God's Little Explorers: Traveling with a Tent

For week five of God's Little Explorers, we moved on to the story of God's Promise to Abraham, and the letter 't'.

Traveling with a Tent

An Exploration of the letter 't'

Letter: t

Theme/Focus: God's Promise to Abraham

Memory Verse: Hebrews 11: 9-11 (Excerpts)
"By faith [Abraham]...lived in tents...and was enabled to become a father because he considered Him faithful who made the promise."

Song: Father Abraham

I like to give Ada and Ida as visual a representation of the song as I can, considering they are not readers.   For 'Oh be Careful Little Eyes' I used a rebus.  For this song, we used paper dolls (blog post forthcoming on our paper doll fun). 

Introductory Activity:
Took the easy route here and watched the Veggie Tales episode, Abe's Amazing Promise.

Bible Craft:

I like using stickers to exercise Ida and Ada's fine motor skills.  Together they placed 100 stars in the night sky above Abraham.  I had Ada colour in a picture of Abraham from Christian Preschool Printables, then cut him out and added him to our picture.  Ada also traced the words 'God's Promise to Abraham'.

Math Connection: Counting to 100.
I chose 100 stars exactly in the previous activity because I knew I wanted to introduce the concept of counting to 100.  I used another 100 stars to create a chart where we circled the ages of people we know, and added Abraham and Sarah, to give an idea of just how long they waited on God.

I don't have photos, but we also made paperclip chains (2 for Ida, 3 for Ada, 38 for Mummy, 65 for Pa - my Dad - and then 100 for Abraham).  This gave a very good representation of 100 as well.  In a group of more children, you could have them take steps to represent years, and have someone stand at 3 steps, 20 steps, 100 steps etc.

Cutting/Collage Activity:

This was really in place of doing a collage this week.  Ada cut out the 't' to place in the tent we had made.  As we are making in interactive notebook of all their Explorers lessons, I like to include some pages that are actually interactive!

Vocabulary Turtle:

We actually did a number of turtle activities that I have not included here (in the interests of not boring you to death!).  I liked including the turtle not only for the 't', but because the turtle carries his home on his back, in the same way that Abraham and Sarah carried their household for years as they obeyed God and traveled where he led them.

The turtle has liftable flaps under which are pictures of 't' things.  I had Ada trace the easier words on the flaps.

Reading Readiness:

I like Becky (from This Reading Mama)'s resources very much.  When Ada is ready, I am going to use her 'Phonics by the Book' Curriculum, probably in conjuction with a repeat of God's Little Explorers for Ida.  As Ada gets more and more ready to read, I have begun including some of Becky's Reading the Alphabet resources (another GREAT pre-reader curriculum).

Both Ada and Ida struggle with 'left to right' and while she can't read the sentence, she learned the sentence, and I had her use the turtle to 'walk along the sentence' from left to right.  When I glued the activity into their notebook, I added arrows, laminated the turtle with packing tape for durability, and gave him his own pocket at the end of the sentence.

Rhyme Time:

Another resource from Reading the Alphabet.  Ada is all about what rhymes with what at the moment, so I added a Rhyme Time into our curriculum every week.  This will help introduce her to rime (as well as rhyme).

Dot Marker Activities:

I usually use Erica (at Confessions of a Homeschooler)'s alphabet dot marker pages, but I forgot to print one off this week, and ended up just making my own with paper and pencil.  I made a modification in that I numbered the dots to reflect how the letter is constructed, and had her dot them in order.  I think I will continue to do this.

Nursery Rhyme: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

It only made sense to include this nursery rhyme this week.  The colouring page came from Sparklebox and the star cutouts we did ourselves.  Ada loves to cut, and if I don't give her things to cut, she somehow manages to find her preschool scissors and the I find little bits of paper all over the floor!

Other Activities:
Alphabetti - Progressive Phonics
Lapbook Pieces - Homeschool Share
Letter Maze: 1+1+1=1
Sea of Sound: Sparklebox 


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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