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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Praise God! Part 5

Our kids understand why we need to praise God!  This exercise has also equipped them with the vocabulary to praise God. 

We defined praise one last time:
Praise God: To tell God how great He is!
Praise God: To thank God for all He has done for us!

Orange: Who is praising God?
Yellow: Why are they praising God?
Pink: What action are they taking to praise God?

I made a sheet for the kids to fill out:

 _____________________________ Praises God




God deserves my praise because____________________

I praise God when I ___________________

When I praise God, I use words like ________________________

I can do these things when I praise God ____________________.



I will praise God because He _____________________________.

Praise God in the ______________________________________.

Praise God when He ____________________________________.

Praise the Lord with ____________________________________.

Because God is __________________________, I will praise Him.

I will give God _________________________________.

When I praise God, I feel ________________________________.

______________________________ praises God.

Praise God ________________________________________.


Of course we colored it before we wrote on it...

And then we filled it in, either with words from our brain, or with words from the construction posters on the wall. 

Here are some finished products!

I think it went very well and can't wait to do it again with another set of children. 

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Praise God! Part 2

The Lesson Plan for week 1:

Define praise:  allow kids to define first.
Praise: To tell someone how great they are
Praise: To thank someone for what they have done for us

Praise God: To tell God how great He is
Praise God: To thank God for all He has done for us.

Discuss:
Who gets praised?  We all do
What do we get praised for? doing what we're asked, being polite, etc
Who praises God?  We all do
What does it look like when I praise God? 
How long do we praise God?
Where do we praise God?

On a note card or paper write
Orange: who praised God?
Yellow: why did they praise God?
Pink: actions they did to praise God?

Introduce a song for the kids to sing.  We sang several songs, but we started with verse 1 of Praise Him (#300 in Songs of Faith and Praise).  We sang it together, then we read the first stanza, defining words as we went.  Taking the orange crayon we had given the kids, we asked them to draw over the words in that stanza that discussed who was praising God.  We repeated this process for yellow and pink colors as well, only on the first stanza. 

We next did the same project with Doxology (#66).  It was simple song to sing, and another way to teach the kids to praise God.  Again, we had the kids highlight with orange, yellow, and pink crayons. 

The completed "Praise Him."  It took three weeks to finish.


A sideways Doxology. 

This took about 40 minutes.  I don't know why I thought I could teach this whole lesson in 1 hour!  Parts 3 and 4 coming soon!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Cleaning up the blog

I'm not sure what happened to our lessons, but some of them are, well, wonky.  It's a technical term.  :)  I will go back through and clean them up slowly over the next few days.  Hopefully these from this point forward stay un-wonky.  Thanks for your patience.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Praise God!

As adults, we take for granted that we know how to praise God.  Think about it: HOW do we praise God, and HOW did you learn how to do so?

The elders tasked us with teaching our children Revelation.  Yikes!  A difficult task for anyone, but to bring Revelation to a 6 year old level required brain stretching.  What did we want our little ones to learn about Revelation?  God won the fight?  Heaven is a wonderful place?  Jesus is Lord of all?  We certainly didn't want to introduce new vocabulary like "prostitute."   Or cause nightmares in one of our sensitive souls. 

So, we're praising God.  All throughout the book, the saints, elders, 4 living creatures, and the heavenly host are gathered around the throne in heaven, praising God.  Can you imagine it!  It gives me chills, and it gave Kim chills, and we want it to give our little ones chills, too. 

Over the next three Sundays, we're going to be teaching our children praise vocabulary using song book songs, children's songs, Psalms, and key verses from Revelation (there's the tie-in) to teach our children how to praise.  We will post pictures and lesson plans as I write them.  For now, here's a letter we wrote and sent to the parents and children in our class:

Dear parents of our wonderful first graders,


This Sunday and for the next two Sundays, we will be studying praise. We are going to be discussing who praises God, what we do when we praise God, what words we use to praise God, and why God needs to be praised. It’s a lot to cover, and we would love your help to reinforce these ideas at home. Today we looked at two song book songs that discussed praising God. We also looked at Revelation 4: 5, 11 and saw the four living creatures praising God. Next week, we will again look at a song book song and Psalm 100 to see what words are used to praise God and why we should be praising Him. Next, we will use our new skills to write our very own Psalm of praise to God. We will also look more closely at Revelation 5 and the praise vocabulary that is presented to us in that chapter.

We will have homework for the next two weeks. That sheet is attached. We are encouraging your child to make praising God a natural part of his day. We hope that as we enter this season of Thanksgiving, this will help your child understand that all blessings come from God, including his Son.

Learning to praise God is so exciting, and it’s a skill that needs to be developed. We hope you will partner with us in teaching your child this valuable skill.

In Him,

And the homework sheet:
 
 
Praise: To tell God how great He is


Praise: To thank God for all He has done for me.



This week I praised God for two things every day.



Monday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________

Tuesday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________

Wednesday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________

Thursday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________

Friday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________

Saturday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________

Sunday: 1. ____________________________________________

2. ____________________________________________



When you bring this sheet back on Sunday, you will get three extra stickers. We can’t wait to read your praises to God!

Love, Mrs. Kim and Mrs. Daesha