God's Little Explorers: An Infant, Insects, and Infection

The story of Moses in Egypt is not a brief tale. Nor is it an easy tale. Slavery, the slaughter of innocents, murder, insect plagues, infection, death...and yet through it all we are shown the faithfulness of God to His children, and in the redemption of Israel from slavery, given a foreshadowing of the Redeemer who came to set all of us free from the slavery of sin.

An Infant, Insects and Infection

An Exploration of the letter 'i'

Letter: i

Theme/Focus: The Story of Moses in Egypt

Memory Verse: Exodus 8:1b
"Let my people go...so that they may worship Me."

Song: I Will Sing Unto the Lord
The lyrics of this song are taken from Miriam's song of praise after the children of Israel reached the far side of the Red Sea and watched the destruction of Pharoah's Army in the water. The tune is very much in the Jewish style.

Introductory Activities:
Of course we watched excerpts from 'Prince of Egypt' and the Veggie Tales version, 'Moe and the Big Exit'.

Insect Matching:
This was mainly for Ida (2.5) but Ada got quite involved as well.

These came from Our Little Monkeys' {free} 'Going Buggy' pack

Bible Craft/Activity:
We completed several of these to mark the different events in Moses' life leading up to the Exodus from Egypt.

A maze to help Miriam follow baby Moses through the bullrushes. I found this maze here.

A collage of red tissue paper to illustrate the burning bush. The coloring page we used is from Ministry To Children

A flip page for Aaron's rod turning into a serpent. That's an actual stick cut in half lengthwise so it has a flat side to glue down. This idea came from Hands On Bible Teacher.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt:

I took this idea from one I had seen online, which was pre-printed number cards showing the plagues. This has also been done for the 7 days of Creation as well, by quite a number of people. Since I don't like to buy anything I think I could do a fair job of myself, I started by cutting out numbers from appropriate colors (blue for water, pink for skin, brown for cow etc), and glued them to the page. I found a sticker sheet (thanks to Deb Jackson, the QUEEN of Pinterest in my book) of the ten plagues from a site that no longer exists, but still has files to download if you have the link. You'll find it here, although I had to draw my own circle for flies, as the creator of this sheet used a bunch of other animals for pestilence.

I then cut out shapes to symbolize the ten plagues, and used the stickers as a guide for Ada to illustrate the plagues on the numbers.  It was pretty complex, but I am constantly astonished by her capacity for recall (of course she takes after me!) She asked me over and over to tell her what the plagues were, and when hubs got home from work, she was able to relate them all to him by herself, including description of what each plague included (frogs in houses and beds, itchy skin from bites, locusts eating all the crops etc).

Story Sequencing:

Another excellent resource from Ministry to Children. Mandy Groce is one of their main artists and her work is excellent.

Letter Collage:

This was pretty simple... just an island. I wanted to do something for lower case i, using the sun as the dot, but failed to find inspiration.

Letter Puzzle:

From the Cornerstone Confessions Encompass Curriculum.  I trace around the letter, then cut out the piece and trace their individual lines, then let the girls' at it.

Flap Vocabulary: Igloo

Ada and Ida both enjoyed the 'lift-the-flap' Turtle vocab we did for the letter T, and the clock we did for the letter C, so much that I have decided to try and do a 'Flap Vocabulary' every week. The hard part is choosing something beginning with each letter that is also made up of several elements that can be used to make the flaps, although Igloo was perfect this week.

Science Connection: Insect Anatomy

The scientific names of the insect orders are purely for my own benefit. It's been nearly 10 years since I had 11th graders doing insect collections, so it's nice for me that I can still recall the names of all the Families in the Order Insecta.  I got Ada to color the head, thorax and abdomen of the examples in coded colors, and then she counted the legs on each one, coming to her own conclusion that they all had six legs.  Of course, we then had to discuss spiders and how they have eight legs, and that means they're not insects.

I don't have photos yet, but we have a cocoon we are watching, that is attached to a rose bush outside. Ada keeps trying to shout at the moth (I'm sure it's a moth) to wake it up.

Other Activities and Resources:

Alphabetti - Progressive Phonics
Lapbook Pieces - Homeschool Share
Letter Maze: 1+1+1=1
Sea of Sound: Sparklebox 
Reading Readiness and Rhyme Time: This Reading Mama
Dot Marker Letter: Confessions of a Homeschooler
A-MAZE-ing Alphabet: Me. Get it here.
Alphabet Roll'n'Graph: Me. Get it here.

Note:
We are following 'God's Little Explorers,' a free, Bible-based curriculum for preschoolers by Stacie Nelson, who blogs at motherhoodonadime.com

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Next Week:
A Question of Quail - Moses in the Desert | an Exploration of the Letter Q

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