Clicking on this picture will bring you to the advent calendar. There are stories, things to think about, games,and songs for every day of December before Jesus's birthday. Let me know what you think. I want to have this ready to share with more people next year.
If you are trying to do this via a phone or I-Pad, try the link below. Not everything will work, and it's not as pretty, but it will take you to all the parts of the calendar that you CAN use on these machines.
Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem, even though Mary was just about to have a baby.
A Stable was the only place for them to stay, and Mary wrapped the baby in swaddling cloths and put him into a feeding trough for the animals, a manger.
Shepherds in the fields got a message from angels.
The Shepherds came to worship the baby and to tell what the angels had said.
I've made a lot of mistakes this week. How about you?
I've been hard at work on the Advent Calendar, but despite that, a lot of pieces have been broken some of the time. So I apologize to anyone who tried it out, and found that some of the buttons weren't doing what they were supposed to. Sometimes I knew what was wrong and was working very hard to fix it. Other times, I thought it was working and didn't discover until later that I was wrong. I hope to do better as we go along.
The advent calendar for December 7 and December 8 have materials that are related to this week's lesson.
Coloring Page
Here's a picture of the angel coming to Joseph while he slept.
This week is a little surprising, because what is on most of our minds is Thanksgiving, and getting ready for that, while the lesson is already thinking about Christmas.
I have been hard at work making an advent calendar for you folks to enjoy, beginning on December 1. But for now, I have a new game and some coloring book pages.
Don't forget to think about the things you are grateful for as you celebrate Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful time, however you do it in your family!
Help with Memory Verses
Isaiah 9:6
Coloring Pages
An Angel came to see Mary and to give her some very surprising news.
Mary was amazed and wondered how all this could happen.
The angel told her about her cousin Elizabeth who was also going to have a baby that was surprising
When she went to visit Elizabeth, both of the women encouraged each other.
I hope to have some more memory games here later this week, maybe even by Monday night, but I want to be sure to publish this, so that you don't think I forgot about you.
Help with Memory Verses
Ephesians 1:4 One last chance to memorize this verse. Next week we will have a different verse. Try the song first, and then check what you have learned with the game. Talk with someone about what the verse means.
Here's the game:
This is a review week. You might consider going over all of the Memory Verse Songs, or choosing one verse that you didn't learn before, and learning it now.
This song talks about having a quiet confidence that God is the one who is in control. This is what Moses said to the people just before they crossed the Red Sea. Immediately after this, God told Moses to get the people moving. So we can see that the kind of stillness that is mentioned here does not mean a stillness of doing nothing. God did all the fighting in this situation, but the people still had to do a lot of moving to walk through the Red Sea and move out of Egypt. Sometimes that happens for us. God does the fighting but he still has work for us to do to get out of the problem situation.
Psalm 27:1
Here's a song that I wrote to help you with this.
And here are a few other things that you might find interesting.
This one is a dramatic reading of all of Psalm 27 with pretty pictures and background music. I don't much like this style of reading, but tastes differ. What do you think?
And this is someone singing the Psalm in Hebrew, which you might enjoy hearing. The translation is on the screen so that you can tell what she is singing as she goes along. This one probably won't work on an IPad.
Coloring Pages
Painting blood on the doorposts.
Moses prays while a wind from God drives the waters back.
The people walk through the sea.
The people celebrate that God saved them. Moses sings.
The people celebrate. Miriam leads the singing and dancing.
Because we had a special day of prayer last week, we skipped the beginning of Moses' story. Here is a video that will teach you about that and also talk about the plagues.
If you want to see the story of Moses from the beginning, use this link:
If you would like to look at just the part of Moses' life that has to do with the first nine plagues, look at the movie by clicking on this link. You'll have to stop when they start talking about the 10th plague, which will be killing the first born sons.
And here's a shorter version of the whole story:
One more, something made by some children to review the plagues and Pharaoh's response to them. There's a bit of a surprise joke at the end. But this might give you some ideas. How would you tell the story?
Help with Memory Verses
Ephesians 1:4 Here is the song for this verse
Deuteronomy 5:6
One thing to think about as we consider this story is that even though we were never slaves in Egypt, who experienced God's deliverance by walking through the Red Sea, it is still a story that tells us something about the way God acts in our own lives. This song reviews the memory verse, but also talks about what God does for you and me.
Galatians 5:1 This verse has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. It is one of the first Bible verses I ever wrote a song for, though that was a different version of the Bible, and a pretty long time ago. This song is new, just for you folks. Why do you think we chose this verse for you to memorize with this week's lesson?
Coloring Pages
When Moses talked to Pharaoh, it made Pharaoh very angry.
When Pharaoh got angry he made life even worse for the Israelites.
God did a lot of terrible and scary things to the Egyptians. One of them was turning their water into blood.
Another scary thing that God did was filling the land with frogs.
For Ephesians 1:4, you can still use the song I posted last time:
Matthew 7:7-8 are combined into a single song. This is a traditional song, and the only thing I changed was singing the slightly different words for the NIV translation. I put in some pictures to help you remember what the words are about.
Sometimes, the hardest part of remembering a verse is figuring out what order the big chunks go in. There is a very simple trick for this verse, which has been around for a long time. The order is A-S-K, spelling the word ask. Ask, Seek, Knock.
We have a new key verse this week. (I hope that by now you have all memorized the first part of Psalm 23, and are ready to move on to something new. If you haven't, try playing this game or listening to the song. I bet you'll learn it in no time.)
The new verse is Ephesians 1:4 I have a song for it now. I hope to have a game for you to play ready soon.
I'm going to use a slightly different format for posting the song for Genesis 50:20. In my mind, this verse sums up the most important part of Joseph's response to the situation. Now, most of the time, when people hurt us, they didn't really mean to do it. They say something that hurts our feelings, or they accidentally destroy something we care about and it really was just a mistake. But Joseph's brothers shoved him into a pit, sold him into slavery, and told his father that he was dead. They meant to hurt him.
And sometimes there are people who mean to hurt you and me. But I think I will sing this song most often to the devil. He definitely wants to hurt me but nothing that he can do can take me out of God's love. I want to remember that in my heart all of the time.
Here's a song for Psalm 68:20. I think that this is the kind of thing that Joseph needed to remember in the midst of all that he was going through, though it hadn't actually been written when he was alive.
Coloring Pages
Joseph helping to organize places to store food.
Joseph as an important man in Egypt--he was the most important man except for Pharaoh.
Joseph's brothers bowing down before him, asking for the right to buy food from him. Remember Joseph's dreams? They don't recognize him yet, but he recognizes them.
Joseph did a lot to test his brothers before he let them know who he was.
All of Joseph's family--all the descendents of Jacob--coming down to Egypt so that they can have enough food to eat.
Joseph meeting his father Jacob after so many years.
I went to an exhibit of Egyptian art, and I thought you might be interested in these two little models that were made thousands of years ago and put into an Egyptian's tomb. The first shows Egyptians in a grain storehouse. Notice the people keeping records in the other room. The second shows Egyptian cows. Do these cows look fat or skinny to you?
Coloring Pages
Joseph had a dream of sheaves of wheat bowing down to him.
Joseph had another dream about the sun and moon and stars bowing down to him.
Joseph's brothers threw him into a pit and then later sold him to become a slave in Egypt.
Pharaoh had a dream about fat cows and skinny cows.
Help with Memory Verses
Sorry, nothing yet for the bonus verses. But the game in the last post will help you with the key verse, Psalm 23:1-3.
This is a game to help you review Psalm 23:1-3. Please try it out, and let me know what you think. It sometimes takes a few minutes to load, be a bit patient.
Notice that there are mute buttons for the music and the animal sounds. Background music frequently drives me nuts if I am playing a game, so feel free to use these.
This is a week for looking back over the past lessons. Let me give you a few coloring pages for the weeks that this blog missed.
Creation:
God brought all the animals to Adam, and he gave them their names.
God put Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, in a beautiful garden.
The First Sin:
The serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit Adam and Eve had been told not to eat.
Eve at the fruit and gave some to Adam for him to eat.
Adam and Eve had to leave the garden.
Noah:
The animals getting ready to go onto the ark.
The ark floating in the rain
Noah sent birds out to try to find out what was happening, and how far down the water had gone. One of the birds was a dove.
Leading the animals off of the ark.
When Noah and his family got off the ark, after the water had gone down, one of the first things that Noah did was to worship God
God put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of his promise never again to flood the whole earth.
Help with Memory Verses
The memory verses for this week are the same as those for last week. I may publish something later in the week that is a help for practicing these, but for now, look at what I gave you last week.
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