Two Years Old...And Starting

My baby girl is 2!

I've been planning a Bible story theme for some very simple "tot school" (for lack of a better term), and made it my goal to start after her 2nd birthday. Thankfully we moved into our new house a few weeks ago, so I have been able to get settled in enough that this was possible. After living with other people for four months, I have to say that Norah and I are loving having our own time together each morning. I started last week by loosely following the schedule I'd made up, but not starting the lessons officially. Basically, that was us reading together for an hour and coloring for an hour!

This week we started to follow the plan I'd made more closely. Next two weeks, my parents will be visiting, so I don't think we'll worry about the "lessons." She'll be learning plenty from Grandma and Grandpa!

Day One - we read the Creation story from her Bible story book. This  is the Bible book I use for her.

I love it, but unfortunately for you :) I got it at a second hand store in South Africa. Fortunately for you, you can also get it on Amazon. :)

I love the pictures in this Bible, and the way the stories are told. So basically, I'm designing a simple "curriculum" based on the stories in this Bible. We'll spend a few days on each story, drawing themes from each.

The first day of each new month, we'll have a new memory verse. This month, Norah's memory verse is Genesis 1:1.

Monday I read her the Creation story, and then read some other books to her about animals, the Creation story, etc. I kept repeating to her how God made everything. Then I wrote out Genesis 1:1 on construction paper and had her color it for that day's activity.

She enjoyed that, and I hung it up in her room. I plan to hang up all her memory verses throughout the year. I found a couple songs for the verse online, so we sang those, and I've just been repeating the verse with her throughout the last couple days.

Today, we did Creation again, but the emphasis was on Light and Dark. While I was cleaning up from breakfast, I made her a really simple sensory bin. I got this idea from Karla Curry's blog. (She does an awesome sensory bin, you have to look at it!) I just put white rice and black beans in a big tupperware, and gave her a muffin tin, spoon, and measuring cup to play with. I told her the white rice was for light and black beans for dark. I might add other things to it through the week to represent other things God made. She loved the sensory bin! I just had to keep my sweeping for afterwards!

please ignore the boxes and unfinished kitchen - just moved in!

To start story time, we went into the bathroom, where there are no windows, and turned off the lights. I talked to her about how dark it was, and how that's how the world was before God made everything. She got a kick out of it. Then I turned on the light and told her how God made light. I let her play with the lights for a few minutes, and then we went and read the story.

At our activity time, she made a picture to represent light and dark. I got the idea for this from the artwork in the Bible book. She got to use a glue stick for the first time (LOVED THAT), and then she and I tore up yellow tissue paper and glued it on black paper. Her favorite part was definitely gluing.

And that was pretty much it for "school" today! We had snack, she had her alone time in her room (a habit we're trying to get back into since moving), we went on a walk, and after lunch she played with her sand table and a kiddie pool of water on the back porch.

All in all it was a fun and successful morning!