The wisdom of a grandmother

 I asked a mother of 3 adults and grandmother of 2 for some ideas and these are some of the things she said: 


Spend time outside and teach the children to identify flowers, bugs, trees and things. Talk about how we breath in the oxygen that trees give off,  learn the cycles of life and how nature works together.  When you plant your garden, explain how things grew in the garden of Eden, and after sin man has to work hard to grow his food.  In other words, make life an object lesson. 


Making Sabbath special is important and I think its good to have a set Friday menu & tradition, like fruit salad in summer and soup in winter with special Sabbath candles.  Growing up, our house was always clean and we had our baths before sundown.  I still remember the smell of pine sol and dust spray.  


Service is also important.  They should learn early to visit the elderly, take cookies to someone, sing in nursing homes, etc.  

Little dresses for Africa

A friend of mine sent me this project idea.  It would be great for kids learning how to sew.  These are little dresses made out of pillowcases and sent to African children.  They would be great to send with any mission trip in your area.  

http://www.littledressesforafrica.org/blog/

Hiding His word in our hearts

 "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you"  Psalm 119:11

Steve Green's scripture songs for kids.  Our daughter loves them and it is a great way to learn verses.  Before the song is sung, the scripture is read.  

Feed My Lambs Bible memorization guide.  Comes with 6 books of simplified Bible verses and 1 book to guide parents.  Only 5 books are pictured here.  

We LOVE these books!  We don't agree with all the captions in the pictures but we just read the Bible verse.  

Jesus feeds 5000

John 6, the feeding of the 5000.  

We wanted to identify more with the little boy who shared his lunch with Jesus. 

The little boy's mother would have made the 5 loaves of bread that he took with him to see Jesus.  

While waiting for the bread to rise, we read the story.  

Once the bread had baked, we made a basket of 5 loaves and 2 VERY small fish which the boy's father would have caught - or purchased a bag of from Pepperidge Farms!

It was time for the story to be acted out and for our little girl to give her "lunch" to Jesus.  I know it is old school, but we have really appreciated having a set of Bible felts with which we are able to tell Bible stories.  

We hope to have identified with the little boy and his family a little more.  At the end we sang a song (we still need to add chords).

For older children, the texts of John 6:31-35, Deuteronomy 8:3 and Jeremiah 15:16 could be tied in for depth and challenging them to "eat" of the word daily.

Challenged by books

"Let the little ones play in the open air; let them listen to the songs of birds and learn the love of God as expressed in His beautiful works.  Teach them simple lessons from the book of nature and the things about them..."   Ellen White, Child Guidance p34