The Fish and the Loaves

So many fun ideas for "feeding the 5,000!"

Here are some activities we did to bring this story to life in our home and I'll also add in some other ideas as well!

I googled "Fish and Loaves" and they had 2 pictures of fish and 5 pictures of loaves of bread on a sheet so I printed that off and we used that most of the week. We counted them and acted like we were eating them and having a picnic.

We even have a little net with fish for the bathtub, so when the story talks about how the food was multiplied, we added those fish into our "basket" for more to come out.

I also created a basket out of a half paper bag and a pipe cleaner! Super easy!

There's a few activities we didn't get pictures for--such as the bathtub fish and the coloring page and snack activity:
Here's the coloring page--corny but it works. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/101260691600529077/
Here's a snack activity that we did that was a big hit!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/101260691600529070/

And here's some more ideas:
Here's a game you can play:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/101260691600529080/

Here's another idea for how to multiply the food:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/101260691600529076/

Here's a craft activity:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/101260691600529073/

And another idea for making a "basket":
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/101260691600529067/




Up next: Zacchaeus! :)

Jesus Calms the Storm

This week, our Family Time consisted of a lot of extra time with family as we celebrated our baby girls SECOND Birthday! (Where did the time go???) So we repeated a lot of activities due to, let's be honest, lack of poor planning on my part as I was wrapped up in party planning and such. So be sure to check my pinterest board for lots of other ideas on how to bring this story to life with lots of cool activities!

But here is what we did to bring God into our home in fun and easy ways to learn about the story of how Jesus calmed the storm:

Day 1: Jesus in the boat with his friends
         So... we grabbed our "friends" that we have used and reused for other stories, and had to grab our best friend "Joey" to join us on the trip. We pushed the kids around in the "boat" calmly. Easy, right?

 

Day 2: The storm comes!

           We got in the boat again and this time went for a wild and rocky ride and screamed "WHOA!" a lot :)

 

Day 3: Jesus is sleeping

        No pictures for this one as we had the lights down and the pictures didn't come out well but we acted like we were Jesus sleeping in the boat and how he was brave.

 

Day 4: GRAB YOUR TOWEL!

        Or anything big and blue :) I grabbed our bathtime towel and waved it around like a crazy mom to act as waves and had it "splash" us.

 

 This picture is sweet to me... it was when we were all under the "wave" together.

Day 5: Calm vs Waves

        We grabbed our suits and the pool and enjoyed a hot spring day by splashing to make waves and then watching it get calm and talking about how Jesus calmed the storm.

Day 6: An ice boat!

 You'll need an ice cube tray, tape, a straw, a piece of paper or something to create a flag, and your freezer.

           This one I prepped in the morning to make sure we had it ready to go in the evening. I filled up 2 ice cubes and put in a 2 inch piece of straw and let it freeze! You'll need to help the straws stand up by holding them up in some way so they freeze standing up. When it was frozen, I cut a small triangle out of construction paper and taped it onto the straw to create a sail.

           We were hanging around outside so we moved family time out to the patio. I put some water in a bowl and we had fun "sailing" our boat! ---Until it melted 3 minutes later :)



So there you go!!! Another week of ideas of how you can start TODAY bringing God and the Bible into your home... and have more meaningful and purposeful time of connections together

The Parable of the Lost Coin

My hope is that you are able to look at these ideas on the blog to spur you on and equip you to see how you can do these simple and fun activities in your home. It's important for us, for our kids to remember that we spend time with God everyday and it's about a relationship (unlike a once a year thing--- aka Santa). We also want them to remember not necessarily what we did but that we were there as a family, spending time together and making that a priority... and doing it in a fun way :)


This week we had fun doing lots of "sensory" type of activities to bring the Parable of the Lost Coin to life in our home!


Day 1: Find the Lost Coin
      I found a bag of coins from Dollar Tree and I hid one before family time and she had to go find it. Then she would leave the room and I would hide it again and she would find it again :) This lasts a long time in our house!

Day 2: Finding the Coin in Rice
         I poured a bag of rice into a pyrex container and hid the coin in it. Then she had to find it and then close her eyes so I could hide it again. You should probably not do this activity on shag carpet... just sayin ;)

 Day 3: Coloring!
         As long as you have google and a printer, you can find a coloring sheet for just about anything! She colored (and her little brother helped) a picture of the Lost Coin.

Day 4: Finding the coin---in another way!
       I took the rice from the previous activity and poured it into an empty water bottle and then also put in some pennies and dimes. (The plastic coins from Dollar Tree are too big to fit in a water bottle.) The she got to shake it around and try to find the coins

Day 5 and 6: Making some "Coins" and hiding them--- cause, it's what we do! :)
      I got some aluminum foil and let her "squeeze" them into a ball and those were our coins that we got to hide and find!
       And on Day 6 we played this game again and also focused on how she was so excited when she found her coin so we celebrated with every coin found too.

So there you have it! That's how we made the Bible come to life in our home, in Family Time, in simple, fun and affordable ways!

The Parable of the Lost Son

Talk about Piggie overload this week!!! :) The kids had a great time with Family Time this week!

Day 1: Learning about the Daddy who had 2 sons but one went away
       We use some previous cut out people from other weeks and 2 were the sons and one was the father.
         And then also for this day, we used her 2 baby dolls as the sons and had her take one and make it go away and we waved  bye bye --but then she got excited and wanted the house and the other baby to go too haha!

Day 2: The piggy!
      We learned about how the son went away and lost all of his money because he partied too much and then had to find a job working with the pigs.
      I simply printed off a pig picture and let her color it.

Day 3: He had to eat the pigs food?!?!?
     We have a puzzle that has a pig so we got the pig and some of her play kitchen food and fed the piggy and the son.

Day 4 : Let's be a piggy!

      I took 2 pink pipe cleaners and put them on one of her headbands and took turns being pigs :)

And this was also Day 5 because she really liked this :)

even the horse joined in family time...

 

Here are some extra ideas!

 Day 6: Turn mommy into a piggy and feed her
          Grab a piggy head band and a pink blanket and let the kids feed you carrots :)

Day 7: Paint a Piggy!



         We took the picture of the big that we colored a few days ago and grabbed a paint brush and painted mud on our pig---with CHOCOLATE SYRUP!

 And then she thought the piggy needed a cookie after all of that hard work of getting dirty :)

And to wrap up the story--- throw a party celebrating how the son came back home!

 

We all love family time and look forward to it every day! Its so awesome seeing her want to read the bible for herself and opening to a page and knowing things about the stories!

 

It's my prayer that this blog will encourage and inspire you to take that next step in bringing God into your home throughout the week and all get into the Bible a little more than you currently do---and to LOVE it :)