Firm Foundations 9:3

Theme: We can obey God with confidence, for He always knows what's best
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight." (Prov. 3:5-6)


Scripture Memory: Review Romans 3:23

Catechism Q&A: Q. What did God require Adam to do? To obey the Lord perfectly.

Trust and Obey, part 1: Read Isaiah 40:11-15, 22-26. Before reading, tell your children to listen for: 1)What God measures and 2)Where He sits. This passage gives us a picture of God's awesome knowledge and power.
Take some measuring cups, a scale and a ruler outside. Tell your children that you are going to measure how much dirt is in your yard. After spending some time digging and measuring, tell them the job feels too big. Do they agree? Even though it would take your family a very long time to measure all your dirt, God knows not just the amount of dirt in your yard but also the amount of dirt in the entire world! Emphasize that God knows everything. Tomorrow, we'll talk more about how His omniscience enables us to obey with confidence.

Notebook: Mix some dirt with glue and then smear it onto the scale picture for today's notebooking page

Firm Foundation 9:2

Theme: God gave Adam 1 rule
"And the LORD God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.'" (Gen. 2:16-17)

Scripture Memory: Review Romans 3:23

Catechism Q&A: Q. What covenant did God make with Adam? A. The covenant of works.
Q. What was Adam bound to do by the covenant of works? A. To obey God perfectly.

Making Rules: Do your children understand rules? If they're like mine, they probably have a fuzzy idea but couldn't define the word clearly. Before reading today's Scripture passage, play this fun "make your own rule" ball game.

Gather some balls and baskets or boxes beforehand. When it's time for the game, ask your children what a rule is. Talk about their definitions, then give one of your own: A rule is a command that must be obeyed consistently. What sorts of rules do you have in your house? Name some of the rules. Then tell them that they get to make the rules for this game! They can make rules for the following 4 areas:

1. What is the playing field?
2. How do you move the balls around?
3. When do you get points?
4. Is there anything you CAN'T do during game play?

Spend 10 minutes or so playing their game together! When the game is done, sit down and read Genesis 2:8-17. What was the one rule that God gave Adam? Shouldn't be too hard, should it?

Notebook: Make a mini book using one of these lapbook templates and record some of your family's rules. You can either have your children illustrate the book or find clipart using Google Image.

Kindergarten Geography: Africa

The last 2 weeks we stopped some of our normal studies and took a whirlwind trip around the globe, familiarizing ourselves with the 7 continents. Our unit study was very fun - lots of reading and play. I think Africa was one of the most enjoyable continents to study, so I thought I'd share our lesson with you:

• We read  "Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears" and "Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters"
• We had our own safari.! To explore some of the amazing animals in Africa, I downloaded Discovering God's Animals from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Using the included animal pics, I hid animals all over our living room and dining room. Then my kiddos went on an animal hunt! They loved the search process. Afterwards, we looked at the pics and discussed them.
• We located Africa on a map.
• Finally, we explored some of the interesting women in Africa carry objects & babies! First, my girls wrapped themselves in large swaths of cloth. They then took their baby dolls and placed the babies in wraps on their backs. Quite fun! Second, we practiced carrying things on our heads, inspired by watching this video:
  

Firm Foundations 9:1

Theme: God created everything! Therefore, He makes the rules
"In God's hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him." (Psalm 95:4)


Scripture Memory: Over the next several weeks,  our memory focus will be the Romans Road, a selection of verses in Romans that clearly present the Gospel. This week we'll begin with Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Here are a couple options for learning the verse:

• Download Romans 3:23 set to song.
• Steve Green's Romans 3:23 song from Hide 'em in Your Heart
• And of course, make up actions for the verse. We're going to do the Steve Green version, so I'm not going to post actions here. If someone else wants to come up with some, send them my way and I'll post them here.

Catechism Q&A: The wording for this week's catechism questions and answers is a bit too technical sounding for me. I'm going to reword it to make it more understandable for my children.
Here's the original wording:

• Q. What covenant did God make with Adam? A. The covenant of works.
• Q. What was Adam bound to do by the covenant of works? A. To obey God perfectly.

Here's my wording:

• Q. What did God require Adam to do? To obey the Lord perfectly.

Owner's Rights: Provide your children with  a) some paper dolls,  dress shapes, glitter and stickers. Tell them to color and decorate however they wish; or if you have a boy that's not so hot on paper dolls b) Some playdoh, buttons, pipe cleaners and pom poms. Tell them to create anything they want out of those objects. Set the timer for 5-10 minutes and allow your children's inner artists to come loose!

When they're done, pick up the doll or sculpture and pretend to talk for it. Have the created item tell your child it really wants to be different, that it would prefer to be a skydiver and so it needs a parachute and airplane. Or that it wants to be a firefighter and needs a jacket, hose and hat. Isn't it silly for the toy to tell its owner what it should be and do? The owner makes the rules, not the toy!

Read Psalm 95:1-7a. God is our owner, as well as the owner of everything in the world. Doesn't He have the right to tell us what to do and to make us the way He wants us? Compare our situation to their creations. Then read the Psalm again and rejoice in our great Creator!

Notebook: Snap a picture of their creation. Put the picture in today's Notebook square as a reminder that the creator makes the rules!

Firm Foundations 8:2 - Holiness

Theme: Sin ruins happiness
"The Israelites became greedy for food and tested you there in the desert. So you gave them what they wanted, but later you destroyed them with a horrible disease." (Psalm 106:14-15 CEV)

Scripture Memory: Review Psalm 119:9-11. Do you remember all the actions?

Catechism Q&A: Q. In what condition did God make Adam and Eve? A. He made them holy and happy.

The Unfortunate Events: Do your children remember what "holiness" is? Pure goodness, all the way through! Even if they don't remember the word, I'm sure they remember the candy bar...Just as the candy bar was yummy and wonderful, the world that Adam and Eve lived in was wonderful too. That is, until sin entered the world.

Read selections from Psalm 106. Talk about how the Israelites' sin always got them into trouble. It always ended up making them unhappy. Show your kids another candy bar. What they don't know about this one is that you scraped out some of the insides and inserted garlic and onion seasonings instead. Let them take a bite - Ewww! It's pretty disgusting. That's what happened when sin entered the perfect world. It ruined God's wonderful creation, including ruining Adam and Eve.

Do your kids like yelling? What about when a friend is mean? How about when a sibling hits them? All those things make us sad, all those things are sin. Some sin looks good on the outside, just like the candy bar did. But once we get involved in it, it will turn out to be yucky and to hurt us.

Notebook: Smear some of the chocolate from the candy bar on to the square. Have your child draw an unhappy face saying, "Ewwww!"