Here is the best part. I started each day reading a Psalm or the weekly Bible story with my little guy. He learned so many Bible stories and lessons and "Bible time" is just part of our routine. I loved that character formation was a big part of this program, and it is interwoven into the crafts, games, and songs. It was good for ME to learn easy, clear definitions of self-control, patience, and kindness. As I look back over the past school year, the thing that really stands out to me about ABCJLM is the focus on character traits. Three- and four-year-olds are learning character at this age anyway -- for better or for worse. It's a pivotal, foundational time for character. This gave us great opportunities to talk about character qualities, how we struggle with them, and pray together for help with them. There are so many situations that naturally come up when you are four years old that are blatantly about character. What choice are you going to make right now? A good one or a bad one? These situations are so simple that this age is the perfect time to put a name on these choices. Example: Are we going to use self-control and choose not to whine? Let's look at how Jesus used self-control when faced with temptation. Are we going to obey dad right away, with a happy heart? Let's look at what happened when Jonah disobeyed God. You get the idea. We are always growing in character, but preschool is the perfect time to talk about it plainly because the character choices that preschoolers face are so uncomplicated.
I liked that the activities were not too long/complicated and we could move at Z's pace. We could take breaks whenever we wanted to just play, visit friends, eat, or do housework.
One of my favorite aspects of ABCJLM was the way you teach writing. Before learning the skill of holding and writing with a pencil, the letter and number formations are taught with tactile sandpaper letters they can trace with their finger. And they are taught in a sequence of how the characters are built. So instead of alphabetical order, the first letter taught is lowercase "l" and all the "straight line characters." Then they learn angled line characters, circle characters, bubble characters, and so on. This made it not overwhelming to learn new characters, because Z was just building on what he already knew.
The following are photos of a lot of (but not all of) what Z did and made. They are not in chronological order, and some are not right-side-up. :-) This is for our personal keepsake, for anyone considering the ABCJLM curriculum, or for anyone wanting preschool ideas. Enjoy. :-)
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| Made a Ten Commandment Train for memorization |
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| Ten Commandment Train |
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| Ten Commandment Train |
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| Learning the Calendar, days of the week, months of the year |
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| Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz stick puppets Learning about Goodness (We had a Bible story theme for each week. By the end of the week, Z was able to tell me the story.) |
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| Jesus and Peter walking on the water stick puppet Learning Faith and Trust |
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| Binoculars for keeping our eyes on Jesus Learning Faith and Trust |
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| Boat - learning opposites sink and float |
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| Connect the Dots |
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| Sheep for playing "Find the Lost Sheep" Learning about Forgiveness |
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| Joseph Forgives His Brothers Learning that sins are bad choices and make our hearts dirty. But when we ask Jesus to Forgive us, he takes the sins away and makes our hearts clean! |
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| Puffy Ball Jar Rewarding good choices (We also use an "If-Then" Picture Chart for bad choice consequences) |
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| Naaman is Healed Learning Thankfulness |
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| Story of the Ten Lepers The thankful one stood out to Jesus |
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| Thankful Watch Learning to be Thankful at all times |
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| The week of Thanksgiving we used this box to physically place things we are thankful for inside. At the end of the day we would thank God for those things as we emptied the box. |
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| Hand-and-Foot turkey Thanksgiving |
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| Drawing our family several times (those are teeth, if you're wondering) Fine Motor |
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| The "manna" was all over the living room floor when Z came down in the morning. He got to collect enough for the day and put it in his basket. Learning Self-Control and that God provides food. |
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| Temptations of Jesus chart Cutting and pasting, sequencing Learning Self-Control |
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| "Waffle" :) |
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| Painting with Q-tips Fine Motor |
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| Parable of the Talents Learning to be Responsible with what God gives us |
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| The Widow's Offering Learning about Giving |
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| The Lord is my Shepherd Learning about Gentleness from Jesus |
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| Psalm 23 Learning to be a sheep and trust our Gentle Shepherd |
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| Jesus Heals the Lame Man who was lowered through the roof Learning to be Kind to our friends |
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| Cain and Abel Learning about Peace |
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| Field trip to "A Day Out with Thomas" Dictated and "wrote" a story about it. Sequencing |
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| Christmas Learning about Love |
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| Robot - cutting shapes and gluing Fine Motor |
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| Connect the Dots Fine Motor Learning about Love |
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| Crown Little King Josiah story Learning to be Attentive |
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| Cutting lines and shapes Fine Motor |
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| Tactile letters and numbers for finger-tracing Learning letter formations Loved this part. So easy to remember. We also used these with the Memory Maze. I did the work of making them from sandpaper, but glad I did because they made learning the formations so easy. |
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| Learning to write with letter formations Start on green dots Stop on red dots We used all of these with page protectors and dry erase markers. |
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| Learning to write with letter formations Start on green dots Stop on red dots Trace and copy |
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| Learning to write with letter formations Start on green dots Stop on red dots Trace and copy |
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| Learning to write with number formations Start on green dots Stop on red dots Trace and copy |
Letter of the Week / Phonics
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| Ants (Fingerprints) |
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| Blue, Brown, Black (paint) |
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| Clouds (marker, cotton) |
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| Diamonds (construction paper) |
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| Elephants (crayon, stickers) |
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| Feathers |
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| Green and Gold Glitter Glue |
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| Holes (hole punch) |
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| Instruments (stickers) |
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| Jelly Beans |
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| Kites (construction paper, marker, string) |
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| Leaves |
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| Markers (stickers, obviously) |
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| Newspaper |
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| Orange, CheeriOs |
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| Pink, Purple, Peach Paint |
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| Quilt (fabric) |
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| Rainbow, Red Rectangles (construction paper) |
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| Seeds |
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| Triangles (those colored foam sheets you can cut) |
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| Umbrellas (paper, glue) |
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| Vegetables (paper, glue) |
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| Wiry Wiggly Worms (pipe cleaners, tape) |
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| Painting over white Xs so they show up (white crayon, paint) I know this is lame, but Z thinks it's SO funny that X is for "X." :) |
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| Yellow Yarn |
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| Zebra (construction paper) |
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| Number posters (stickers) |
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| Learning the Seasons A great visual for learning the cycle and key attributes of each. I printed off the trees, snowflakes, leaves, and apples. Z cut them out and pasted additional pictures from magazines. He did a "seasons presentation" several times with it. Information |
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| Drawing and painting shapes Fine Motor Visual perception |
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| Spring Garden Cutting and pasting Fine motor |
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| Weekly Memory Verses that correlate with the Bible story/character trait We reviewed and briefly talked about these each day after Bible time. |
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| Memory Verse Maze The rule is you can't go off of the yarn. You follow the yarn until you come to a verse. You have to say the verse from memory before you can move on to the next verse. Memory verses were boring until this. Z LOVED this. We also used this with the sandpaper letters for memorizing the letter and number formations. |
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| Memory Verse Maze |
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| U.S. Map Floor Puzzle I'm including this because Z just loves it and has to do it at least once a day. |
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| Making music He likes to play the bongos while I play piano and sing the song/hymn of the week. |
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| Building stuff |
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| Learning to read We started this in February in addition to ABCJLM and it has been just right. It makes sense, it's easy, and it works. My kid can read! |
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| Learning to count to 100; stars for each of the 100 Reading Lessons |
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| Lots of books. LOTS! I appreciated the book of the week suggestions from ABCJLM. |
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| Star = symbol of God's Promise to Abraham: As many descendants as stars in the sky. Learning about Patience |
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| Joseph in Jail Learning to be Patient |
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| Our "textbooks" The Bible, The Beginner's Bible, Big Thoughts for Little People, Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing, The Jesus Storybook Bible |
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| Helping Hand Poster Learning about Jesus the Servant-King Jesus Washes the Disciples' Feet Whenever we caught each other serving, we gave that person a sticker |
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| Jonah and the big fish puppet Learning about Obedience |
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| Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego Fire Painting Learning to trust and Obey God no matter what, because God is always able to save us. |
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| Wocket Pocket From the book "There's A Wocket in My Pocket" |
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| Using words to express feelings |
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| Tracking Visual perception - left to right |
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| Color tracking, Copying, Visual perception |
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| Learning food groups, Painting with vegetables, Easter eggs Information |
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| Painting with watercolors Fine Motor |
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| Painting Learning about Honesty and that we can't hide anything from God. The paint covers up the word "lie" in white crayon, which was supposed to show through the paint but it didn't. This photo is sideways but instead it looked like there was a cross in the middle when it was right-side-up. God's grace covers even lying, right? ;) |
We did other activities and learned about other things too like responsibilities around the home, mazes, crafts, careers, field trips, left and right, opposites, tying shoelaces, memorized the books of the Bible, lots of gross motor activities and playing outside with Daddy, Operation Christmas Child, etc. I will add to this post as we finish up the year.
2 comments:
Wow...that is a lot of pictures!:-) But seriously...that is outstanding, Kati. Great job with Zeke this year! I'm gonna look up that book on reading too!
Thank you! Yes, it is a lot of pictures! :) I'm sure they have much more meaning to us than to anyone else who reads this. What a fun and meaningful year.
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