Krispy Kreme, Gingerbread, and Bible Stories

Last week was Thanksgiving and I kept EL for only a few hours while his Mother went to a meeting. But she did ask me to do start doing Bible lessons with him and I mentally smacked myself. Why hadn't I done that before? A majority of my childcare experience stems from my church and I have plenty of experience teaching Bible stories and doing Bible activities.

Today, the second EL's Mother left the house I made him get dressed (I should mention that this task is an activity all on it's own and I have found myself timing him in order to make a game out of it. Otherwise he's standing there in his underwear for 10 minutes!) and we drove up to Krispy Kreme for a Hot and Now!!!
I get a dozen free donuts once a month for a year at Krispy Kreme. I along with 100 other people, camped outside Krispy Kreme for the grand opening. I myself waited 14 hours and let me tell you. It was SO worth it!
Anyway, we went to Krispy Kreme to get a Hot and Now. I don't know about you but I melt in my seat when eating a HOT Krispy Kreme donut. EL was especially excited to watch the donuts being made and I think it was the highlight of his experience.

Have I mentioned before that EL is picky? Well one of the things that weirds him out is food textures. So when he got his donut, I cut it in pieces for him (so it wouldn't be quite as messy) and he put the first bite in his mouth, pondered for a moment, wrinkled his face and went, "I don't...wait...wait yea I like it!" It was hilarious! Every bite he seemed to have to wait out he freaky texture of the glaze to get to the good donut part! He liked wearing the hat, even though he said he was too cool at first. I think we'll do this again sometime but note to self: He could have probably done just as well with a HALF donut!

We got back home and started his homework. Oh boy. I have to say I could not STAND it when my elementary (and beyond) teachers gave me a worksheet and then made me copy from that worksheet onto another worksheet. SO instead of just writing the answers, I would have to write half the problems too! And showing your work! I absolutely agree showing your work is important...on most things. But even I had to admit it was silly to ask what the odd number between 5 and 9 is and then ask to show your work. What work?? (he wrote out 5-6-7-8-9 and circled 7. Sounds legitimate to me.) The very last thing he had to do required him to make a web, and then write a story from it. That took about 20 minutes. No exaggerations. But like I've said before, I’ll spend as much time on homework as necessary. He then had to do silent reading for 15 minutes so I did a little reading of my own for that bit of time. I love to read. Half of my elementary and middle school troubles were from reading on the sly (I was SUCH the rebel!) EL does not like to read and makes it well known with a lot of sighs and mutters. I just smile and let him get it all out.

Finally with homework out of the way, we played Club Penguin. There's a special event going on where you have to save CP from an evil polar bear named Herbert...evil name right??

Club Penguin is a safe social game for kids and I have to say I really like the way CP runs their safety features. You can make friends and talk to them but the safeties include an automated dictionary that, while it sometimes gets annoying, really restricts any sort unsafe chatting (this includes big words and numbers, even the word 'name') . So he played, I watched as he rescued fellow EPF Agents (Elite Penguin Force. If that doesn't intimidate the bad guys I don't know what will =.=) for a solid hour just as I'd promised.

Once again I had a hard time getting EL to eat anything substantial. However the one snack I'm able to count on him eating is cheese-its with peanut butter. Interesting combination. I've never tried it but I imagine it's just like orange lance crackers.

Then we moved on to the main activity of the day. I bought two big gingerbread man decorating kits from Wal-Mart and we sat at the table decorating. The kit by itself really wasn't worth the $4 it cost. It came with plenty of icing but only 4 peppermints and 5 or 6 jelly candies to decorate with. So we raided the pantry where their candy stash is and added our own skittles, smarties, and milk duds. This turned out to be a terrible waste because, as we discovered when EL nearly broke his teeth, the gingerbread was inedible. Now I know some gingerbread crafts aren't meant to be eaten but if I pay &4 for a giant cookie I expect to be able to eat it. Alas the brick hard gingerbread men went back into the box, uneaten. It was just as well though because the Krispy Kreme was taking its toll on EL's hyperactivity. He was bouncing off the walls!

Finally we did the Bible lesson. For today I simply read the Noah's Ark story out of a children's Bible. I really like the story of Noah's Ark because it shows God's power AND his mercy. In fact in nearly every case where God destroys something he ALWAYS spares someone who is faithful to Him! (the flood: Noah and his family, Sodom and Gomorrah: Lot and HIS family, Jericho: the woman who helped the Israelite spies to name a few instances) But one thing that I was NEVER taught about Noah's ark, just a minor detail. Noah sent out a Raven BEFORE sending out the dove! When I read it in the children's Bible I did a double take. Wait, what? I was all fetch the Bible! I turned to the story in the Bible and sure enough there it was!

"...and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth." Genesis 8:7

Isn't that interesting?

http://cindybythesea.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/elul-10-and-the-raven/

This woman finds great refuge in God's act of sending out the Raven and I really love what she says about it.

In the next weeks I've got more Bible lessons planned and I can't wait to tell you all about how it goes!