Bible Lessons

Maryn loves to spell.  Look what she put on our craft for our Bible lesson today.  :)

I really find most Bible study curriculums and ideas for preschoolers and toddlers kind of lame, or confusing for small kids.  This kind of leaves me to do things on my own.  I always wondered what other families do with their kids for family worship time and Bible lessons, so I just thought I'd share how we do it.  Although it changes all the time.

I usually just read along in Maryn's Bible story books (either The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes or The Jesus Storybook Bible) with whatever they are working on in Sunday School.  Maryn's Sunday School class sends home a great newsletter (kind of like a Weekly Reader) that has a Bible story, little games, activities, mazes, poems, songs or hand rhymes and other ideas for parents.  Josiah's Sunday School class sends home a great newsletter too with the sweetest little hand rhymes and songs, and simple little activities.  These two resources help me tremendously.

A few weeks before Christmas, we started reading about the birth of Christ, so we read Luke 2 again and again, about once or twice a day.  That's how Maryn learned it almost by heart.  Kids memories are incredible.  And we did little crafts and things as we went along.  I find most of those ideas now on Pinterest or dltk.com.  DLTK has a bunch of coloring sheets--probably a waste of paper for most kids, but you know how Maryn loves to color!

Then we learned about the wise men, Jesus as a boy, John the Baptist and Jesus' baptism, and then the calling of Jesus' disciples.

We just read a Bible story from her books or the actual Bible during our breakfast (my kids won't sit still any other time of day besides meals as they stuff their faces, and I find they do listen better).  OR we do the Cubbies lesson/practice the verse of the week for Cubbies.  OR we finish the newsletters from church, and discuss the crafts and things she made at Sunday School.

I'm getting way off topic.  Sorry!

So anyway, I wanted to share this CUTE disciples song we learned last week.  We don't sing the last verse.  But I love this.  Maryn is so cute singing it!

Tune of "Jesus Loves Me"

Jesus called them one by one,
Peter, Andrew, James and John,
Next, came Philip, Thomas too,
Matthew and Bartholomew.
Chorus-
Yes, Jesus called them,
Yes, Jesus called them,
Yes, Jesus called them,
He called them one by one.


James the one they called the less,
Simon, also Thaddeus,
Twelfth apostle Judas made,
Jesus was by him betrayed.
Repeat Chorus.

Matthias then took Judas' place,
To preach to men of every race,
Paul three preaching trips did make,
And went to Rome for Jesus' sake.

Now this week I'm trying to do all the most famous Peter stories or disciples and Jesus stories.  That's why we made the boat you see above.  I think we'll use it do the Jesus Calms the Storm story and the Jesus (and Peter) Walks on Water story.  We have a good Keith and Kristyn Getty song called "Once Upon a Boat," that's about Jesus calming the storm.  It's pretty cute.  I need more kids' Bible songs because I know very few.

Isn't it a lot harder to teach New Testament stories to preschoolers?  Teaching about the walls of Jericho falling down and Noah's Ark and the parting of the Red Sea was a lot easier and more "fun!"  But I think the best Bible lessons, even at age 3, are simple and straightforward.  I really hesitate to do anything too abstract., like some of the lessons I see online.  But since Maryn does love to color and do crafts, I try to get fun stuff like that sometimes in our Bible lessons.