Tot School: Fruit of the Spirit (Kindness and Goodness)



Tot School: Fruit of the Spirit

Fruit focus: Kindness and Goodness

Verses: Kindness: Eph 4:32, Col 3:12   Goodness: Matt 5:16

Age: 33 months

 

 

 

Adding the fruit of kindness to the tree:

Raelynn is wearing her crown because I read an idea on Oh Amanda's blog that talked about putting on a crown.  I tweaked it a bit for Raelynn, but I knew she'd love wearing her princess crown so I tied it in.  We talked about how we "put on a crown" and we must "put on kindness".  It is something we put on just like a crown.  We talked about how pretty princess wear a crown and how kindness makes us pretty on the inside.  (sidenote: later in the week she told me my hair looked pretty.  I told her that her hair was also very beautiful and asked her if she knew where real beauty was found.  She said "in my heart." YAY!! She has picked that up from me telling it to her on and off in those teachable life moments:)

playing the fruit match game--matching pairs picture side up

playing the fruit match game--matching pairs picture side down.  So fun to take turns and play together!

Counting apples for the tree

The book worm sitting near by

Colossians 3:12 "Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." (NLT)

Raelynn really enjoyed this activity to remind us that we must 'clothe' ourselves with kindness:

looking through a magazine for clothes

She glued the clothes on a hanger and we wrote the verse (a bit paraphrased) on the paper

stacking pegs

Adding a grape to our grape vine...she said she wanted to make it look like a caterpillar. ha!

Goodness added to the tree

Matthew 5:16 "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

For goodness we focused on "doing good for others".  I didn't talk about her being good at all because I don't want to give her those thoughts that we have any good in us.  We talked about how the only good we have in us comes from Christ and that is the only reason we do the good deeds.

So to remind her to shine for Jesus by doing good works, we made a sunshine!

she made a smile on the sunshine all by herself!

Letter A printable from 1+1+1=1

I bought this book on amazon and it finally came! I wasn't sure what the quality of the content would be, but I like it.  It has a page for each fruit and a little example to go with it. The fruit are raised up off the page.

 

Mimi and Papa sent some gifts for Elliana in the mail for her birthday.  This is an awesome peg stacker that I would recommend! It is from Lakeshore Learning, but you can probably find it online other places.  It is made for ages 1+ and it's great because there are no choking hazards.  Raelynn has also enjoyed it even though she is almost 3.  You can count, sort, stack, make designs, etc.

 

Love it when they are playing together:)

 

This is a Melissa and Doug bead maze, also a birthday gift from Elliana that you can see is getting used by Declan! Elliana really likes it, too.

Declan wanted to color too!

practicing drawing lines

Dot Stamping...good thing these are non toxic...

I had these pumpkin activities handy for whenever we needed something to do.  I still have a few more things that we'll be doing as fall continues.

stamping only the capital Js

I thought Raelynn did a really great job of placing these in the boxes! She did great counting and gluing, so I will definitely be printing more of these pages in the future

I glued some to Declan's page and he enjoyed pulling them off and watching the paper rip. Kept him pretty busy!

Counting the pumpkins and choosing the correct number. She did great except numbers after 9 confuse her (which I could understand why!)

I have said before how I love the idea of 'tot trays'.  I like the idea of presenting something to the child and having it in a contained space of a tray.  I have wanted to evolve this idea to leaving the trays out for open access, but there hasn't been a place for me to do that where the babies can't get to it.  I got this white organizer from a garage sale.  I put blocks in the bottom, the peg toy in one drawer, books in one, and a puzzle in the other. 
I was SO happy when Raelynn went over all on her own and got out the blocks and started playing.  Then, after the blocks she looked in more drawers and pulled out the puzzle!  So next on the to do list is to reorganize the cabinets so I can have 'tot trays' on the shelves for her to access. In my mind these will be learning toys that can be done independently.