All posts tagged Family

Toddler Bible Review

By Lindsey | February 29, 2012 | Parents, Resources | 3 Comments

As a new-ish mom, I’m checking out Bible resources for little ones with serious fervor. That’s why I was thrilled to receive The Toddler’s Bible from David C. Cook. We’ve been using the Read and Share Bible for our now 2-year old daughter, but I thought this new Bible might be a better fit. Here’s the scoop:

The Good

The Table of Contents: I like the Scripture references next to the stories. It would have been nice if those were on the actual pages as well.
Questions throughout the book. This is a great way to keep little ones engaged. Likewise, the little things like “Look at the walls” and “See the golden chest” are great for opening up conversations.
Good pacing: I was glad to see a Bible that didn’t spend 5 pages on Creation and 5 more on the Plagues and then completely skip the New Testament. This Bible seemed to give a good spread of Old Testament and New Testament stories.
Not too many details. With a book as big as the Bible, it’s tough to condense all the stories down without losing the main things. The Toddler Bible seemed to capture the main points without drowning a little one in too many details.
New Testament: It’s a pet peeve of mine when picture Bibles spend 300 pages on the Old Testament and then completely skip over the New Testament, ending the Bible right after the gospels. This seems to do a good job of illustrating key points of Paul’s life and the early church.
The index of stories in the back. This is a great way to teach kids about Cool Bible Tools early on.

The Bad

I liked the “Sight”, “Sound”, “Touch” suggestions on page 9, but I didn’t get the reference for “Life Issue” or “Spiritual Building Block”, and I don’t think most parents will either.
Transitions: Some of the openings of the stories seemed very abrupt and disconnected to the story before it. For example page 62-63 ends with “Someday Jacob and Rachel will get married” and the next set of pages opens with “Oh no! No one would sell their own brother!”. There’s a lot that happened between Jacob and Joseph! I know you can’t include everything, but it seems like there could have been a smoother flow.

What I’d Change

The book is a bulky for little hands. I might make the pages a little bigger and the book less thick. I know parents will usually be reading the book to the child, but wouldn’t it be great if it were easy for them to pick it up on their own and read?
The Illustrations: While the illustrations were very good, I think they could have been a little more attention grabbing. Although for ages 1-3 (which is who the Bible is designed for), they may be just right. I know the books our 2-year old daughter really loves have bold colors, but clearly (based on my reading experiments), this doesn’t seem to be a major obstacle. Also, the angels are a little girly for my taste.

Other Notes

I was reading this Bible today with a two-year old girl and it wasn’t until page 180 that she started to get fidgety. I decided to close the book and take a break and she instantly asked for more. Good sign!

Get Yours Today!

You can pick up a copy either at David C. Cook’s website or on Amazon.

607 Experience: LOVE IT!

By Lindsey | February 20, 2012 | Holidays and Events, Ministry Ideas, Parents, Resources, Reviews | 1 Comment

I’m a huge fan of the family ministry movement. I love the idea of involving parents more in the church and encouraging them to take a more proactive role at home. But, I have to be honest, I didn’t really know how the whole concept would flesh out in real life. The church has been handling “the spiritual stuff” for so long, how do we pull parents back into the picture?

My First Ideas

I tried putting great resources on display. Books for all ages, Bibles, and copies of killer blog posts I had happened upon. The table quickly became a coat rack.

I tried organizing a Family Easter Egg decorating party. Three parents attended. Two parents complained that their kids were going to get messy. Not exactly what I would call a success.

It Seemed Better in My Head…

I had a dream, a vision of what I wanted things to look like. I wanted parents sitting with their kids, worshiping together, hearing the lesson together, and then engaging with the content they just heard. I knew I couldn’t write a program like this (I can barely write a newsletter each week!), and I couldn’t really find one that fit my ideal description either.

Until 607 Generational Discipleship Experience. This is not an “everyday curriculum”. Instead, it uses major holidays to turn a regular service into a family experience. We planned to do a family service about once a quarter, so this was the perfect format for us. Plus, I think parents are more inclined to attend a “special holiday event” when a family service is advertised that way.

I took an extensive look at both the Christmas lesson and the New Year’s lesson, hoping to use them for a family service. However, the Wednesday between Christmas and New Year’s was cancelled at our church, and we all know an audience of zero is no good. I did teach the Christmas lesson to the kids in Children’s Church just to see their reaction, and they were completely engaged.

I love the fact that there’s a video midway through the lesson with “real-people” interviews or some other little vignette. And the props used during the lesson (for Christmas, it was 3 wrapped gifts containing a clock, a red heart, and CD) are simple, easy-to-relate to, memorable, and not too distracting. I’m a fan of object lessons, but it kills me when kids get all caught up in the “way-cool illustration” (you know, the ones we love to force into the lesson even when they don’t exactly fit) and totally miss the point of the lesson. These weren’t that way at all.

The Best Part

The best part about this curriculum is that parents walk away with a skill and a tool to use at home. Here’s what each lesson explains:

607 is all about helping parents live out Deuteronomy 6:07. 607 will help you host an inter-generational worship experience that’s so much more than a typical worship service: parents will walk away with an experience, a skill, and a tool.

Experience

The children’s sermon and the 607 Experience Sermon will guide
you through a themed teaching and interactive time for families of all ages.
Through this inter-generational worship experience, parents, kids, and teens
alike will be inspired to grow in their faith in Christ.

Skill

Each 607 Experience Sermon will teach a specific skill that moms, dads,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, and mentors can implement at home and into
the way we impress faith on the next generation.

Tool

Each parent or leading adult will walk away with a Drive It Home Tool
to help them impress faith on their kids and the next generation of disciples
in Jesus Christ.

For the Christmas lesson, it was ways to keep Christ the center of Christmas. For New Years, it was a worksheet that helped parents develop a family mission statement and family faith plan.

So far, there’s about ten holidays available, including Mother’s and Father’s Day. The rest of the holidays are promised by August 30th. The regular price for a year’s worth of 607 is $299.

I have to say, we just signed up to use 252 Basics for a year, and I’m not entirely impressed with the Family Experience lessons they have as part of the curriculum. I think the ones found in 607 are much better organized, more meaningful, and a lot more practical for parents. I’ll let you know how the Valentine’s Day lesson plays out!

Minute to Win It: The Family that Plays Together

By Lindsey | May 31, 2011 | Games, Minute to Win It | 3 Comments

What a family! In this unique episode of Minute to Win It, the whole Canter family (mom, dad, and four daughters!) compete for the million. Here’s some games that might be good for your family or kids ministry (lot of classic games in this episode):

Knock It Off: Click on the title to watch a video about this one. I’ve always thought this game was ridiculously hard (especially for a level two!), but this 12 year old girl nailed it in 30 seconds, so it might be worth a shot!

Speed Eraser: For this level three game, contestants must bounce 10 pencils on their eraser to get them to land in 10 glasses lined up along a table. It is played as a team, so each contestant has to land 5 pencils each.

Spoon Frog: Similar to Speed Eraser, check out the video below for instructions:

Nutstacker: Using a chopstick, a contestant must stack 10 bolts on top of each other without making the tower tip over.

Cantagious: For $125,000, contestant start with three full cans of soda in the right hand and three empty cans in the left. They must switch all the cans so they end up with the three full cans in the left and empty in the right. They cannot use the body for leverage or set down any cans. Much harder than it sounds! On Youtube, I saw a kid use mini-soda cans. Might be worth a try!

That’s it for now! Catch you next week for more Minute to Win it games! If you’ve got some great ideas for outdoor Minute to Win it games — great for summer fun, let me know!

Great Family Resources

By Lindsey | April 6, 2011 | Elementary Age, Parents, Preschoolers, Preteens, Resources | Comments Off

Here’s some great sites for parents and families!

MEDIA:

RELATIONSHIPS:

FAMILY FAITH TALKS:

BOOKS:

ESPECIALLY FOR PRETEENS:

Nicole O’Dell (author for preteen girl fiction)

Add to the List!

Do you know of a great resource? Leave me a comment and I’ll add it to the list!

Thanks for stopping by!

10 Christmas Traditions for your family

By Lindsey | December 13, 2010 | Christmas, Parents | Comments Off

Today’s post is featured over at The Mommyhood Memos. Be sure sure to check it out!

(The blogger task will be posted tomorrow, for those of you following the 31 Week Challenge)

Minute to Win It!

By Lindsey | May 28, 2010 | Games, Holidays and Events, Minute to Win It | 13 Comments

Great Idea for Family Event

This past weekend, we had our annual Missions Conference. Saturday night was family night with the “Minute to Win it Theme”. Our Missionary, Steve Clouser, talked about the “one-minute” opportunities we have throughout life to plant the seed of the gospel, to water it, or sometimes to even see the harvest. The event was great. Here are few things I learned:

DO THESE THINGS:

1. Have a variety of games. We had 10 games picked out, one for each level, with a few alternatives in case the crowds got restless. Well, after watching level 1 game three times, they were completely tired of it. We didn’t consider the fact that Level 1-3 games would be played A LOT as people got eliminated and new contestants started. So, plan for 4-5 Level 1 games and 2-3 Level 2 and 3 games. After that, have Level 4-8 games interchangable and reserve a few super hard ones for Level 9 and 10. About half-way through the game, we just started throwing games at the contestants without rhyme or reason because we wanted to keep things interesting. Not exactly fair to the constentants, but much more fun to watch. oops.

2. Have sign-ups ahead of time. We had sign-ups the week before and the put everyone’s name in a bowl (one bowl for kids and one bowl for adults). This prevented the “Oh oh! I want to play, pick me! Pick Me!” phenomenon.

3. Play the cup stacking game. For some reason, no matter when we brought this game out, people loved it!

4. Have simple prizes, if any at at all. People were way more interested in playing the game and attaining the prestige of the next level than they were about any prizes. Most forgot to pick theirs up and had to be reminded. I wish I would have known that before my $80 trip to Sam’s Club. Oh well, you can also use chocolate!

5. Have seperate divisions for adults and kids. We played a few games simultaneously to keep the audience engaged, but mostly we played the kid side while the adult side was getting set up. Then we immediately went to the adult side and set up for the next kid game. Etc Etc Etc. So there were no lulls in the program.
Our arena looked like this: minute to win it set up (We used masking tape to mark it out).

6. Have someone running the music. My husband downloaded a techno CD from Itunes for $10 with 30 songs on it or something. They were perfect for the games, but they needed to be turned on and off so we could hear the host announce what was next.

DON’T DO THESE THINGS:

1. Give people extra lives. We only game them one life, but we had a few contestants playing for 30-40 minutes and we ended up running out of time (not everyone got to play). So, one shot folks! The games were pretty easy, so maybe if you pick harder games, an extra life is needed.

2. Bother giving out practice packets. We picked out 14 possible games, copied the instructions, made packets and handed them out to all the Sunday School classes. Then, on the big night, pretty much everyone confessed they hadn’t even looked at them. You can always make a list of potential games and direct them to the website. Or just keep them guessing!

3. Play Fishhead. It’s impossible to set up and even more impossible to play!

What about you guys out there? Any tips you want to share? I’ll love to hear it, because we’ll be repeating this event as a Family night in the furture. Thanks!

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