When I started Impress Your Kids it was because I wanted a place to record the scriptures I was teaching my daughter and the activities we were doing along with them. I began with a scripture for each letter of the alphabet. But didn’t even start the blog until we were all the way on the letter N.

I just ran across all the scripture papers we made and thought I’d share them and try to remember what other activities we did along with them. There is nothing special about the crafts–usually just paper and glue. But for a toddler? It was the highlight of her day. And the highlight of mine as I saw God’s Word being planted in her heart.

So, here we go with the letter A. I’ll try to get B through M up in the next few weeks, too. Of course, you can check out our other ABC verses (the ones I blogged from the letter N through Z and all of them Leigh did) by visiting our ABC Scriptures page.

This is one of those scriptures I remember from a kid. My mom made my brother say it back and forth if we were fighting. I wanted Lydia to know it, too.

The easiest word for the letter A was “apple”, so this is what we did! This was really my first attempt at a craft with Lydia. She was probably a little over 2 years old when we did this. I just drew the apples, then tore the paper, put down some glue and let Lydia stick them on.

I remember we also did some apple stamps in all different colors. That was a big adventure! Then we went to the library and checked out lots of books about apples and Johnny Appleseed. That reminds me, I should have taught her the Johnny Appleseed song. Do you know it?

The Lord’s been good to me
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need:
The sun and the rain and the appleseed.
The Lord is good to me!

And the thing you’re really wondering? Yes, Lydia still remembers the verse!

***Impress Your Kids has some new digs at ohAmanda.com! Come visit us there for all the Impress Your Kids archives and all our new posts–including our Easter newsblast with fabulous tips for celebrating a meaningful Easter with your kids!***

…well, we already went over a list of things A is for… but today, A was for “activity!”

Does anyone know how to help a kid whose mom is too tightly wound?  Poor EJ – I know I thought up this activity and all, but I have a serious problem with mess.  I need to loosen up and understand that if I let a toddler have his way with an ink pad, things are going to get messy.  See?

So EJ went crazy with his red stamp pad and his fingers and hands, and as he stamped away, I asked him what words started with A.  As he named them off, I tried to find fingerprints on the paper that matched what he said. 

To be honest, I was mostly thinking about red ants and apples – but EJ was pretty creative with his A words!

And my favorite…

I didn’t even know he knew the word “alien!”

So here was our final product.

I also had him do some stamping on a smaller piece of paper so my mom can hang it on her fridge.  She is so excited about having things to hang on her fridge, so I thought we’d start with this one.

Yesterday was a really hectic day for us, so I pulled out some Abooks from our shelves and we read them together throughout the day.  EJ’s favorite was Ananse’s Feast – an Ashanti Tale, retold by Tololwa M. Mollel.  EJ’s really into spiders and turtles right now, and the main character, Ananse, is a spider – the turtle’s name is Akye.  So there were A‘s all over the book!

Tomorrow, I’m thinking we’ll play outside for a while and try to take some pictures of the ants that have invaded our yard.  I’ll let you know how that goes… pray we don’t find any biting ants!

***Impress Your Kids has some new digs at ohAmanda.com! Come visit us there for all the Impress Your Kids archives and all our new posts–including our Easter newsblast with fabulous tips for celebrating a meaningful Easter with your kids!***

Hiya, everyone!  I’m Leigh – thanks, Amanda, for the wonderful intro!  I would’ve posted some before now about my prep for this week, but today got here before I was ready! 

My son, EJ, is a couple weeks younger than Amanda’s beautiful daughter.  I wasn’t ready to start him earlier with any kind of “structured” learning (not that I would call what I’m doing “structured” in any way – anyone with a 2 year old knows that any structure you plan typically flies right out the window) due to our arrival of baby #2.  Well, now that said baby is 8 months old, I finally felt ready to get going.  Finally.

As Amanda said, I was really excited to peek in on what she was doing with Lydia.  I wasn’t ready for a full-on homeschool preschool curriculum – the ones I saw online kind of intimidated me.  I wanted to pick and pull from things that I liked.  And I’m sure I’ll be changing things as I go – I already learned some things about EJ’s learning style from our time this morning.

So we started with the letter “A” today…  And I chose the verse “And God is able to shower all kinds of blessings on you.” 2 Corinthians 9:8, to concentrate on this week.  I wish the word “glue” started with the letter A.  That was the biggest hit of the morning.

I copied the verse onto a piece of construction paper, and I printed out some clip art for “A” words.  We had an apple, an ant, an astronaut, an acorn, and an airplane.  All of them are some of EJ’s favorite things – especially the ant and the astronaut.  I cut them out and EJ went wild with the glue.  My idea was to kind of have the A word things “shower” down under the verse, and we’ll keep talking about the verse all this week.

I used Amanda’s idea for the alphabet worksheet from First School.  I love that site! 

Crayons would not do to color in the letter A.  Once he had the glue in his hand, he would not let go.  So we covered all the letters on the page with torn pieces of red paper (red for apples).  He even covered the smaller letters and the writing on the side of the sheet.  He didn’t want to hold the paper up for me to get a picture of him with it, so this is what I got…

We talked about the letter A all morning.  EJ’s known his letters by sight for a while, so I had him point out A’s on signs to me as we went to the dentist (which has no A’s in it.  Except I got to say “AAAAHHHH” really big for the dentist this morning, so that was fun.)  We saw automobiles and an ambulance, and we “Ah-Choo’d” over and over (that was hilarious!).  He got to see Uncle Andrew and Aunt Jessie, and have apple juice for lunch.  He also told Poppy (my dad) all about his letter A words over the phone.  I got to sing “The Ants Go Marching” 5 times back to back on the way home, too.  I’m glad I looked up all the verses online before today – I couldn’t remember past “The ants go marching 4 by 4…” on my own.

So what I learned is that I cannot force EJ to do anything.  I already knew this in every other area of his life – I don’t know why I thought this would be any different.  I didn’t really try to force anything on him, but I pushed the verse too hard.  We’ll have to come back to that later today, and hopefully he’s decided it’s OK to listen to me say it over and over again.  Does anyone have any other suggestions about how to help a child learn a verse? 

I am excited about the rest of the week.  We have a full week already planned, so squeezing in just a couple more Athings will be about all we can do.  But EJ is really getting into the A sounds and words that start with the letter A… and he’s already talking about B words and sounds, and even S words and sounds!  So he’s picking up on this fast.  I hope I can keep up!

***Impress Your Kids has some new digs at ohAmanda.com! Come visit us there for all the Impress Your Kids archives and all our new posts–including our Easter newsblast with fabulous tips for celebrating a meaningful Easter with your kids!***