"Breaking Bread like Jesus"

We have been bringing Luk into the church service with us for a month or so, now. He misses being in the nursery, but it was time that he moved into the big service. Well, it is with this transition that I have learned many lessons have to be taught. Our wonderful pastor was preaching on John 6 and how the disciples were grumbling about following Jesus. He went into how we are to follow Christ through all things, but could something happen to make you up and walk away from Him. In this he mentioned, Jesus was the "bread of life" and how Jesus mentioned the drinking of his blood. Yep... Luk takes his shoulder off of Reson, looks at me, and says, "Jesus wants us to drink his blood!" Yep. Good times. I whispered in his ear that Jesus did not mean that we are to really drink his blood, but that Jesus died on the cross for our sin. We need to know that his blood needs to be in our lives to go to Heaven.
It was through this topic that I decided I needed to talk to Luk about the Lord's Supper that we will be partaking in this Sunday.
So, I made an activity day out of it. Luk and I made bread. Before, we did this, I shared with him the story of Jesus and his disciples sharing their "Special Meal." Then, I showed him how the cook book worked and the ingredients.

Salt, shortening, yeast, very warm water, flour, mix, kneading, set to rise.

The dough rises double, cut in half flatten, roll up tight, put into a loaf pan, set to rise again, butter the loaf ("painting" as Luk says), bake. Luk loved seeing the finished product.
I was proud. This was my first time making bread (and not with a bread maker machine), and it turned out great! The same day I set to make a Pot Roast on the Slow Cooker, and it was quite yummy.

Once the table was set, and Reson got home he read the story of the "Special Meal" with Luk again. We taught him to eat bread remembering Jesus' body dying on the cross, and that the juice represents the blood he shed for us. It was a special moment! Luk told me today, "Mom, I have Jesus in my heart. Does Jack Sparrow have Jesus in his heart?" I replied, "Only Jack knows if he has Jesus in his heart." Luk retorted, "Well, I do!" It was a special conversation, and it brought a true happiness in my heart.

Here is our family communion...

I also had Luk make a mini book on the Lord's Supper. "The Special Meal" Luk put the food on the plate, a puzzle of a picture of Jesus with his friends, the 12 disciples, and "What else starts with..." C (for cup), B (for bread), and F (for fish).

All in All, this week has been a blessing to say the least.

Our First Lapbook: "The Letter A"

I'm nervous posting our first Lapbook. After doing much research, I have decided that this is one of the key ways that I want to teach Luk. I am nervous because I have seen some amazing Lapbooks, and I am hoping that I did it right. Luk really enjoyed it, and so did I.
The idea behind a Lapbook is taking a folder, a topic, activities, and creating a mini-book. Luk already knows the sounds and recognizes his letters, but I decided that I would do Lapbooks on the vowels. It gives him a way to become familiar with the different long and short sounds that they make. As for the rest of the alphabet, I plan to make each letter a reference for things like B is for Butterfly. From there, Luk will learn the body and living of a butterfly and so on.

I want to start by writing what I did to plan this out. First, a very helpful site is on my sidebar and you can join for free. It is inspiring and helpful as other moms post their lapbooks and themes. After looking at this site and many others, I came up with my own lapbook and plans.

 Luk loves mazes, tracing, and coloring. I looked for crafty ideas, here is what I planned:

Eric Carle's ABC Game, Apple Superhero, Anteater, Traveling, Ape, The Letter "A" Minibook, Tracing "A"and lines, Counting with Apples, Long and Short "A" sounds Minibook, BIG "A"/little "a", Letter Recognition.

The Cover: The Mouse in our book "airbrushed" the letter 'A,' so Luk painted his.

Luk then created his "First 'A' Book:

I wrote the other word down and demonstrated, he wanted to write "apple." This is without him formerly being taught lower case letters.

Maze time, each character went to apples.

He was so excited that he found his way without crossing the lines.

Find the 'A'

Lunch time: Apples and an Alligator

Now, time to count the apples

Is it the Long 'A' or Short 'A' Sound? Is it a BIG 'A' of a little 'a'?

Finding the Long and Short sounds and writing it.

Finishing up with the Anteater, Ape and Ants...

Here is the finished product...

I decided to make a pocket on the back to hold the worksheets we did. I thought it would be good to keep it all together.

Easter Twenty-Ten Holy Week

Sorry this is late, I posted it on my family blog, but forgot to do so on here. The family blog is         Holt Family Blog

It was a wonderful Easter. The Lord gave me the blessing of singing a song for the congregation, and we were able to just spend the day with our boys. It has been very fun having Logan's first holidays this year. Luk is teaching Logan all that he needs to know, and will probably do the same thing next year.

Our lovely pastor's wife posted about their family "Holy Week," and I decided to do one of the activities that she mentioned in her blog. We created our own tomb for the Resurrection of Christ. Gregory was in town, so he got in on the fun. Neither one of them liked making the play dough. They don't like sticky fingers!

 Then it was time to bake the play dough for the boys to paint...

Sunday was a beautiful day, which ended with Luk giving us a sermon of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. He has become quite the preacher.  The funny thing was that Luk did not use this tomb to tell his story. He decided to use a used Orange Crush bottle and a Mechanical Pencil to represent the tomb and Christ. I know that God has something really special for Luk's talent and need to "teach" people what he knows. It is really a beautiful thing. It has really put me homeschooling him into perspective because what I teach him, he wants to tell everyone his new found knowledge.

We are truly blessed.