Week 13: November 13-17 - "Home away from Home”
“Home away from Home”
This week, Viviana and I spoke about how great it feels to have created a feeling of “home” at the center. At times, when we’re playing basketball or baking cookies, or reading books together, it just feels like the kids are all brothers and sisters. What a great home-school away from home-school.
Scroll to the end for our annual Thanksgiving Dessert Sale
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Scroll to the end for our annual Thanksgiving Dessert Sale 〰️
Great plans
What a great moment. Miss Nicole chats with Emiliano while one of the posters on the back wall reminds us that God has great plans for us. Can you imagine how God looks down upon us with His great love and tenderness?
READINGS FOR THE WEEK - Family Book Package
The readings listed below are optional, but are great ways to reinforce the lessons taught at the center and for the entire family to explore together the topics we cover from week to week.
Our Memory verse can be found at the end of this page.
The Bible - the Book of Matthew
Matthew 8:28 - 9:17
Children’s Atlas of God’s World
pp. 34-37
Window on the World
pp. 10-11 (Albania)
Additional Read-Alouds:
Missionary Biography: George Mueller
Hero Tales: pp. 116-127 (Menno Simons)
THE GARDEN
For worship this week, we reviewed the perseverance of Moses and then talked about another great man: Noah. He persevered even when he had not seen rain in his life and trusted that God was speaking truth. God was guiding him in the right direction while he was building the ark. Thanks to his obedience to God and not giving up, he and his family were saved.
Noah and Moses were given special jobs by God. They ran their lives like a race! We said that we are also running a race and God has special plans for us too. But, there is something that slows us down in this race of life. It is sin. We put a backpack on each child and they tried running with it for a little bit. They said it was hard and heavy. We compared sin to that backpack and told them that when they confess their sin to God, He takes away that heavy load. After running with the backpack, they practiced asking for forgiveness and the backpack was lifted from them. They ran and noticed it was much lighter and easier to run this way.
Let’s always keep in mind that God wants us to be free from anything that slows us down. Let’s keep running the race with endurance and ask God to help us with any sin in our lives. We too can persevere.
This week we had loads of fun indoors because of the rain. God has a sense of humor and whenever we are talking about Noah, He seems to give us special effects! For indoor park time, we played freeze dance and “Move and groove,” one of their new favorite games. For activity time, Miss Vivi brought out some puzzles for the first time and the children really enjoyed them. They were great at deciphering the puzzles. The children drew some rainbows, followed patterns, and got creative by making their own comets and flying them around the classroom. It was a great week!
SEEDS
Worship
In our time of worship this week, we learned about FAITH. Jesus marveled when he witnessed the faith of a Roman Centurion who believed that, with just a word, Jesus could heal his servant. Jesus hadn’t seen faith like this and it served as a perfect example for his disciples, whose own faith would soon be tested. Jesus took his disciples across the sea and while they were together in the boat, a great storm arose. The disciples were scared to death and shouted for Jesus to wake up from his sleep. When he did, he calmed the wind and the waves (with just a word) and all was still. He looked at them and said, “Oh you of little faith.” Then it was the disciples who marveled; “Who was this man?” they asked themselves.
Geography
It was great to be back at SEEDS after a quick visit to NJ to visit my parents. I was very excited to begin our new unit on Europe. With so many places to see and talk about, Europe is proving a fun continent to explore.
We began by learning our new song to the tune of Happy Birthday. We will be learning a total of 22 countries (not all of them) by the time we are done.
After a general intro about the continent, we began to explore our first country: Norway! The kids were able to watch some videos about the interesting food that is served there and even were able to bake Serinakaker (Norwegian Butter Cookies). We got rave reviews from all. To learn how to make them, click on this link:
https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/norwegian-butter-cookies-serinakaker/#recipe
Looking forward to learning more together this week.
Studio Time
As we began our travels to Europe, we took a look at ancient Viking letters. Viking runes are made with straight lines and very little curves as this was easier to carve wherever they went. In some cases, it was a form of graffiti as Vikings would come to a new place and would mark walls and buildings with their runes. They have even been found in cathedrals! Mrs. Vivi handed the students their own copy of the Viking alphabet and invited them to write their names in pencil. Then, they were able to make a slab with clay to carve with their name. They were so excited to get their hands dirty. ¨Estamos enBARRados,¨they exclaimed. On Friday, we baked yummy Norwegian butter cookies and carved the first letter of their name with the Viking symbols. While the cookies were in the oven, they used black paint to make their names pop out more from the clay. They were rewarded with their treats after they finished their art pieces.
OAKS MIDDLE YEARS
Oaks Geography and Worship
For our Geography lessons, we watched several videos about Europe and our first focus country Norway. The OAKS were able to identify several interesting facts about the continent and share them with each other. We also had the great joy of having Mateo ZOOM in with us as he and his family are currently IN Europe. He updated us about his travels in Spain so far and everyone was excited to see him. During snack time we baked Norwegian butter cookies called Serinakaker. As a prayer focus, we discussed how both Spain and another European country, Greece, had been featured in the Window on the World book. Both countries have tremendous opportunities to share Christ as they are situated in areas that receive many immigrants. We took the time to pray for the Christians there; that they would be full of boldness and wisdom as they minister to people traveling through their countries.
Oaks Science
This week we had our final rainforest product presentation. Anaiah brought a plant, a baby papaya and seeds for the students to see and touch as part of her presentation. Mrs. Vivi also surprised the students with their first pop quiz based on the reading they had to do for a week. She told them that although she would not give them an actual grade, it was important to be ready to answer questions from your assigned reading when you come to class. The topic of the quiz was animal behaviors and we began to discuss migration, estivation, and animal courtship. We truly enjoyed watching videos of a few different birds singing, and even dancing in order to attract a mate.
Oaks Studio
On Thursday, the kids got their hands dirty with the clay Mrs. Vivi provided. They eagerly worked on carving their name in the clay with the Viking alphabet. Some of the students decided to even try out different shapes to carve their letters on. They will paint their rune stones this week.
Memory Verse #11
“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
