Noah's Ark Preschool Theme

Today we talked about Noah's Ark.

We have the Noah's Ark Little People Play set that is a lot of fun to use for this theme.  To tell the story I used the set.  I hid the animals around the living room.  When it came time for Noah to gather all the animals I had my son find the animals and put them in the ark.  After all the animals were gathered we put Noah and his wife in the ark.  Then we swayed the ark back and forth and used our hands to pretend it was raining.  Then when it was time we let all the animals out and my son found them new "homes".  Of course, he wanted a turn hiding the animals and telling the story too.

I also read Jan Brett's "On Noah's Ark" board book.  It has great illustrations and is not very wordy so it easily keeps small children engaged in the story.

Our main source for the day was from Living Intentionally.  She has a huge Noah's Ark pack that we enjoyed several activities from.

Here my son is drawing a picture of a penguin.

This link has several coloring pages like the one below.

You can find this printable book and more Noah's Ark activities here.

You can find more Noah's Ark ideas here and here.

Scriptures Stories- Nephi obtains the Brass Plates

Today we talked about how Nephi obtained the Brass Plates.  We watch the movie clip on http://www.lds.org/  and also looked at the pictures that pertained to this story on Scriptures4Kids.  Last week my children enjoyed having me draw out the story on our whiteboard so I did that again even though my drawing skills leave something to be desired.  We read 1 Nephi 3:7 and talked in particular about how we should follow Heavenly Father's commandments even though they may seem like a hard thing to do.  I also started teaching them the first verse of "Nephi's Courage" from the Children's Songbook. 

We also made these "brass plates".  I found a fruitsnack box and cut it so that it folded up like a book.  Then we covered it with aluminum foil and colored brown, then we wiped of the marker and it left the foil looking like more of a brassy color.  Another little activity we did to go along with this story was to cast lots since that is what Nephi and his brothers first do to see who has to go visit Laban the first time.  Of all the luck, I got the shortest stick!

We are still here

I have been horrible about posting, but we are still here.  My summer plans are not real firm right now, but I have an idea of where I am heading right now. 

Once a week I want to focus on talking about Scripture Stories and helping my children really learn about the people in the scriptures.  We are starting with the Book of Mormon. 

Today we talked about Lehi warning people that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed and he and his family leaving Jerusalem and traveling to the wilderness.

I told them a brief version of the story (Check out http://www.lds.org/ or http://www.scriptures4kids.com/ for ideas)

I drew some faces of Lehi's family so that they could get more familiar with them.  (I can't draw...)

Then we made a list of things that Lehi's family might have taken into the wilderness with them and things they would have left behind. (My 3 year old drew the wilderness in the pink color)

 Then we packed some things to take in our backpacks so we could travel into the "wilderness" ourselves.  My 3 year old wanted to be Lehi and have me be his wife, Sariah.  My 5 year old decided to be Nephi.

 We took a little walk down the street then we came back home and we set up their little play tent.  Then we went inside and said a little prayer thanking Heavenly Father for our blessings just like Lehi prayed after he'd reached the wilderness.

 Then we pretended to go hunting for some food.  Here is my 5 year old pretending to use a bow and arrow.  We also pretended to build a fire.  We are not campers at our house at all so my boys have no real experience sleeping in tents.  Hopefully something from the story of Lehi and his family Jerusalem will stick in their little heads. :)

My rough plan right now is to spend a day or two during the week with Scripture Stories, a day working on different skills to prepare for kindergarten, a day where we work on a craft or create something, and a fun day where we do activites based on movies, video games, or tv shows they like. 

Hopefully it'll be a fun summer!  We've already pulled our kiddie pool out and let the boys get wet.