Don't Worry, Be Happy

Experience God with Mother Goose Time

God Cares About My Worries

(the story of Jesus Walks on Water)

Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything

Philippians 4:6

Experience God with Mother Goose Time is a great way to add Christ and faith into your day.

Today we focused on our worries and how to hand them over to God and Christ after reading the story cards with the story of how Jesus walks on water.

The Experience God guide book is easy to follow. Here's a peek at one of the activities we did today.

This picture below shows a lot about my sensitive Mr A. He sure does have quite a lot on his mind.

So, instead of using blocks for the activity, we used tangerines. They have more weight to them and it was what I had lying around. We discussed what we worried about. Mr A was rather quick to answer and had quite a lot to say. I was surprised. Most of his worries were of family getting hurt, friends being sick, getting in trouble. But every time we mentioned a worry, a tangerine was placed into the plastic bag.  When there were several, we talked about how much the bag weighed. Both the boys walked around with the bag and lifted it. It was pretty heavy after a while.

We talked about how having so many worries is not fun. Its tiring and kind of makes you cranky. But, that's what Heavenly Father and Jesus are here for. If we tell them our worries and struggles, they can help make it better. Take them away and lighten our load. I did have a cross cut out of paper and we placed our worry tangerines on to it. If we pray often, we don't have to carry the weight of worry. The bag was much lighter when we unloaded the tangerines to the cross.

In the Experience God child packs there are materials for 4 crafts and 4 worksheets. The first craft was to make puppets for the story. They didn't want to add the popsicle sticks to the pictures.

Then we colored together...Jesus talking to the people, a coloring sheet in the child pack.

Mr Z asked where Jesus lived. I told him that he actually lives in all of us, though he does live in heaven too. Mr A chimed in that he lives in our heart. He is exactly right. I expanded and told them he does live in our hearts and that's why he can always be with us. We just need to talk to him and ask for help when we need it. Sometimes when we ask our parents, family, or Jesus for help when we are struggling things don't have to be so hard. There is always someone close that help.

Don't worry. Be happy and Pray.

God is an Artist

Experience God with Mother Goose Time

God is an Artist: The Creation Story

The thematic unit for Mother Goose Time this month is The Art Studio, learning about famous works of art, artists from around the world and various techniques used. To compliment this art theme, the Experience God add-on uses the story of The Creation to illustrate how God is an artist. The first week goes over how God created color and light. After Mr A and I read the story cards for the first time and we learned what He created on each day, Mr A was impressed that He created us. He gasped and said "Woah" with wide eyes and a smile.

Mr Z was busy with something else while I read the story cards with Mr A. But, when he was ready to sit with us, he had fun putting these cut out pieces on the Day 1 card. Basically the discussion with him went like this while he was playing with the cut outs, "God made our earth, birds, animals and the sun for us to see. God made the land, plants and oceans. He made the sun, moon, stars and everything that we can see and even people"

We played with play-doh for a little while to see what we could create with just our hands. Mr A wanted to find the bin of tools to use with his dough, but I reminded him that God didn't use tools to make the universe. "Oh yeah. I can use just my hands too." Then Mr A made me with his play-doh... with arms, legs, a face and a big belly with the baby inside. "Artists use dough too make stuff too? ... Oh yeah, like Grandpa in his workshop. He has lots of clay to make things."

The art project for the lesson was to be an artist and paint each day in the creation story. In each child's packet were a coloring sheet, paintbrush and cardboard paint palette. The boys were intrigued to be using something so different to hold their paint, usually we just use a bowl.

I noticed since Mr A is a lefty, he started painting on the right side of his paper. I can't recall if he normally does this, but I thought it was interesting. I think he's picking up that if he starts on the right side, he won't get his hand all messy by crossing over what he already did.

 Mr Z painting away with no rhyme or reason. It  makes me smile.

I love seeing how the two work side by side. Mr A used to make the mess of mixed paint but has started paying more attention to detail and keeping things more neat. The transition from chaos to tidy is interesting. Sometimes it seems like it just happened overnight. I love watching how the two of them take on art projects. It was fun to hear Mr A encouraging Mr Z about his painting technique, "Wow that's awesome. Your black sun is cool. And I like your rainbow tree you painted. I'm going to do that too."

Mr Z was long finished with his painting, but Mr A was still working hard. I told him about the artist's paint palate and demonstrated how its usually held. Mr A gave it a try.

God is an artist and so are we. We are His masterpiece. He created light that we may see and He is our light if we chose follow Him.

Listen and Obey with Experience God

God Asks Me to Listen featuring Noah and the Ark

The Experience God Christian Add-on

Sunday morning we continued talking about the Bible story, Noah and the Ark. This week's focus in the lesson book was listening to and obeying God. Last week we covered the story itself and how one might hear what God is asking of us and how we could listen to something that can't be seen or really hear, but felt. It was a little confusing for Mr A.
This week we started Experience God by making the craft included in the children's pack for this weeks lessons... a hammer. Foil was given to wrap around the head of the hammer, but it deemed too frustrating to get it just right with the first one we tried and so both boys opted to color their hammers with markers instead. We talked about how if we listen to God and do what is asked of us, He will provide the tools necessary to complete the task... just like he did for Noah.

Mr Z was using markers as nails to hammer them, then pull them out.

I got out the box of wooden blocks and we all worked together to build an ark/boat. The boys used their cardboard hammers to nail the wood blocks together.

 Mr A had to add a door tall enough for the giraffe to fit under.

 We added rooms to the ark for the different animals to be with their friends.

I love how the explanations for the lessons are written simply. They are easy to understand and to talk about.

We had a fun time with the Experience God lesson this week. Unfortunately, the dog ate Mr A's hammer and he was rather upset. Mr Z uses his all of the time and slept with it the other night. Some crafts are just too awesome to let go.

Noah and the Ark

Noah's Ark with MGT's Experience God

Experience God is an add-on program that Mother Goose Time offers. We like the simplified version of the bible stories that are featured in the lessons.

This whole week I've been a day ahead of myself for some strange reason. So, I thought today was Sunday and planned to do the Experience God lessons. Well, I guess you can talk about God any day of the week and so we started our discussion.

Mr A was interested in the story since it was about a big boat and a flood. The packet includes a featured scripture to talk about throughout the lessons/month and so I tried to come up with examples that the boys could connect too to help understand what was meant. Mr A just said that non of it made sense. Oh well, it may click later.

We made a list of things that you may need or would be helpful to build a boat. I think Mr A's idea of paper was funny... because you may want to keep busy by painting pictures while stuck in a boat. Then talked about that if we "listen" hard enough to what God is asking us to do, He will provide everything we need to accomplish it, just like He did for Noah. Then I read the included story cards about Noah and the Ark.

The boys were rather antsy after all the discussion and the story. So, we hopped straight to the craft... the Ark Art. In the children's packets there are four crafts, one for each week that corresponds with the theme of the week for the story.
The boys cut out their animals and log strips. You can kind of see what the project should look like from the tiny picture on the right of the guidebook.

Mr Z chopped his papers up and began gluing all over the place.

Love Mr Z's tongue sticking out while he is concentrating so hard.

I thought this was clever from Mr Z. He added glue just to the feet of the rhino's. Then of course he added more animals on top of them.

Mr Z's Ark Art.

It cracks me up how he just piles things on top of each other and is just happy with it.

Mr A took a different approach to his ark. He wanted it to look so good. He was singing a song while he added his wood paper pieces to the roof... "I'm patching up the roof, with these squares. I'm patching up the roof to the boat."

He added some small fabric flowers to his ark to decorate it and make it look pretty for Noah and all the animals. Mr A also added his animals to the front and back of his ark so that they could be inside the boat.

While I was doing something in the kitchen, Mr A came out with this puzzle. He mentioned that it would be a good thing to do because it had all the animals and a boat on it. I told him it was actually perfect for the story we learned about because it was called Noah's Ark. I had completely forgotten about this puzzle in the closet. Mr A was pretty excited that it was actually about Noah's Ark and got right to putting it together.

The boys like to put together the boat first and can do the puzzle by themselves. We hadn't really noticed before that there were actually 2 of each animal in the picture.

What a fun way to spend the morning. The puzzle was a happy surprise that connected the story in a different way.
I'm grateful MGT makes it easier to bring these lessons into the home in a fun way.

Prayer vs Wish

On Sundays I have made a flimsy commitment to try to do our Experience God from Mother Goose Time more efficiently. Hopefully, I'll be able to be better at it... for the kid's sake. They need to know these stories and values and I am terrible at actually talking about these sorts of things. The theme for April's Experience God is God Asks Me to Pray. It features the Easter Story, so on Easter we ran through the poster cards and read the story and a few activities.

This week on Sunday, we talked more about prayer and what it is. We talked about how prayers can be said at any time and in any way. Mr A was a bit interested and surprised that Jesus and Heavenly Father can hear prayers even if you whisper them or say them in your mind/heart.

We played a game of hide-and-seek with letter cards that spelled out 'pray'. There were two sets, so the boys matched the letters as they found them from around the yard.

The guidebook gives the example that prayers are like bubbles. No matter the size of the bubble, it will float in the sky towards the heavens just like how prayers of all sizes reach Jesus and Heavenly Father no matter what. Of course, the bubbles make the boys crazy and they popped them like mad-men.

We talked about how Jesus wants to hear everything that we desire and are thinking. We have to ask him help in order to receive it. By being able to pray whenever, however and anywhere we want to, we are able to communicate with him. We talked about things we could pray for: to help others, to feel safe, to be healed quicker from sickness, to have patience and all sorts of other things.
In our individual packets of materials for Experience God, there were some to make a prayer basket. A plate to decorate how you wish to fold into a basket; we painted them.

After they were dry, later that evening we finished our baskets. Mr A cut out his prayer bees and labels. They read "Pray for Me" and "Pray for Others."

After Mr A's was complete, he needed to say a prayer for his friend who wasn't feeling well. He also prayed for his Daddy who has been working long hours and is very exhausted. Mr A whispered softly and I have no idea what he actually said. When he was finished he was happy that even though he talked softly, Jesus could still hear what he was saying and that I could not.

He let me write the main gist of his prayers on the backside of the bee card. He slipped it inside his prayer basket for the bees to deliver to Jesus (even though He already knows, it is just reassurance.)

Then when we were all done, Mr A kept wanting to say more prayers. He said he was praying that him and Mr Z could run fast like cheetahs. He said a few more silly prayers and we had to talk about the difference of a wish and prayer. That's kind of a hard thing for a little person. A wish and a prayer are so similar, its hard to understand. We'll work on it.

But, with this week's lessons we learned that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father hear your prayers no matter what and that you can pray for yourself or others.

I'm kind of excited that this lesson has sparked more an interest. Mr A has been asking more questions about Jesus and prayers. We will all learn together, since I'm not very good at this stuff either.