Letter of the Day: Xx

On this new day of a new week

I decided to introduce my little ones to

counting bears!

First they were asked to sort all the teddy bears by color.

It looked alittle bit like the game "Twister" at times,

but they were really working hard to give a helping hand!

Tah-dah!

They did it!

Next, they were asked to choose a color teddy bear to work with.

They then had to sort them by little bear and by big bear.

In this task they worked alone and
 took their time to sort them properly.

After sorting their teddy bears they needed to
count the little bears

and then to count  the big bears.

We talked about which group had more!

And finally, I gave them an 'addition' sheet
 to go along with the teddy bears.

We talked about 1+1=? and 1+2=? and so on.

This was fun!

Watching them think about how to add new numbers was great!

Today, we had a special helper! My oldest daughter!

After watching me teach Joy School for years and years

 it was neat to see how well she could teach 'Circle Time' concepts.

She did great!

Our Bible lesson today was taken from the New Testament~ the book of Acts.

The story of Peter and John healing a lame man.

I love this scripture story because we see
 a healing of a lame man

created by the touch of the apostles

not the physical touch by Jesus.

Early in the year, Ll week, we studied
 how Jesus touched a lame man

and healed him. Today we studied
 how the apostles created the same miracle!

With Christ in us we can perform the same miracle!

After our lesson we went back to the table to make our Bible craft.

We painted today!

They all work so hard to create beautiful work!

Today we showed how the lame man became excited about his own healing.

"He went walking and leaping and praising God."

I cut a slit, using a craft knife, in their work sheet.

                          Then I attached their lame/healed man to a pop-sickle stick using tape.

                                             Next, I put the pop-sickle stick into the hole.

Finally, allow the children to play with the man by manipulating the pop-sickle stick

 to go up and down. As he healed man jumps up and down you can sing the song, 

"He went walking and leaping and praising God!" 

After all our work was done we moved into our Bible songs time.

I taught them the song that goes along with our Bible story and as we sang

they acted it out!

"Peter and John went to pray...

"...they met a lame man on the way..."

"He asked for alms,

and held out his palms,

but this is what Peter did say."

"Silver and gold have I none,

but what I have give I thee,

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth

RISE UP and walk."

"He went walking and leaping and praising God."

Walking and leaping and praising God.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth RISE UP and walk!"

We sang and reenacted the song many times!

The Joy was full in the house today!

Letter of the Day: Ww

I thought about what we could do today as our opening play time.
I realized that we had not yet played with "Thomas the Tank Engine" tracks and trains!
I love keeping all the tracks in a big Rubbermaid container
so that each play time the children can discover new ways of setting up their tracks.

It's so interesting to me how many times we've played with these tracks

and how few times we've repeated the assembly of them!

I was asked, as I always am, "Can you dump out all the tracks?"

Although to a mom it looks like a complete mess,

 to a child it's just easier to explore!

Let the experiments begin!

I asked them all to try and make one oval and one circle and see compare them.

An oval, they discovered, requires straight tracks and curved tracks,

 but a circle requires only curved tracks.

(So smart!)



Once they made one circle, the challenge was to make as many as they could.
Every time they made a new circle I had them count them!

When they had just about finished I showed them a track that could connect them all.
That was fun!

When we were done we left everything right where it was for later.

(I could not ask them to clean-up).

We had our Circle Time with a special helper today.

We are working harder and harder as Joy School is coming to an end.

Just a few more weeks and my little ones will have graduated!

In our Bible time and for the letter of the week, Ww, 

  we studied the story of Jesus' first miracle-'Water into Wine'.

We talked about how Mary, Jesus' mother, told the servants,

"Do whatever He tells you."

I shared with them how Jesus asked them to fill six jars

that could hold between 20-30 gallons of water each!

It took alot of energy to obey Jesus.

It took alot of self-control not to question Him.

But they obeyed and they were blessed to be a part of His first miracle.

We talked about how we need to learn to obey our mommy and daddy

quickly and obey with excellence

because one day God is going to ask us to do something for Him

and we need to be ready to obey quickly and do it with excellence.

Here, pinned the colored circle behind the pitcher and

it appears as if water is being poured into the cup.

 As they continue to spin the circle

the 'water' turns into 'wine!'

After a morning of hard work they always look forward to the prize box!