited because it's something close to my heart and training, it also provides that extra spending money that can be fun at times.

Anyways, I've also been wrestling a little bit with apathy in regards to blogging. I love sharing what we're doing, but the tension to get everything written down wears on me sometimes. Don't get me wrong, I still intend to be blogging, but just saying that sometimes I feel a little more introverted...

Does that every happen to you?  What do you do?

Curried Cream of Chicken Soup

2 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

dash of pepper

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup milk

1 1/2 cups chopped, cooked chicken

1/2 cup shredded cheese (or more)

poultry seasoning

curry power

salt & pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, melt butter, then stir in flour and a dash of pepper. Add chicken broth and milk. Cook and stir until bubbly. Cook and stir one minute more. Stir in the chicken; heat through. Add cheese until soup is at your desired consistency and flavor, then add poultry seasoning, curry powder, salt and pepper to taste. 

Kids in the Word: Josiah

It's hard to believe another week has flown by! This past week we learned about King Josiah finding God's Word in the temple. We talked a lot about the Bible and that the Bible is God's special book.

Books 


Obviously, we read the story from our toddler Bible. This was covered in only one short story, so we supplemented with:

King Josiah and God's Book

this Arch Bible story is a good retelling of King Josiah deciding to clean the temple and finding God's scroll in the process. Josiah decided to make some changes and attempted to get rid of idolatry and re-institute the Passover feast. I'm new to the Arch books series and quickly becoming a fan. The story captures Jonathan's attention and provides good opportunities for further discussion.




Pretend Play 


We acted out the Bible story. Here was the messy temple:

And here is King Josiah:

Finding the Bible under all the mess:

Grace supervised:

Cooking 


We made scrolls using crescent roll dough. We divided the dough into rectangles and then rolled up the ends. These were garlic flavored so I sprinkled them with cheese and herbs (plain ones would be yummy with cinnamon sugar!):

Art 


I had an art project planned for earlier this week, but we've all been dealing with a cold, so it hasn't happened yet. I may update if we get to it... but in the meantime you can see my 1 & 2 Kings Pinterest board for some other ideas!


Music 


We learned the song the B.I.B.L.E. -- Jonathan was so cute. At first he started singing B.I.B.I.O.! By the end of the week he got it down though. :)




Next up... Jonah! Have a wonderful week! Thanks for visiting!

Tot School: T is for Trains

Jonathan is 34 months
Grace is 14.5 months

Bible 


We've been continuing with our weekly Bible stories and this week we learned about King Josiah. We played games, sang songs and did crafts along with our story. Check in on Wednesday for our Kids in the Word post to see what we've been doing!


Reading & Language Arts 


This week, we focused a lot on trains. Jonathan loves his trains and his train table and even Grace has a lot of fun with them. We've been reading lots of books about trains. Here are some favorites:

Jonathan has a bunch of Kumon workbooks and we recently started working on his tracing book. He's really enjoyed tracing lines on some of the printables that Carisa does over at 1+1+1=1 so I thought this book might be of interest to him. We started doing one worksheet a day and he always asks for more. His pencil grip still needs a lot of work, but he's been having fun with it. You can check out some of his lines here:

Psst. You can also download some tracing worksheets over at SchoolSparks.

Art 


We did a little finger painting with a friend this week and we also pulled out the play dough:

We also did a bit of a picture study, looking at a painting by James Clarke Hook called Blackberry Picking:

We talked about what the people in the picture were doing and compared it to our experience of going to an apple orchard. I got the idea from Language Lessons for Little Ones by Sandi Queen.


Math & Science 


We talked about friction this week after reading about how trains travel on tracks to reduce the amount of friction. To do a simple experiment, we got out some of Jonathan's trains and attempted to roll them on the hardwood floor and then compared how they rolled on a rug. We talked about which trains went the farthest.

We also did a bit of a nature walk and went to the park this week. As we walked we talked about the different colors of leaves we found and tried to find red, orange and yellow leaves. When we got home, we did leaf rubbings and then pressed the leaves between two pieces of contact paper:

Sensory Play 


We walked through leaves and talked about the crunching sound they made. We also pulled out our fall sensory bin and Grace had fun playing with the silk leaves:

Motor Skills 

I threw some balls in our pack & play and this was a great way for the kids to get some energy out:

But the biggest news is Grace is finally standing on her own:

and she's taken three steps. So maybe we'll have a walker soon!

Pretend Play 


Of course, we played with our trains a lot:

and Grace has been enjoying her tea set from Nana:

Practical Life 


We've worked on learning how to get dressed-- this week we've been trying to do snappers:

and as far as potty training... ugh. Jonathan did so well with potty training and initiating going to the bathroom. Then, he just wasn't interested. We started having accidents and he told me he didn't want to stop what he was doing and go potty. So I'd love to hear advice-- what do I do? It isn't that he can't go potty but that he won't. He'll still go if I initiate and he wants to earn stars and get matchbox cars. But he won't stop what he's doing and tell me. Should I move him back to diapers? Keep pressing forward? It's tiring and frustrating to boot!



So, that's been our week. We're all a little under the weather this weekend, so I hope that we'll be up for some of the activities I hope to do next week. Thanks for stopping by!

Linking up to:

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1

Link n' Learn @ No Time for Flashcards

Sunday Showcase @ Mom to 2 Posh Little Divas & Classified Mom

Read Explore Learn @ J Daniel4's Mom

Preschool Corner @ Homeschool Creations

For the Kids Fridays @ Sun Scholars

Leibster Blog Award!

Amanda over at Gratefully Growing in Grace nominated me for a blog award! It's an award for up and coming blogs with less than 200 subscribers. It's my first ever blog award! Thanks Amanda for the bit of bloggy love! I'm glad you're enjoying our little blog :-)

The rules of this blog award are to:

(1) Thank the person who awarded it and link back to their blog.
(2) Choose five up-and-coming bloggers (less than 200 subscribers) and pass the award on to them, notifying them on their blog.
(3) Post the award on your blog
(4) Hope the people you passed the award to will pass it on even further!


One of the things I love about blogging is meeting other like-minded ladies and getting inspired by their blogs. So here are five blogs I've been enjoying lately. Be sure to head on over and check them out! Thank you ladies for all you write and share!

(1) The Preschool Experiment
(2) Musings of the Monroe Family
(3) Ash Tree Meadow
(4) Being What I Want to Be
(5) Joyful Mama's Place

Have a wonderful day!

r is for rockets and robots {book reviews}

A couple weeks ago, we read lots of good books about two topics that I thought would be of interest to Jonathan: rockets and robots!

Robots 

The Robot Book by Heather Brown

This was a fun board book that Jonathan really liked. It features moving gears and parts to show how robots work. It's very clever and very appealing to toddlers. We checked our copy out from our local library and the only drawback was the moving parts definitely showed some wear. However, this is a wonderful book for robot-loving toddlers and preschoolers.

Me and My Robot by Tracy West

This was probably Jonathan's favorite book. It's an early reader about a young boy Reese and his robot who try to find a friend's missing kitten. It has just enough humor that made Jonathan laugh. He requested it several times.

Create Your Own Robot Sticker Book

This isn't a storybook, but an activity book that features a robot body and enough parts (stickers) to make four different robots. Jonathan loved this book and kept wanting to pull it out and build new robots. It was a pretty big hit and was very affordable fun!






Rockets

On the Launch Pad: A Counting Book About Rockets by Michael Dahl

This is a cute concept book in which you and your children count down from 12 to 1 in preparation for a rocket launch. The illustrations are bold and each page has a hidden number to find. Jonathan had fun counting the objects, but wasn't as interested in finding the number. Still, it's a good concept book for any rocket-loving little boy and a wonderful addition to a space unit.

Roaring Rockets by Tony Mitton

Ah, Tony Mitton. How we love his books, especially his Amazing Machines series. Ant Parker's bold pictures are a wonderful complement to Mitton's rhyming verse. This book teaches about rockets and astronauts in a way that's fun and educational. Jonathan always asks for repeated reads of these books and Roaring Rockets was no exception.

Curious George and the Rocket by H.A. Ray

This board book is an excerpt from one of the original George books. Jonathan really enjoyed Curious George when we went through our monkeys unit and I thought that Grace might like the shortened board book. The story was still too long for Grace to enjoy, but Jonathan liked reading the shortened story.

Rockets and Spaceships by Karen Wallace

This is an informative easy reader about space. It has photographs on each page showing rockets, spaceships, and astronauts and teaches about space travel. Unfortunately, this one didn't really interest Jonathan. He hasn't really developed a strong interest in outer space at this point. If your little one is very interested in space, astronauts and rockets, this would be a good book to try!






This was in the middle of potty training and days where Jonathan was lukewarm about the activities I presented. Some things went really well, and others were a complete bomb. But, if you're looking for some ideas on these topics, check out my Pinterest boards on rockets and robots!

Kids in the Word: Elijah

This past week, Jonathan and I learned about Elijah. We covered four different stories during this time:

- Elijah is fed by ravens

- Elijah and the widow

- Elijah and the priests of Baal

- Elijah goes to heaven in a chariot

First, we read the corresponding stories from our toddler Bible. Then, I supplemented our Bible reading with two books from the Arch Books Bible Series:

Elijah Helps the Widow and God's Fire for Elijah. I haven't really read books from the Arch series before. Each story is told with colorful pictures and rhyming verse. Jonathan (at almost 3) really engaged with both of these stories. They are a great way to supplement your Bible reading. I'm planning on looking for more of the books from this series!

Art 

I found lots of craft ideas that I posted on Pinterest. Here's what we did. We glued craft sticks down to make an altar and then tore up tissue paper to make flames. (Originally, we marble painted to make flames but then had a friend over so we ended up using tissue paper so both kids could do the craft- similar to this craft.). 

Music 

We reviewed the song "My God is So Big" and talked about how He is the only God we should worship and serve! We prayed that Jonathan and Grace would be bold like Elijah and trust that God would take care of them. 

So that was our lesson this week! Now we're moving on to Josiah. Check out The Pelsers for more ideas for discipling your little ones. God bless! 

Pinterest Tuesday: Pins I've Done!

I'm always finding good ideas at Pinterest. Today I thought I'd share some ideas that we've actually done at our house:


First up is edible fingerpaint-- this was a fun project for playing with color mixing. The texture was good sensory play. As far as paint goes, it really didn't hold up as well on paper. But it was fun anyways!

Source: tinyandlittle.com.au via Amanda on Pinterest

Next up is a yummy Pumpkin Crunch Cake-- now, I didn't personally make this, but we had it at our small group last Sunday. It was delicious!

Source: thepickyapple.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Then, I did actually make this one for our Friday night homemade pizza. It was fabulous!

Source: penniesonaplatter.com via Amanda on Pinterest

And finally, my husband made me this bench which I found on Pinterest. I've wanted one for my mudroom for a long time. We just painted ours and he's going to make a second one. I'm so excited!

Source: ana-white.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Do you have a Pinterest account? Have you found any great ideas there?