Jesus Loves Us

This week was particularly "easy" to plan due to Valentines Day.

Here's how we made reading the Bible fun and come to life for us this week!

Each day we read the same story from the Candle Bible for Toddlers about Jesus loves the children (page 302) and we sang the song "Jesus Loves the Little Children."

Day 1: We had different size hearts and found the small heart and the one that was bigger and the one that was biggest and how God loves us with a big heart.

 

Day 2: After reading our story and praying, we moved to the kitchen where we did a heart craft from the dollar tree--one of those sun catchers where you paint it and hang it in the window. While we painted, we talked about how God loves us and how he made everything pretty, even us, just like how we were painting pretty.

 

Day 3: I wrote on a half sheet of pink paper "God Loves___" and filled in our names and then we had heart foam stickers that we decorated the paper with as we sang Jesus Loves Me.

 

Day 4: Our activity tonight was learning more about Jesus who loves us so much by reading Jesus which is a PHENOMENAL picture book that teaches who He is with just one word on each page. Seriously--get it! :) After we read the extra book for this activity, we prayed and thanked God for giving us Jesus to love us so much.

 

Day 5: Well... we are human and missed a night--- and it's ok! We all still love God! HAHA!

 

Day 6: Our daughter loves taping things---and I love painters tape because it doesn't do any damage to anything! So I made this heart picture and we taped pink flower petals to the heart to make it pretty.

 

Day 7: You most likely know this activity from when you were a kid--those little "pill" looking tablets that you put in warm water and the capsule dissolves and a shape appears! The kids loved this!! These happened to be "love" tablets so the shapes went along well with our love week. After they dissolved, we had her find things (Where's the Big heart? Where's the 2 small hearts?).

 

Warning. There will be splashing. And they won't want this activity to end :)

 

What ideas do you have to make the Bible come to life when talking about God's love??

 

Up next: The Story of Noah!







Adam and Eve

We had a great week learning about Adam and Eve! Here are pictures and descriptions of what we did to make our family time fun and exciting in easy ways this week.

Day One: Adam named the Animals

After we read the first part of the story, I drew Adam and some flowers on the paper and then we put foam animal stickers on (making the noises for each) and then painted the beautiful Garden of Eden.

Day Two: God made Eve

 

I cut out Eves body and drew on a nose and mouth and then she was able to glue on googly eyes, hair and pom poms for shoes. (Note to self: she loves glue sticks and didn't want this activity to end!)

 

Day Three: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

 

 

She loved this activity so much that we did it multiple times a day this week! I cut out a tree and used painters tape to tape it to the wall and then cut out "apples" and put painters tape on the back and we "made" the tree and talked about how God said we can look at it but not eat it.

 Day Four: The Snake

 

After reviewing the previous days, we remembered how God told us not to eat from the tree but then the snake came and tried to get Eve to eat it. We made snakes out of pipe cleaners and beads!

 

 

Day Five: Eve ate the fruit

 

We again talked about how we are supposed to listen to God and instead, Eve listened to the snake and ate the fruit. We played a hide n seek game where we would hide the apples and then act like we were eating them. ---again, played multiple times since then!

 

 

Day Six: Eve shared with Adam

 



We talked about how Eve shared with Adam and got our "apples" and practiced sharing with each other and then for the first time, she held her brothers hand to pray--- proud mama moment!

Day Seven: Adam and Eve left the garden and were sorry

We reviewed the story of Adam and Eve and wrapped it up by learning how the didn't listen and obey God so he said bye bye to them and sent them out of the garden and how they said sorry and were sad.

 

Our little girl is all girl--- emotions and all. If something or someone is remotely sad, she will burst into tears and I didn't want to have her be a hot mess before bed so this one was tricky for us!

 

I found, from Meijer, boy and girl cut outs so I colored Adam and Eve on both sides but one was happy and one was sad.

 

We practiced our happy and sad faces and flipped them over multiple times making them happy and sad and then giving them hugs to make them happy. BIG WIN! :)

 

Then we ended, like usual, holding hands and prayed "Thank you God for Adam and Eve and for teaching us that we should try to do our best to listen and obey. Amen" and today was the first time that she said Amen and then again. So we prayed a lot tonight!

 

This coming week: All about God's Love!

 

I would love to hear your stories on if you have tried starting your own family time and how you're making the Bible come to life in your home! 



Songs to Sing at Home

Here are some songs to sing at home with your babies through 1st graders!

5 foundational songs that will get in their hearts now that will set them up for success later!

Props for each song:
Mirrors from dollar tree for Jesus loves me, a little earth ball from Oriental trading Fortney he's got the whole world in his hands, a mini flashlight from the same place for this little light of mine, a Little hand symbol also from there for HAlleluj praise ye the lord, and mini bibles from dollar tree for the BibLe.

This way they will always remember that when they think they are a mistake and no one lets them that Jesus loves them and that when I think their whole world is falling apart that he's got the whole world in his hands and they have a light that can shine and praise him through everything and remember that he says that all in the Bible!



I have made these into a cd and if you would like one, please let me know and I can get one to you for $1--to cover the cost of the cds.

My Bible Recommendations for Family Time

Candle Bible for Babies/Toddlers

Candle Bible for Kids

Jesus Storybook Bible for ages 4 to Grade 3

Childrens Bible ICB Grades 3-6 -- these come in many different "styles" for boys and girls. It's the full bible--- in the International Childrens Bible translation!



Click Here to see my other personal Bible and Devotional Recommendations for all ages

Starting a better FAMILY TIME: Creation

Maybe you're like me and you want to make your personal Bible time go from something you feel like you should do to something you can't wait to do. Something that's a part of your life. And then take it a step further and help your children have a love for God and their Bible and better yet- do it together!

We have started having, what we call, "Family Time" every evening after dinner. We start in the same location, read a part of our story, pray holding hands and then do our activity. My daughter literally runs to family time because she can't wait to see how we make the Bible come to life every night!

We do one story a week, each day working our way through the story a little more with a little review. Family time lasts anywhere from 3-10 minutes depending on attention spans for us-- we currently have a 6 month old and a 22 month old.

Everything we use for our family time I have found at the Dollar Tree or just around the house.

This blog is simply a place where I want to show you what we have done so you can be equipped to start and FLOURISH in your own family time!

I started by figuring out what we were going to cover for the first 3 months and then checked pinterest for ideas of how to do 7 days for each topic.

We use the Candle Bible for Toddlers. (Jesus Storybook Bible is also another personal favorite) We started with Creation.

Here are pictures of what we did each day with how we did the activity. (Remember, we're currently parents to very small children so you will need to adjust some of these things for the ages of your kids--think science experiments! Blowing things up always goes over big HAHA! Also remember, gear your activities toward boys if your kids are older because if they think it's cool then you're in.)

Day 1: Creation: Light and Dark

We turned off the lights and played with a flashlight, turning it on and off saying, "light and dark." Then we had her put the light on different things around the room to make it a little game. And we mentioned several times "Did God make the light?"

Day 2: Creation: Water and Sky

After we read our story, we got in the bath and splashed in the water and then created clouds with shaving cream. We mentioned several times that God made the water and clouds.

Day 3: Creation: Flowers and Trees

I drew a picture of flowers and a tree with apples and she got to color--one of her favorite things to do! While coloring, we talked about how God made all of those things.

Day 4: Creation: Night and Day

 

 

Another flashlight activity! I took 2 pieces of black construction paper and on one I cut out a star shape and the other was a sun. Then you shine the light through them and the shape shows up. You can step it up by having multiple flashlights and have the kids play chase with the different shapes. We mentioned several times how God made the sun and the stars and then sang songs about them like "Mr. Sun" and "Twinkle Twinkle."

Day 5: Creation: Birds and Fish

This one we simply counted the birds and the fish and had her show us which one the red bird is, etc. We mentioned several times how God made the birds and the fish and then practiced making fish faces and bird noises.

Day 6: Creation: Man and Animals

After reading the story, we played an animal matching game (found at the dollar tree but you could easily print some off or cut out your own!), talking about how God made them and then acted like some of the animals.

Day 7: Creation: God Rested

 

After reviewing the days of creation and what we did each night, we talked about how God rested on the last day and we all pretended to take naps and then we acted like we were putting our dolls and trucks and other toys to bed by covering them up with a blanket and making snoring sounds :)


---Almost forgot to add that I also made this as a review and colored in each thing each day!

 

As you can see, 7 days of EASY and FUN activities to make the Bible come to life. As your kids are a little older, you can step your family time up to answer the question, "now how can we live this out today/tomorrow?"

It can be intimidating to talk about God with your kids, especially when a lot of parents don't feel "qualified" to teach them about something that they don't know a lot about. Remember that when your kids ask you a question, it's ok to say, "I don't know" and try to find the answer together and talk it out. The awesome thing about family time is the family gets to GROW TOGETHER. Just start. Make it simple. Make it a habit. Give it time. Allow yourself to fail or forget. Don't set too high of expectations that you know you can't meet. But know you can do this and you and the family will be better because of it. I'm pretty sure no one who ever became more of a friend of God regretted it :) You've got this. We're in this together!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions and to also share with me how your family time is going!

 

Bringing families together,

Tiffany

Wife, Mom, Children's Pastor

 

tiffanyjkoehler-gmail