Week 13 - Prayer For A Child

Hello to all!  I hope everyone had a splendid Thanksgiving with friends and family.  Prayer For A Child by Rachel Field is a simple book that shows a little girl praying for various things.  We rowed this book for 2 weeks since it also had a great tie-in to Thanksgiving.

To start, we made our own praying hands.   After we cut them out, the boys had to think of things that they pray for and then wrote them inside the hands.  This is one of the first times they have had to try and sound out the words in their heads and then spell it how they think it sounds.  They did a pretty good job and really tried to sound out the word.  The day we did this we read Anytime, Anywhere; A Little Boy's Prayer by Marcus Hummon.  Another great supplement book is Prayers for Children by Eloise Wilkin.

Next, we discussed the page in the book where the little girl prays for all the children far & near.  The page is wonderfully illustrated with faces of children from all over the world.  This was a great time to sing Jesus Loves the Little Children again.  They talked about where each child might live based on how they looked or what they wore.  Then we looked through the book called Children Around the World by Donata Montanari and discussed each child in the book.  We also read a book called A Country Far Away by Nigel Gray.  It is about 2 little boys who live in different countries but are doing the same things (only very differently!).  It was great to show them that not all kids have the same things, but both seemed to be happy with what they had.  We moved on to some of our lapbook activites (I used a little from homeschoolshare & homeschoolcreations) that included children from around the world.  The first one was finding the difference in each picture:

 And the second was a game.  You roll a cube that has pictures of children of different ethnicity's.  The first child to get to "10", wins.  I thought it was pretty basic, but the boys really thought it was fun.  

Another lapbook activity:

There were several pages in the book showing the little girl looking content.  We discussed what being content means.  I'm hoping that sticks around til after Christmas!  They drew pictures of themselves (like the little girl in the book) to hang above their beds.

So, I thought "B" got a little sidetracked as you can plainly see a Thomas the Train drawn in the picture.  He informed me, however, that he was praying and thanking God for his toys...to which "C" chimes in, "yeah Mom, just like the child in the story!"  As if to say, duh?!  We also discussed night time fear- as the girl in the book prays "through the darkness, through the night, let no danger come to fright."  We read When the Creepy Things Come Out by Melody Carlson.  A reminder that we just need to remember that God is always with us and we can always pray.

The first page in the story, the little girl is thanking God for her bread & milk.  So, we spent a day discussing where milk comes from, how it's processed, etc.  We read Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons and watched an old episode of Reading Rainbow (I haven't seen that show in years).

Finally we wrapped up the week with a prayer collage/thankfulness tree.  The boys went through lots of newspaper ads and cut out things that we could thank God for.  Then we assembled our tree:

Mommy's learning moment of the week:

So, as some of you know, the boys have really started to talk about salvation, heaven, hell etc.  I overheard a conversation between the two of them that really made me stop and think.  They were discussing death (I was a little fearful as to where the conversation was going but am glad I didn't intervene).  "B" asked "C", would you miss me if I was gone?  "C", with no hesitation, says no.  "B" looks surprised momentarily and repeats, "you wouldn't miss me?"  "C" immediately responds, "no Bud, because I know I would be with you again when I come to heaven."  End of conversation, back to eating peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  At this point, I was in tears because I was so happy that they had no fear but also ashamed that I would not be able to respond so casually at the thought of losing a loved one.  How quickly I forget that nothing I have is my own and from my own doing.  I am learning to praise God for His sovereignty and that He always makes things works together for my good.