2009-Mar-11 - Teaching the New Testament in a FUN way! Yeah!!!
Teaching the New Testament can be challenging to get it across to our precious little ones, but Homeschool in the Woods, Amy Pak has found a unique way~the lap book!!
In her New Testament Activity Pak is all the instructions for making one gorgeous lapbook along with two bonus activities of a newspaper ''scroll" and a poster study on the Armor of God.
I was given this to review for TOS Crew and I don't have little children in my home, but I am constantly faced with the challenge of teaching littles at our church. I adore teaching them, but had not ever considered taking my homeschool resources on the Bible to the children there. I obtained special permission from Amy to share with my little ones ages k-2nd grade in AWANA club ministry. She graciously gave me permission to use her resources with our children. I am SOO excited! Thank You Amy Pak! This is an age, and if your children are in this range, you KNOW just how active they can be!
But the Activity Pak has so many aspects to it that it will keep their little hands and hearts going on it busily as they learn of God's truth in the New Testament. The material covers from the Old Testament prophaceies of Jesus to the fulfillment in the New Testament, His miracles, His minsitry and life, last days, death, resurrection~the Lord's Supper and more! There is a neat activity to teach about the missinary journies of Paul..
Oh YOU have got to get this!
The Lord pressed it upon my heart with the idea to use this with my little children. I am gearing up now to use it. We are first going to go four weeks before Easter to teach the Armor of God then we will teach Jesus last days and resurrection in a lapbook format. The Armor project makes an adorable poster for each child to learn the elements of the Armor that is crucial to being good soldiers of the Lord.
THIS is very flexible too! No lessons are included except the Scripture references. I happen to like this as I often..OK, almost always prefer to write my own lessons. I am in the process now of writing lessons to go with our Armor study.
I will come back and share pictures of my little ones working on this project. Please pray for us, that I can convey the message of salvation and the need for fighting the enemy as a Christian in God's army!
To preview and check out Homeschool in the Woods' roducts HERE
where you can sign up for a FREE eNewsletter and read about this remarkable homeschooling family!
Homechool in the Woods offers several activity paks, one on the Old Testament too as well as many history resources!
Go see for yourself. . .and check back as I will be blogging about our journey through the New Testament using the new Activity Pak!
Blessings,
SisterTipster
Update:
This past Wednesday, I was able to begin using the Armor of God poster to teach the children about God's resources for fighting evil. Our children had written to some of America's heroes over in Iraq and in Afghanistan and I linked the idea of a soldier to the concept of needing armor to fight sin/evil/satan. I showed the children pictures of the soldiers they had written and pictures of the Roman soldier, discussing the need for armor and why Paul used the Roman armor to describe the tools for Christian battle. I showed them MY completed poster of the Armor of God and told them that next week we would be making one for each of them. They were so excited. Pictures were taken of their faces to use with the poster. I read the Scripture concerning the parts of the armor and briefly discussed each piece showing them the cut out pieces from the activity pak. I can't wait until next week to teach them further about the need to be able to resist sin by using their armor and to begin working on their own poster! They are excited too! I will keep you updated with next week's post about what we did and how we have used it. This activity pak has untold uses as it's simply but elaborately done, a hands on for children to teach truths of the New Testament! You find/ write /do your own lesson! How cool is that? WOW! So flexable and useful!! Thanks again Amy!
SisterTipster
UPDATE: April 18, 2009
I want to share more about what we have been able to do with the New Testament Activity Pak! In teaching the Armor of God, we took pictures of the faces of our children to make our Roman soldier. As part of the study, we also wrote soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq with a missions emphasis. This way, the children could relate to military service...and wearing armor. The emphasis also was placed on Paul's use of the illustration of the Roman soldier's armor as the by empowerment of the Holy Spirit to fight sin in the life of the believer. Early Christians could relate easily to the Roman soldier because of the occupation of the Roman Empire of the region. Not only did we do missions, teach Scripture, but we were able to teach historical background and context to the Bible. Wow!
Then as Easter was approaching, we used the prophetic portion concerning Christ as Messiah and Jesus' fulfillment in the Scripture. This was key in teaching how Jesus was just WHO He said He was, and our children to learn this...many adults don't know this stuff! It's awesome! Then we launched into the passion week with the Last Supper teaching the historical context of the first Passsover in Egypt. We were able to study out the Scriptures and make at the same time with HANDS ON learning the Bible truths of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord! AND currently we are working on preparing to cover the Ascension and Pentecost...
The big plus is that you can use the New Testament Activity Pak in the way you see fit~you write your own lessons for whatever age you are teaching. If littles, you will want to cut for them... but older children, ages 3-4th grades could easily cut and construct for themselves. Cutting everything out is the ONLY drawback...but it's minimal when you consider that it will teach so MUCH for such little cost with quailty illustrations representative of some beautiful works of art too. Very beautifully done!
I just wanted to let you know how it's going...My kids are loving it!! AND again to say, THANK YOU AMY!
Now a side note: Check out my left side column for an almost 3min film, "To Love" made by Amy's 13 year old son, Sam~
Congratulations Sam! AWESOME!It's on YouTube...and wonderful!
Blessings
SisterTipster
