Week 19 (part 2)- The Parable of the Sower

Finally, here is part two of the last post!

Bible

The Parable of the Sower...I was afraid that maybe this story might get lost in translation.  However, I think the boys really started to understand what Jesus meant by sowing good seeds, by the end of the week.  I'm always encouraged when I hear His teachings, reflected in their prayers.  Our memory verse for the week was Psalm 119:11:

Your Word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You.  Psalm 119:11

  

 We started off the first day by sowing some seeds on a towel to represent the dry ground:

Then, we talked about how God made seeds different.  How every single tree/flower/bush that we see has a different kind of seed.  I purchased a variety of flower seeds and some wild bird seed.  I dumped some in a pan for them to do a seed sort.  They loved this, and asked to do it again!

   Then we talked about what kind of soil would be good soil to plant a seed.  What would the seed need to grow?  I showed them a small planter box I had purchased with the dry soil disc's.  They said that would not be good soil!  So, then we added the water.  Afterward, we planted some bean and sunflower seeds:

A couple of days into the study, I allowed them to watch this video from Youtube.  We now watch it all the time.  I thought the movie was really cute and illustrates the parable well:

All week they had a page to complete called, the Good Deed Seed.  Anytime I caught them doing a good deed (without asking them too, OR without motivation just to get a seed!), they earned a seed.  The goal was to get all the seeds before the end of the week to have a grown plant:

 

  We made two flower crafts this week.  The first one was a handprint craft.  I traced the boys hands which were to be flower stems.  They added cupcake liners, pompoms and ground coffee to add more texture to the picture.  Their work is below:

"B"'s flower's

"C"'s flower's.  He was very proud of his pattern!

  The second craft was to plant a flower in good soil.  We started with a plastic cup, paint, tongue depresser/popsicle stick, and construction paper.  We painted the cup to look like soil and made a flower to attach to the popsicle stick.

At the end of the week, we made a heart with our verse inside:

Made a book to sequence the story.  They retold the the story and explained what happened to each of the seeds on the different soils and their parallel to people:

And, they had completed their Good Deed seed chart and we had grown some sunflowers (the beans were a flop)!

 

 Mommy's learning moment of the week:

   Do I need a transplant?  That's the question I found myself asking throughout the week.  Take a look at the picture above on the right.  Our sunflowers are growing well.  We planted them in good, fertile soil.  But what will happen to them if I don't transplant them to a bigger container?  Its roots can only go so deep, and the plant will only get so big.  This reminded me of my walk with Christ.  Am I happy where I am?  Have I become comfortable with my life to where I don't want to dig/root myself any further?  Do I think I've maxed out on my growing?  It was such a good reminder that I should never be "comfortable" in my walk with Christ.  I should ALWAYS be striving to anchor myself more fully in Him so that I may flourish.

Math

   This week, they learned how to add 10's together.  This took a bit of practice and will continue into next week to make sure they understand the concept.

Handwriting

   It was back to magic "c" letters this week!  They learned how to properly write "a", "d", and "g".  

Virtue of the Week:

   Naturally our virtue was love.  In coincided so well with Valentine's day and spreading good deeds.