Once upon a time, our family lived in Tanzania, East Africa. We thought we would live there forever…but He had other Plans.
While there…we served alongside an extraordinarily creative and sweet friend who has created a really special, meaningful way to bring Christmas to Tanzania.
Gift basket options are for $12, $18 and $24. Read full info here…
We’re always looking for beautiful and meaningful ways to contribute during the holiday season…and I can’t think of a better one out there!
…danielle
Christmas Countdown with Music
FREE
We have this app running year round!
FREE
I can’t say enough about how much I love this app! The graphics are adorable. The music is AH-mazing! This is definitely a MUST HAVE!!! And the best news is that it’s FREE for now!
99 cents
Really cute way for the kids to celebrate Jesus during Christmas time. My kiddos love sticker type apps where they can move things around and pick the scene. This app also has a feature that allows them to take a picture of their masterpiece and save or email it.
The Children’s Bible: Jesus is Born in Bethlehem
$4.99
The Nativity Story with beautiful graphics and music. I found this when it was a freebie and we love it. Although the price is steep. But this is one to keep on your radar for when it goes on sale again.
Toca Hair Salon – Christmas Gift
FREE
We’re super huge fans of ANYTHING Toca Boca but this app is totally a fave! Because who wouldn’t love shaving a Christmas tree or giving the jolly old guy a new do?!
Santa’s Big Helper: 9 Christmas Apps in 1
99 cents
This is a cute app that allows you to track Santa, count down to Christmas, read Elf reports and even ask a Elf a question. Super cute. I snagged it when it was free but 99 cents isn’t too pricey. 
FREE
Build your own snowman and make it snow! This app starts by having your child choose hat, scarf and face for their snowman. They are then prompted to hit the arrow key which moves them outside. Once outside they can assemble their snowman. Then tap around on the screen to make snow flakes fall. Adorable and fun!
Christmas Carols for Kids, Sing Along Songs – Jolly Jingle Free
FREE
A cute and interactive way to sing favorite carols. Touch the snowglobe to change your song selection. Touch the music note to be taken to the song screen which is interactive. You can even choose which rendition of the carol you’d like to hear. My kiddos are music lovers so this is a big hit for us!
Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure
$2.99
If you have a Character addict in your house like I do in mine…this app is totally worth the cost! Lots of interaction through out the game where you help Santa deliver the presents on time. Cute.
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There are GOBS of apps out there and these are juts a few that my family owns and enjoys! Be sure to share your fave Christmas/Holiday apps in the comments!
Click here to see some other free faves of the mo’!
…danielle
**pricing on apps is always subject to change per the developer – but at the time of this posting all these prices are those listed in iTunes at this time**
I’ve never really done a notebooking journal with my own kids before and certainly never in Sunday School. Which means I’m learning as I go! It’s definitely very old school…but the more we’re doing…the more I love it!
I mentioned before how much I love (and I do) our Hands on Bible, but I found The Gospel Story Bible and it looked SO great that I bought it. The graphics are fun and the stories are the perfect length to read. The kids really enjoyed our story today which was all Adam and Eve. I’m also using Ken Hamm’s Answers for Kids series to add some extra fun. I choose one question that relates to what we’re learning in class and use it as our question of the week.
(click the pictures for purchasing info)
For this week’s notebooking, we added Zees to Day Seven to represent God’s resting. Z z z z z z z z z z z 
I also printed these wonderful (free!) Adam & Eve character sketches. To save time in class, I cut them to fit and pasted them in for the kids so they only needed to do the writing and coloring.
Sorry the pics are so grainy. I’ve been using my daughter’s iPod touch cause it’s so easy peasy to bring along.
After reading the story from our Gospel Story Bible we chatted about what we learned. I wrote our answers on a white board to make it easier for the younger kiddos (we have 7-11 years in the same class) to follow along. I did mention that I’m on learning curve, right? It took forever and a day for the littler kiddos to write their answers in. We weren’t able to finish. Boo. Lesson learned, though. I’ll type up the answers this week and let them paste them in for review next class. I’ll be sure to share the printable next week!
To review this week, we started our paper plate time line. Again…grainy pics, ugh. Each plate represents one of the seven days of Creation. It was fun for the kids plus, it makes a great show n’ tell for moms and dads.
…danielle
Before class I printed out these wonderful Adam & Eve character studies. I cut them to fit (scalloped scissors) so they could be pasted right into their journals. You can peek at pictures of the first 6 pages of our journals here or just read what our pages look like so far below:
Page 1 is all about the Bible
Page 2 is Day One of Creation
Page 3 is Day Two
Page 4 is Day Three
Page 5 is Day Four
Page 6 is Day Five
Page 7 was blank for Day Six to be done during today’s class
Page 8 I pasted in the Adam character study
Page 9 I pasted in Eve’s character study
Page 10 will be Day Seven which will be done next week
*****
We started class by singing our books of the Bible song. In addition to our Through the Bible Journals we’re learning all the books of the Bible.
I also found these Books of the Bible copy sheets which I had ready on the table. One of the kids was not impressed and said, “um, why do we have schoooool work?” LOL
We reviewed the first five days of Creation. And then learned about Day Six and Seven of Creation by reading the end of Genesis 1 and bits of Genesis 2 together. I loooove the Hands On Bible for our lessons. It’s filled with great ideas for me…and fun graphics for them!
Even though they really enjoy our lesson time, let’s face it, all they really want to do is get busy journaling! Because kids love crafts!
Today we worked on Day Six. On Day Six God created all the animals plus, Adam & Eve!
I had the kiddos write Day Six at the top of their journal page. And then instructed them to draw Adam & Eve in the center. Making sure that their people were “child friendly” because they all wanted to know if they should be nakey! 
We then searched magazines for pictures of animals to cut out and create an animal collage around Adam & Eve. I know my example page doesn’t have lots of animals per se…but I thought it was cute. Class ended before we could fill our page up…but we’ll add to it next week. We’ll also fill out our character studies next week too as we explore Adam & Eve more in depth.
This is turning out to be such a fun project!
…danielle
My hubby not only works full-time, he also leads a baby church too. I like to tease him that it’s his weekend gig.
:: grin ::
One of the perks of being the pastor’s wife and a lead teacher of the Bigsters (ages 7-11) class…is I get to choose the curriculum! We’ve tried a bunch of different boxed curriculums but haven’t really fallen in love with anything. Enter: homeschool mommy skills. All of our kiddos LOVE artsty fartsy stuff and I’ve been wanting to notebook chronologically through the Bible at home anyway…so I thought…why not notebook through the Word with our church kids?!
Things I Need Every Week:
Our very first lesson and the first page in our notebooking journal was dedicated to The Bible. We glued in little bookmarks (free printable found here) with all the books listed. We’re also working on memorizing all the books of the Bible together. Each class starts by singing through them as a class. We traced a hand and wrote tips for how to dig into the Bible on each finger. Hear, Read, Meditate, Study and Memorize.
We then moved on to the Days of Creation.
Day One
God created light and dark. In our notebooks Day One page was divided into half black construction paper and half just white.
Day Two
God separated the waters and the sky. I had the kids use water colors to paint (they LOVED it!) and we stretched and glued cotton balls for clouds in the skies. I’m not thrilled with how bulky it’s making our journals but hey…the kiddos are sensory fans. They were all about the cotton balls.
Day Three (not pictured)
God separated the waters into sea, created dry land and vegetation. I let the kids draw anything they’d like to show what was Created on Day Three. It was neat to see how differently they think! One drew a globe. One a park. It was cute.
We also happen to have a Tree Guy in our church. He came into our class and did a little talk about trees. It was super special for all of us!
Day Four
God created the sun, moon and stars. Nothing fancy here. We just drew suns, moons and stars. And really, my plan isn’t to have fancy pages each time. I just want to walk through the Bible with them and journal as we go for added reinforcement.
Day Five
God filled the oceans with sea life and critters and the skies with birds.
I had the kiddos draw all kinds of fishies and sea creatures in dark colored pencils. We then glued blue tissue paper over our drawings to give the effect of looking through the water. It turned out super cool! Even a grown up or two thought so.
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The kids are really enjoying this project and I’m excited to keep learning through the Word together!
I’ll keep posting along the way too. Maybe it’ll be a blessing to someone if for no other reason than to appreciate my “keeping it real” pics! 
…danielle
I am a fan of all things Apologia.
I cannot tell a lie.
But really when it comes to Apologia, why would I want to anyway? 
I first learned of Apologia a year or so ago through some homeschool forums I belong to. Other moms were either buying or selling Apologia Science books all over the place. Everyone seemed so into it that I had to snoop for myself. And I am SO glad I embraced my inner nosey-ness…because I learned that Apologia offers much much more than just Science! Apologia now provides homeschoolers resources for topics such as writing, geography…and worldview. I don’t know about you, but a large chunk of my decision to home educate my children lies in my desire to have the primary influence on their worldview. The filter through which they see themselves, the world and their place in it.
Which is why I was so excited to have the chance to review Apologia’s Who Am I? curriculum (2nd in their What We Believe series).
We do a lot of casual worldview shaping (or discipleship) in our home. What I mean by that is…I have my personal quiet time in front of them. Minister with them and to them. Incorporate character building into our daily studies. Memorize verses together. Talk about Jesus a lot. Listen to K-love. You know…all those things you do daily as a Believer. Things that just become a part of your identity as His Child.
But what I like about this curriculum is that it builds on the more casual day-to-day discipleship that happens by providing an intentional coming together to explore the important things about what we Believe.
The whole package includes four pieces:
Who Am I? text book ($39 – pictured above)
Who Am I? notebooking journal ($24 – pictured above)
Who Am I? coloring book ($8)
Who Am I? audio CD ($19)
Who Am I? is geared for children between 6-14.
Maybe not to you…but to me…these books look so serious. Which I’m sure is appropriate for worldview shaping. But when I first held it, I thought the kids would totally not be into it. Even if mommy was.
I was very very wrong!
In fact, the day the package arrived they insisted we cuddle on the couch and get to it. The main thrust of this layer of Apologia’s worldview curriculum circles around building a Biblical self image. The first chapter was especially special to us because the story was woven around the life of a child with a disability. We happen to have one of those. 
Needless to say, my kiddos little hearts were VERY receptive right from the get-go.
While I don’t think you need the whole kit n’ kaboodle to fully appreciate this curriculum, I am glad that we had the coloring book (especially great for the littles) and notebook to help the truths sink way down deep. Truths that I deeply want them their hearts to shika (Swahili for hold tightly to).
The only negative I have is regarding the CD. It’s in MP3 format and will not work in a normal CD player (of which I have many). I had the double whammy of never being able to get it to read on my PC either. I’m sure it would be nice to have the audio…for longer car rides or read-aloud time that also saves mommy’s vocal cords. I also like uploading everything audio to iTunes and adding it to my iPad for easy peasy access. But really…I don’t think we missed much without it.
I would encourage any Christian parent interested in exploring Biblically rich worldview shaping curriculums to check out Apologia’s whole What We Believe series. For our family, it’s been the perfect fit to fill that gap.
**This is my little place to disclaim, as part of the TOS Crew, I was given Apologia’s Who Am I? in exchange for my honest and timely review. All thoughts expressed are my own. I received no other compensation.**
I caught Trevy rockin’ out with one of his fave Christmas gifts. Please pardon my messy Therapy/School Room. That’s what happens when it gets used.
:: smile ::
I love how he pats his chest when he sings “me”.
Also, how he turns his head away so he can keep chomping on the microphone. Cheeky. But smarty too.
I do think it’s super cool that Allison Cruz thinks he’s cute. She doesn’t just have a smashing voice…but super good taste too.
…danielle
**warning – content may be offensive to Tebow haters**
My men-folk love sports. Even Trevy. In fact, he’s been wearing his Special Olympics medal around the house lately. Maybe hinting that he’s ready for our Winter Season to get on with it already! Bristel’s the only hold out. In fact, she told me the other day that she’s going to marry for love. Because if he loves her…he won’t watch sports. lol I didn’t have the heart to tell her…if she loves him…she’ll learn to enjoy them.
Toby is an all around athlete. He’s not a super star at any one sport…but solid in all of them. He has played for more than one of our community’s All Star teams. I’m saving the shirts to make a quilt someday.
He’s actually sitting behind me right now playing something or other sporty on the x-box.
He’s a sports addict.
And a Tim Tebow fan extraordinaire.
And so am I. Because, really, what mommy doesn’t love a handsome wholesome super hero athlete for her boys? More than ever our boys need strong men of integrity to look up to. Sure he has his daddy. And a couple other dads we know. But let’s face it, guys. You’re just not as cool as Tebow. 
And I’ll just go ahead and admit that I’m a sucker for Tim Tebow too. If there’s a fan club…sign me up! I already “liked” him on FB. Hung his poster in Toby’s room. And am fully intending to buy a certain somebody’s Bronco’s jersey for a certain soon to be 11 year old’s birthday.
Yep. Tebow lovers live here. I should make a car decal or something.
Unless you’re Peace Corps-ing it in the middle of nowhere, you’ve probably heard about the whole “Tebowing” incident. I rolled my eyes. Not at the kids.
And totally loooooved this pinned picture with the caption: Tebowing?
Ever since I was a kid…I liked to go against the flow. So go on and hve fun with the Tebowing kids…
This principal gives it two thumbs up!
…danielle
