Preschool week 12 (letter Hh, number 6 and Gideon)

For this week we covered a lot for our Bible story. We covered the letter Hh, number 6 and the story of Gideon. After reading through the story of Gideon in the Bible I wasn't sure how to go about teaching it to Oliver. Everywhere I looked for resources the only part covered of the story was the very end when he used torches to march around the city. There is SO much more to the story and it's awesome how God worked through this man, and prepared him to lead. So I decided to break up the story through several days and focus on different parts each day. The first day we covered the part where God spoke to Gideon by causing fire to come out of a rock.
I had Oliver find a rock and we tore up orange tissue paper and glued it down to the rock (with only elmers glue too!)

The next day we read about the fleece Gideon put out on two nights asking God for a sign (one night the fleece stayed dry and the ground was wet, the next night the ground was dry and the fleece was wet). I tried to explain this to Oliver as it's something he doesn't quite understand, seeing how I am not able to create a miracle (ha!). To physically show this, I got two pans. One had water in it and Oliver dropped a napkin in it to watch how it got wet. The next pan was dry and I put a napkin in it and let Oliver put water on it. I explained how they both got wet and how God was able to make a miracle by keeping the parts dry that shouldn't be. Oliver may not have understood this, but he enjoyed doing the physical activity. I know once he's older he'll understand :)

Another day we focused on the next part of the story, when God had Gideon separate out his men that would go into battle with him. Gideon had thousands of men for his army, but God wanted him to take them to the river and watch how they drank the water. If the men were down on the ground, drinking water directly out of the stream they would not be chosen. The men that used their hands to cup water up to their mouths would be part of his army. This dwindled the number of men down to merely 300. I'm amazed at how few God required, but it showed how great He was and that it was not on account of men that they defeated the Midianites.
I had Oliver build a stream out of his legos, then showed him how the men were chosen by how they drank from the stream. He liked practicing this one, but only a couple times, then he was done! It was a good visual I think.

Our final part of the story. We read through the final part when Gideon led his men around the camp of the Midianites, blew their trumpets and broke their pitchers to reveal their lanterns. The Midianites were defeated by simple shouting, but by the mighty work of God. I helped Oliver create a torch and trumpet, using some paint, glue, tissue paper and toilet paper rolls. I have to admit we never finished his torch as we were letting the paint dry, but that's okay. Oliver didn't seem to mind as we became busy with other things!

And for our letter Hh I did something recommended from ABCJLM. I took a mirror out and had Oliver  breathe the "h" sound into it until he saw it fog up on the mirror. It was a great way for him to make the sound correctly and he continually says it correctly whenever I ask him what sound "H" makes. A great way to learn it! And he worked on the number 6, with some play doh, a favorite. I helped roll them out, as he's not that good with fine motor skills yet, but he's getting better at it.

Finally this week we started making thankful leaves in honor of the month of November with Thanksgiving. I cut out some leaf shapes in construction paper and strung up some yarn for us to tape them to. We are daily writing new things we are thankful for on our leaves and it's fun to see the string of leaves get longer and longer. We have so very much to be thankful for. God is so good and I am so grateful for all He has allowed us to have, and all He continues to teach us!