Halloween

Next week the lesson plan activities are going to center around Fall traditions - pumpkin carving, leaves falling, candy corn, etc. Halloween traditions vary so much from Christian to Christian that I will not talk about Halloween specifically, though. You can choose to go into as much detail as you'd like with your kids about the holiday. But, in case you are like I was a few years back and really wanting to dive deep into the history of Halloween, I wanted to share a blog post I wrote about my research years ago. I hope this brings some clarity to your heart about your family's decisions about the holiday.

Halloween is such a hot topic in the Christian circles. There is such debate over whether it’s biblical to celebrate. I just thought I’d throw in my two cents on the topic. As the chapel leader of the school I used to teach for, I had people ask/tell me all the time about how they felt. People begged me to address the sinfulness of the holiday in chapel with the children. I had never even thought about the holiday’s origins or the reason we celebrate. So I really felt led to pray and research before sharing anything on the topic. And I am so, so grateful for what I learned – the truth about the origins of the holiday. This post is in no way intended to change your opinions. I believe that we must each take steps to become more educated and to follow our personal convictions about things like this. But maybe it will help those who chastise others for celebrating the holiday to become more informed. So, if you're interested, here is the history of Halloween:

Halloween began as the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Samhain celebrated the end of the Celtic year – October 31^st- and the beginning of the new year. This beginning was associated with harsh winter climates and death. So it was not something the Celtics looked forward to. They believed that the transition between one year and the next was very supernatural. It was a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead were blurred. Spirits of the dead would visit bringing clarity to the Druids (the Celtic priests) allowing them the ability to prophecy about the coming winter. The Celtics relied heavily on this prophecy for hope throughout the coming months. The evening of October 31^st everyone in town would extinguish the fire in their hearths and come together in town to build an enormous bonfire. Being together on this night of blurred boundaries protected them from harm. The fire was a spiritual ritual where animal sacrifices were made in exchange for protection from the evil spirits. After midnight everyone would light torches from the bonfire to carry back to light their individual hearths. This common fire was believed to protect them throughout the winter.

By 43 AD, Romans had conquered most of the Celtic lands. They adopted the festival of Samhain as a Roman holiday. They changed it into a two-day celebration. The first day, Feralia, was set aside to honor their dead ancestors. The second day was a day to honor the Roman goddess of the fruits and trees, Pomona. This day marked the end of the harvest.

By the 800s, Christianity had spread widely through the Celtic territory. The pope now claimed their ancient celebration and redeemed it for church purposes. November 1^st was now declared All Saint’s Day – a day to honor all the saints and martyrs. It was also called All-Hallowmas. October 31^st was deemed All-Hallows Eve, then later Halloween.

In 1000 AD the church added November 2^nd to the celebration – All Soul’s Day. This was a day to honor the dead by dressing in costumes as either saints, angels, or devils. This is where the tradition of dressing up began – in the Catholic church.

I have received countless e-mails and publications from churches declaring Halloween evil. They recount the origins of Halloween as a day where men would dress in masks and go door to door asking shouting “Trick-or-Treat.” The treat would be time with a virgin daughter of the homeowner – most stories recount horrible things like rape and brutality. If the homeowner refused, he would be tortured – the trick. This legend has no basis in reality. If you trick-or-treat with your children, you are not condoning this ancient myth. In fact, the origins of trick-or-treating began during the Catholic’s All Soul’s Day celebrations. Christians would walk through town begging for soul cakes, small bread-like cakes made with currants. Each soul cake symbolized a prayer the Christian would say on behalf of the giver. The more soul cakes each person received, the more prayers would go up. The tradition grew to include children. People would offer more than just soul cakes – including money, fruits, and sweet breads – in return for prayers for protection against the devil’s tricks.

Incidentally a lot of people who shun Halloween and judge others for allowing their children to participate in a holiday of pagan origin also celebrate Christmas on December 25^th. Christmas began as a pagan, hedonistic day celebrating and worshipping Roman gods and the winter solstice. The Roman god of the sun, Mithra, was believed to have been born on December 25^th. This time of the winter solstice and celebrations included heavy drinking. Again, the pope tried to redeem the day hundreds of years after Christ’s birth. It is believed that Christ was actually born in early spring as shepherds did not herd sheep in the middle of winter, and His birth was not even celebrated until this time. In fact, the reason for declaring December 25^th to be Christmas was strictly evangelical. Christians believed that, since people were used to celebrating on that day, Christ would more easily be embraced. Easter was already celebrated in the spring, so the pope came up with another aspect of His life to celebrate on the 25^th of December.

This is all to say that Halloween in and of itself is not evil. If you choose to celebrate that day with your children, you are not a horrible person. I think Christians can easily and intelligently join the celebration of the harvest, fall, costumes, and candy without compromising their beliefs. And I don't think we have to do all that under a different name like "Fall Festival" or "Harvest." A day cannot be innately evil, and I think Halloween is a great opportunity for learning and for having fun. A lot of the holidays that we celebrate are not Christian in origin. But we can teach our children a lot through customs and traditions. It is all about the heart of the parents in my opinion.

So we will take our children Trick-or-Treating (we already go every year with our nephews). We will allow them to dress up (in appropriate costumes, of course). And we will eat candy until our bellies hurt and take pictures and carve pumpkins and laugh and make memories all to the glory of God. Happy Halloween!

A Glimpse into our Day

I've had a handful of inquiries about what our days look like curriculum-wise. It's easy to picture us sitting around the dining room table formally studying Scripture, quickly flipping through flashcards, and completing worksheets. But that couldn't be further from the truth! Kids simply do not learn best through formal instruction. Instead, they learn best through play, experience, and hands-on interaction.

Here's an example of one of our days when we were learning about Creation.

The kids woke up and ate breakfast. My 3-year-old drinks soy milk, and she was asking what animal makes soy milk. I explained that it is made from soybeans which come from a plant. "Do you know who made soybean plants?" "That's right, God did. The Bible tells us the story of how God created the whole entire world. Do you want to hear it?" So, right there at the breakfast table, I opened my Bible and read Genesis 1:1-19. We talked about what it meant, and I told her that she was going to be learning lots of new Bible verses and that I had a trick to help us remember them. I then sang, "In the beginning God created, God created, God created. In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. Genesis 1:1" to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Since she, like most 3-year-old girls, loves music, she picked it up immediately and started to sing.

After breakfast, we headed outside to play on the playground. While swinging, she noticed some acorns in the trees and wanted to pick some. They were too high, so I explained that acorns are oak tree seeds and that God made them to grow on trees just long enough to get big and strong enough to start new oak trees. One day, when they're ready, a wind will blow or a squirrel or bird will land on the branch and shake the tree just enough for the acorns that are ready to fall off the tree and land on the ground. With water and sunshine, they grow roots that plant themselves into the ground. The roots are like little straws that the plants use to drink water and nutrients from the dirt. When they're ready, a little shoot grows out of the top called a "seedling." We then decided to go on a treasure hunt to find seedlings and fallen acorns. We went for a walk around the neighborhood looking under every tree. She collected a handful of "tree seeds" along the way and tried to match them to the trees from which they came. She also collected a handful of leaves to take home to paint with.

By this point, it was time to run some errands and come home for lunch. While I got lunch ready, I set up the table for painting. I showed her how to paint the back of a leaf with a paintbrush and to use it like a stamp on her paper. She completed her masterpiece while I fixed lunch.

Along the way, we talked about how amazing and creative God is to think of just the right way for plants and trees to create more plants and trees and thanked Him for providing the water and light needed to grow them. We also randomly sang the Bible verse all day long.

So. as cliche as it sounds, the world, and not just our dining room table, is our classroom. We simply incorporate our lesson into what we're naturally doing that day. Because of this, it's never hard to include my 18-month-old as we go. He just tags along and absorbs what he can.

I hope this helps you to think outside of the classroom box! As always, I welcome your questions and comments, so keep them coming!

Sin

Having trouble explaining sin to your kids? It may help to be confident that you understand sin yourself. Sin is not a behavior. Sin is not an attitude. Sin is not even a choice. Sin is in our very nature. It's in the fabric of who we are. Has your 13-month-old ever hit you out of anger even though you're certain they've never witnessed someone act like that before? It's because it is ingrained in them. Has your 2-year-old ever said something so catty and out of character, and you've tried and tried to figure out where exactly they learned that phrase? No one had to teach them - it's part of who they are. Despite our very best efforts, our daily prayer, surrounding ourselves with wholesome influences, and limiting exposure to harmful things, we cannot help but be sinful. It's part of our make-up - just like our eye color, heart rhythm, and shoe size. Because of the original Fall, sin nature is beyond our control.

So, how do we explain that to our kids without giving them an excuse to misbehave?

When I taught chapel, I used a visual to teach sin. Of course this topic is way more complex than this visual will allow. But it worked as an introduction and a conversation-starter. It helped to show that our nature is sinful, that we will continue to sin even with Christ in our lives, and that Jesus gives us tools we need to deal with our sinful hearts.

First, print a copy of the Sinful Heart and the Fruits of the Spirit. You can color them, have your kids decorate them, or just leave them black-and-white. Cut out the Heart and all of the rectangles.

Each rectangle represents a sinful thought or behavior. I provided plenty of blank ones to fill in with something appropriate and relatable for your child. Using an Exacto knife, cut along the top, left side, and bottom of the door. Fold it back along the "hinge" to create a door that swings open and closed.

Flip it over, and cut a triangle out of another piece of paper to tape on the back to make a pocket just like the grey triangle below. Tape only along the right and left sides leaving the top open.

Turn it back over, open the door, and fill it with the rectangles representing sin.

Now you're ready to get started. I think it may be helpful for me to provide a basic script that you can either read as you present this heart or use as a starting point for your lesson:

"Do you see this heart? This heart is just like ours. Want to see what's inside? Open the door. Wow! It's filled with lots of things. [Read a handful of the rectangles.] Gosh, those don't sound good at all. Did you know that we have things like this in our heart? In our Bible story, we talked about how Eve made a choice that went against what God told them. When Eve made that choice, sin entered our hearts. From then on, everyone is born with yucky sin. Sin is anything that sets us apart from God. It can be bad choices we make, mean things we say, or even things we think about. Sin is a part of us that we cannot get rid of on our own no matter how much we want to. God is holy and perfect, but we are not. God hates sin and cannot be near sin. So we cannot be near Him unless we can clean this sin out of our hearts. Since we can't do that, and since God loves us so, so much, He came up with a very special plan. He sent Jesus to clean out our hearts for us. The Bible tells us that Jesus stands at our heart's door and knocks quietly. He waits until we ask Him in to help us get rid of our awful sin. When we invite Him in, He gets to work right away getting rid of our sin. [At this point, have your child pretend to clean the heart with a wash cloth, and remove all of the sin rectangles together. Close the door, but secretly put a couple more of the sin rectangles back into the pocket.] The problem is that, since sin is a part of us, it just keeps coming back. [Open the door to reveal more sin.] But, since we've opened the door to Jesus, He promises to keep checking around and getting rid of our sin every single time it comes back forever and ever and ever. He will never leave us once we have invited Him in. So that means that every sin that has ever been in our heart and every sin that will come into our heart forever is already taken care of. Isn't that so amazing?" But, there's even more. The Bible tells us that Jesus wants to help us with special tools to do our best to keep the yucky sin out of our hearts. When Jesus is in our hearts, He brings the fruits of the spirit. [Place each of the fruits of the spirit into the heart pocket explaining each as you go.] These fruits wlil help us to act and think in a way that is pleasing to God. When a friend takes a toy away from us, we have been given self control to help us to not hit or push or grab the toy back roughly. When our moms and dads cannot help us right away, He has given us patience to help us to wait without whining or throwing a fit. So we not only have Jesus to clean up our sin right away, but we have been given special powers to keep us from sinning too! God is so, so good."

I hope you and your family find this illustration helpful. I am praying over this post (which, by the way has been the most technically-challenging blog I have ever written - literally everything has gone wrong, so clearly this is an important message) - that it would touch lives and hearts as you explain the absolute most important message we can share with our kids. Please feel free to contact me with any questions at all along the way. I do not know all of the answers, but I would love to learn and search alongside you.

Happy teaching!!

House Rules

I have come across several really cute tutorials for a family rules canvas that would be a great way to preserve the "House Rules" you and your kids establish during Week 5's activities. If you're looking to dive in further with the crafts, here are some great tutorials.

The Pleated Poppy's Family Rules Canvas

Lil Blue Boo's Subway Art

Multiple Frames by Next 2 Heaven

Vintage, Hand-painted Subway Art Version from Mossy Mossy

Scrap Wood Last Name Version from Love Affair with my Brother (as in the sewing machine!)

I hope these inspire you to get crafty!

Art Supplies Every Mom-of-a-Preschooler Needs

I thought it would be a good idea to compile a list of common art supplies that I'll be using throughout the lessons and activities. As a former preschool teacher, these items have become commonplace in my home. Hopefully this will help you build your stash of supplies as well.

Washable Markers

Elmer's School Glue

Glue Sticks

Children's Scissors (for beginners, I LOVE these)

Hole Punch

Crayons

Colored Pencils

Washable Paints

Watercolors

Paintbrushes

Q-tips

Chalk

Smocks or old t-shirts

Vinyl Tablecloth

White Paper

Construction Paper

Butcher Paper

Clear Contact Paper

White Paper Plates

Coffee Filters

Pipe Cleaners

Tissue Paper

Fabric Scraps

String or Yarn

Multi-Colored Buttons

Toilet Paper and Paper Towel Tubes

Ribbon

Popsicle Sticks

Felt

Multi-Colored Pony Beads

I'm sure I'll be adding to this list. But, for the majority of the projects we do around here, this list is complete!

Preserving Artwork

If you're like me, you hate throwing away the art that your little ones have so meticulously created. It took effort to buy the supplies, gather the kids, and execute the project, and you want to preserve their masterpieces.

Here are a few ideas for saving their creations:

Poster Portfolio: Take two large posterboards for each child. Punch holes 2 inches apart along 3 sides of both posterboards. Using yarn, lace the two together leaving one side (the one without holes) open to create a large pocket. Label the outside, and store all artwork flat inside.

Art Binders: These work best for all of the flat artwork as the dimensional pieces may not flatten enough to fit. Decorate a binder specifically for each child. Then 3-hole-punch each piece of art to add to the inside. You can go further by using page protectors.

Under-the-Bed Boxes: The plastic storage containers made for slipping under the bed are perfect for storing artwork. They are roomy, convenient, and durable. Storing it under the bed of the artist is a bonus as they won't take up any room in common spaces.

Digital Storage: Scan or photograph each piece of artwork. You can toss the original, or store it in one of the above ways. Then use the digital image to create a work of art themselves. You can find some brilliant ideas here, here, and here.

How do you store your kids' works of art without cluttering up your home?

Memory Verses

Each week our curriculum will feature a memory verse. But, at this age, not only is it tough to get a child to memorize a sentence, it can also be a bit fruitless. While the words will be tucked away in their hearts (IF they're able to get it), oftentimes they have no idea what those words actually mean. Have you ever had your child enunciate a favorite song? Sometimes when I actually listen to the "words" my 3-year-old is singing, I realize it's just gibberish. She's just memorized the sounds associated with the music and has no idea what the song is actually about.

When you begin talking about these themes with your child, make sure to help break down the memory verses for them. For example, when you introduce Genesis 1:1, talk about what "In the beginning" actually means. "In the beginning, God was all by Himself. There was no Earth, no sun, no stars, no kids, no toys, etc. God was the ONLY thing that existed. When He spoke the world into existence, this was the start of everything." Talk about the word "created." "Created means to make something. What kinds of things can we create?" Explain the word "heavens" and "earth" as well. "The heavens means the skies. The sky has all sorts of interesting things in it like planets, stars, the sun, moons. The earth is what we're standing on. It has mountains and valleys and dirt and sand..."

Understanding the meaning of the words they are learning helps with memorization, but it's also important to tap into a child's natural curiosities and interests. Since kids of any age are drawn to music and a good beat, a great way to help them to remember the verse is to put it to song. We put Genesis 1:1 to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." "In the beginning God created, God created, God created. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It takes no time at all for them to learn a short song, and it really makes something like Scripture memory possible for even the smallest kids.

Kids are also very visual learners. You might consider drawing pictures to represent the different elements of the verse. For example, you could write a #1 to represent "In the beginning." A picture of hands could represent "God created," and a picture of a night sky and another of the earth could represent "the heavens and the earth." As you sing the song, point to the various pictures.

Using multiple senses just compounds the efficiency of a child's ability to remember. Consider making hand motions to go along with the words to the song. Making their muscle memory match their speech has a tremendous impact. Holding up their finger showing "1" for "In the beginning," pretending to build something with their hands for "God created," gesturing toward the sky for "the heavens," then jumping down to touch the ground for "and the earth" are all examples of meaningful movement to really help drive the message home.

What ways have you found to be helpful for your kids to memorize?