March Preschool Resources

Hi Preschool Parents,

I hope all of you had a wonderful experience this past Sunday with all of our changes!  In case you weren’t there, our preschool and children’s class moved to the “purple hall” which is the first hall you see when you walk in the doors of the school.  After a lot of hard work from a lot of volunteers, we were able to create some awesome new environments for our kids! 

Although the rooms look a little different, both in location and theme, what we do has remained the same!  Our 75 minutes or so each week, for our preschoolers all the way down to babies, gives us an amazing opportunity to teach your children so they can take their first steps in their knowledge of God and later take next steps in becoming more like Christ!  That is such a huge privilege and responsibility!!! 

Even though we LOVE teaching your kids each week, the teaching doesn’t stop with us!  In fact, we have only a small part in this!  Just think, there are 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week.  That means there are 10,080 minutes a week.  We get to be with your kids about 75 minutes, which is less than 1% of your kid’s total week!  My prayer is that you take time on a daily basis to teach our kids about God!  To help you with this and to reinforce what we are teaching on Sundays, we have two different resources for you.  The first is Parent Talk.  This is a resource for the parents of kids under the age of 2 that talks a little about what our babies are learning and how we can help lead them.  The second resource is Small Talk and it is designed for parents of preschoolers who are 2-5 years old.  Small Talk tells you what we are learning each week and it gives some practical ways of how you can reinforce the lessons at home throughout the month.  If you have any questions on how to use these, feel free to email me or call me at the church office.  I would be more than willing to walk you through them!

I look forward to seeing you and your preschoolers this Sunday!

Nicole Huff

Preschool Parenting Resources and Coat Update

Hey Preschool Parents,

I hope you are having a wonderful week so far!  We’re in a new month, so it is time for new Parent Talk and Small Talk pages as well as a new memory verse!  Just a reminder, Parent Talk is for parents of kids in our baby room, Little Lambs.  Small Talk is a resource to get your little ones talking about what we are learning and is designed for 2 to 5 year olds.  I would love to hear how you are using these and what you like best about them!

Also, I wanted to give you an update about Coats for Kids, our Family Ministry service project that we are currently working on.  Sunday was great!  Did you notice the ENORMOUS boxes at the school on Sunday!?!  If not, how did you miss them!?!  🙂  We would love to fill these completely up, but we need your help!!!  This Sunday will be the last day to bring your coats!  Don’t forget to clean out your closets and bring any gently used coats with you on Sunday!  Another great place to find coats is at thrift stores and consignment stores if you have a few bucks to spend on them, or you can ask your friends and family to donate coats from their closets.

After this Sunday, the next step is delivery!  We would love to have our families go to be a part of this as well!  We’ll head out to the refugee apartments on November 20th.  The plan is to meet here at 10:30 AM so that we can be to the apartments around 11.  We’ll probably be there for about an hour and a half or two and then can all stop for lunch on the way home for those who want to hang out together for a little longer. 🙂  If you are interested in helping with handing out the coats, post a comment on here, email me, Facebook me, or sign up on the sheet on the sign in table on Sunday. 

On a personal note, Hannah and I went out to the Refugee apartments a few weeks ago and she has not stopped talking about it.  On almost a daily basis, she is talking about ways we can help the kids we met, whether it is coats, toys, or food.  I love the idea of instilling generosity in her at this young age!  If you have any questions about the what the Refugee apartments are like, let me know and I’m more than willing to answer them or find the answers if I don’t know!

~Nicole Huff

Preschool Resources

Hey Preschool Parents,

Just a few quick things.  First, below are the Parent Talk and Small Talk pages for this month.  Parent Talk is a page for parents of preschoolers under 2 just to read.  It normally includes a devotional thought as well as a little discussion about something parents of babies and toddlers deal with on a regular basis.  Small Talk is designed for parents of 2 to 5 year olds.  It includes four practical ways that you can reinforce the items your kids are learning on Sundays.  I would highly recommend using these on a daily basis.  🙂  Also, just a quick reminder for parents of our older preschoolers.  Don’t forget to have your child wear the cape we made last week all month long on Sundays.  We are focusing on Super Heros and this is a great way to get them involved in what were are learning starting when they are getting ready at home before heading off to the school on Sunday!  Also, you may have noticed the post below about our Coats for Kids.  Start getting your preschoolers involved now in looking for/buying coats for the kids at the Refugee Camp.  We’ll be collecting on November 7th and  14th. 

October Small Talk

October Parent Talk

Why aren’t you doing your God-Time Cards exactly??

The small group leaders and I ask that a lot of the kids. They give varying answers. Usually along the lines of their moms and dads won’t let them print them off. I have a feeling that is not completely true but I thought you as parents should know that your kids are TOTALLY blaming you!!

The truth is that your kids will likely never be the ones to come to you about doing their GT cards, not at first at least. Spending time with Jesus is something that they will likely struggle with their whole lives. Satan knows that in order to get us to stumble all he has to do is distract us from spending time in the Word. Think about your quiet times. Do you do them everyday? Do you feel that inner struggle of reading your Bible verses doing the millions of other things you need to get done? Do you wish that spending time with Jesus everyday was more of a priority for you? Hearing a Bible story every Sunday morning will not develop a close relationship between Jesus and your child! I am always telling them that in order to be best friends with someone you HAVE to spend time with them! It’s obvious! And it’s obvious that these GT Cards are a good thing for families to do together!! So PLEASE find the time to instill this habit in your children!! They’re not going to instill it into themselves and this is definitely NOT somewhere to slack off.

Okay, so here are some practical time to do your GT Cards…

For all you home-school parents out there, incorporate it into your classwork. Find 15 minutes each day during “school time” to do GT Cards.

For the early risers, do them in the morning with your children while they eat breakfast before school. How much more positive could your morning be?

For the hectic morning people, don’t even try doing them in the AM. Dinner time is great or right before bed as long as it’s not too tempting to skip them because of how tired everyone is…

If you’re one to leave early to drop your kids off at school and spend 10 minutes sitting in line, have your children do their GT Cards then.

If you have to drop your kids off at school or day care really early, send your child with their GT Cards and tell them to do them before school starts. You will need to check each afternoon to make sure they really did them, but can give yourselves bonus points because you’re teaching your child not to be ashamed to let people see them spending time with Jesus!

If your family does their GT cards and have any other creative times to share with everyone, please do!!! And even if you don’t have a creative time that you do them, share with us anyways because it’s encouraging to hear about parents raisin their children to be authentic disciples of Christ!!

Silly Bandz

Does your child’s wrist look like this?

Have you seen kids everywhere walking around with what look like colorful rubber bands around their wrists?

Apparently Zhu-Zhu Pets are out and Silly Bandz are in! Well I’m not  sure that zhu-zhu pets are really “out” but I know I have seen WAY MORE kids wearing silly bandz than carrying around zhu-zhu pets. I’m just going to go ahead and assume that silly bandz are the latest thing.

That being said I wanted to pass on a cool idea I heard from Gina Holcomb to all of you! Her son and neice are VERY into these silly bandz so she got wise and began taking their silly bandz and wearing them on her wrists when they whined or talked back. I thought this was such a cool idea because earning those silly bandz back is a big deal to them! Props to Gina for being a creative Mom!!

We’re studying patience in Club 252 and in order to practice our patience I told the kids that we have a surprise for them at the end of the series but they have to be “patient” in order to receive it. The surprise is going to be that we will have lots of silly bandz and they can each grab a few. I would have shown up to Club 252 wearing these silly bandz just to push their patience a little bit but haven’t been able to find them yet. Remember, I said they were the newest thing and therefore hard to find in stores. So they don’t know what the surprise is yet, don’t ruin it for us 🙂 But once they are patient and get their small gift you can use that gift to help them remember to behave and follow the rules of your home, just like Mrs. Gina Holcomb 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day!

I hope you all know how  important you are to your families and I hope they love on you all day long!!

Have a REALLY great day!

Trusting God in Family Life

I let you all know about the Focus on the Family podcasts not too long ago. I’ve been listening to them myself, mostly the ones discussing marriage and God but a few about raising kids simply so that I would have good insight and recommendations for you on the blog. Anyways, I recently listened to one of their daily podcasts and it was an interview with Troy & Sara Groves. After listening to the podcast I’m a big fan of hers, not a big fan of The Fish so I may or may not enjoy her music, but I like her 🙂 She seems so down to earth and says some really great things about trusting God with her children and family. She said things that I will hold on to and remember when I’m raising my own kids. I really, really recommend you go listen to the podcast here, or go to iTunes and download the podcast to your iPod to listen to in the car or while you’re working out. To find the podcast on iTunes search at the store for “Focus on the Family Daily Broadcast” and then scroll down looking for the specific podcast titled “Trusting God in Family Life” It’s only 30 minutes long and will be well worth your time!! I promise!

Do you have a family time?

Hey Preschool Parents,

I was thinking about this question yesterday, so I figured I would ask you.  There are so many times that I am busy with life and I don’t slow down to spend quality time with Hannah.  Times when she has been acting like a three-year-old, and I have had enough of her (in the most positive way possible :)).  These are the times that I don’t often think about family time.  My outlook completely changes, especially when Hannah is having a bad day, when I stop and look for the ways to connect with Hannah and when I think about if I am showing her Jesus through my actions when I am annoyed with her. 

One thing that Hannah and I do almost every night, though, is to have a time of Bible reading and prayer.  As Hannah has grown, the look of this has changed slightly, but it is something I want to make sure I do.  Hannah and I have gone through a couple of different Bibles that have different Bible stories in it.  Once we finish one, we switch to a different one and then we end up rotating back to it later.  The other part of our nightly routine is prayer.  This has been the one that has changed a little more as Hannah has grown up.  Initially, I would prayer (or really recite) the prayer that my parents used with me when I was little.  As Hannah began to remember this prayer, I started to think about the fact that I was just reciting something and not truly “teaching” Hannah to pray through my actions.  At that point, we added in a time of prayer loosely based on the ACTS prayer acronym (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) in addition to our recited prayer.  Within a few weeks, Hannah had named this “Talking to God.”  There were many nights that Hannah would tell me that she didn’t want to pray, she just wanted to talk to God.  Once Hannah got this concept, I started asking her to “talk to God” after I finish.  Now that Hannah is 3, she needs to tell God 3 things.  Most days it is “Thank you God for my day, thank you for my night, and thank you for _____.  Amen.”  Although she hasn’t gotten ACTS idea yet, at least she is on the way!

Do you have a family devotion time?  If so, I would love to know what it looks like!  Take a few moments and leave a comment.  Along those lines, I will randomly draw a winner based on those who comment and will have a special family friendly prize for you to use to have a family time!

Last, I want to encourage you to attend Kidology Live! coming up this Sunday.  For more info about it and to sign up, please check out the post about it!

~ Nicole

Family Devotions

Okay, first let me confess, I enjoy the show ’19 Kids & Counting.’ I never thought I would and now I’m eating my words because I actually record the show on my DVR. I know, what a dork!  To my defense, I love some good TV time and have found lately that my normal shows just aren’t doing it for me anymore, so I branched out and found this wonderful family. My husband doesn’t understand why I like the show and truthfully I’m a little surprised as well. I don’t share their convictions about birth control and WILL NOT be birthing 19 children but I just love how much that family loves each other! Yesterday I was watching and the Dad, Jim Bob, does that name crack anyone else up?,  was at home with like 6 of the little kids while Mom and all the older girls were out shopping. Jim Bob 🙂 made lunch for the kids with all 6 of them crowded around him. He didn’t look stressed at all, but just seemed to be thoroughly enjoying having them there helping him. When the kids brought their food to the table and were being somewhat still for a few minutes he grabbed his Bible and began reading to them. The kids were listening and answering questions that he probingly asked. It looked totally natural and not the least bit uncomfortable.

We don’t have kids but I always imagined that when we do and try to do family devotion time with them, that it will be kind of awkward. Maybe because we never had family devotion time when I was growing up. This encouraged me though! It was apparent that he was good at spotting a good time to teach his children from the Bible. Nothing forced, or against their will. They were just sitting and eating and engaged with what their Dad was telling them.

I hope when Ryan and I have kids that we 1) enjoy them as much as the Duggars enjoy their children and 2) are able to spot those kinds of moments and take advantage of them.

If your family has family devotions tell us what they look like.

Focus on the Family Podcast

I like to check Holly Furtick’s blog throughout the week. Today she posted about her favorite Focus on the Family podcasts. If you don’t know what a podcast is, it’s just a free online download in iTunes. Podcasts that I download are Crossroads Church of Walton County (for the Sundays that I don’t get to go to service), Andy Stanley’s sermons from North Point Church & Steven Furtick’s sermons from Elevation Church. I’m obviously a fan of the Furtick family.

I don’t know how many of you have iPods, or if you do have an iPod you may not know how to download a podcast. I’m not trying to belittle your techno intelligence, I’ve just been hearing a lot lately “I’m not computer savvy enough to check and comment on the blog.” Well, your kids will know how to do it if you don’t, so ask them. That goes for the podcasts and the checking our blog 🙂

So check out her post here.