Crafty Monday: God’s Love & Hearts Galore! Plus Mardi Gras Celebration…

In this Post: Heart crafts, learning about God’s love, my “Jesus is my home” painting, & Mardi Gras celebration with homeschool group. At the end: helpful links and crafts from Valentine’s past.

Hello there! I pray you have a beautiful morning. It’s been nice to have a simpler study since we finished our Time Machine Study in home school. We are focusing on God’s love this month and later Purim (from the book of Esther).

First I want to show you a painting I did. I was inspired to do this “Jesus is my Home” painting while watching Beth Moore for my Bible study in Deuteronomy. I may put this picture on t-shirts on my Zazzle account (Doverette’s Bazaar- link on the right side of blog).

John 15:4 talks about abiding in Christ. He is where I choose to dwell and that is only by God’s grace. Jesus gives me the strength I need to walk in His ways. I can do nothing apart from God’s grace. This world is passing but Jesus will always be my home.

Michael used a new devotional just for last week. It is a book on John 3:16 for kids by Max Lucado. This week we will be getting back to the Bob Jones Devo to study Queen Esther and Daniel. We’ve also started using “Teaching Children to Pray”.

I also decided to give each day of the week a theme or two main subjects that we will focus on. For instance, Tuesday was Typing and Science. We did our normal activities but did extra in Science.

We began the week by talking about God’s love for us. We ended the week talking about how we show God’s love to others.

Surprisingly Michael mentioned free will as one of the ways that God shows his love for us. It’s so true. I’m glad God didn’t make us robots.

We talked about how God is the perfect Father and how he comforts us like a mother bird comforts her chicks. We talked about how Father God is the perfect parent and how human parents make mistakes.

The prayer book had some neat printables. These are light switch covers that remind us of God’s love and faithfulness.

Michael wrote his memory verse on this one and used Valentine’s stamps to decorate.

Michael drew his hand onto this hand print that represents Jesus’ hand. The pic says “My hand will always be in Jesus’ hand”.

Heart Mapping- Michael wrote the names of special people and places in this heart. Then he drew shapes around the words and color coded them.

I love these hearts with Bible verses on them. Every time Michael memorizes a verse he puts it in the envelope. We learned last week:

1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.” and 1 Corinthians 13: 4 “Love is Patient; Love is Kind.”

This sweet coloring page talks about how God loves us always…even when we are angry etc… the kids in the corners have the sayings written underneath them.

The Max Lucado book got in depth behind each part of John 3:16. It has puzzles and even the entire book of John with commentary.

Heart Science experiment with baking soda and vinegar

So this experiment didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. First we froze vinegar and water mixtures then baking soda and water mixtures. We added food coloring to make red hearts.

Then we put the hearts into a baking soda and water mixture with blue dye. The mixture barely fizzed. Maybe we did it wrong.

I even tried pouring baking soda on it but it just became a black purplish mess.

So Mondays are art and cooking now. I taught Michael how to boil eggs and also how to scramble eggs.

Michael scrambling his eggs.

Michael eating the fruit of his labor 😉

Tuesdays as I said is typing time. I have this neat typing game for pc. It shows Michael where to put his fingers and it times him. It’s called “Typing Instructor for kids”.

Our homeschool group celebrated Mardi Gras and was hosted by Rachel. You can find her blog here:

http://homeschoolingmom2mags.blogspot.com/

Rachel and her daughter Maggie always do neat things so check them out :).

Rachel made sure we knew that Mardi Gras actually began in Mobile, Al, where she’s from. She came all dressed up to teach the kids. The table was decked out in Mardi Gras theme. Rachel read us a book and explained the meaning behind the colors and customs of Mardi Gras. Purple, gold, & green represent the Wise men.

Michael and I wore our beads and hats. I had a tiara.

Rachel made a yummy meal: beans, sausage, & rice. We also had corn muffins.

Rachel made a timeline to show how the different holidays line up and she explained that Mardi Gras happens before Lent. Michael went up to draw a crown on the time line.

Rachel had two crafts but we were rushed by another group wanting to use our room. So we only got to one craft and I’ve yet to do the bead craft at home.  Michael keeps reminding me. The kids did make some neat masks.

The Mom’s put on the kids’ masks and were given beads, Moon Pies, & coins to throw to the children while we paraded around the room to jazz music. It was such a fun idea!

Rachel baked two lovely King cakes and her daughter Maggie found the baby Jesus figure inside her slice. I didn’t know much of anything about the holiday until Rachel hosted. I have a better view of Mardi Gras now and look forward to it next year! Thanks Rachel for such an amazing time! 🙂

Now here are some links to go with this month of love…..

What we’ve done in the past:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/crafty-monday-valentines-showcase/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/crafty-monday-new-use-for-that-recalled-crib-pom-pom-sundaes-homemade-welcome-rugs/

I’ve done several of the Valentine’s projects here: http://www.thatartistwoman.org/p/winter-projects.html

Here are some pictures of the projects we did from thatartistwoman:

Hey Penny reviews this neat book:

http://www.meetpenny.com/2013/02/how-to-have-a-heart-for-your-kids-by-rachael-carman-giveaway/

My Pinterest for Valentines’ cooking & crafting (come to blog to see links):

God bless & remember the High King lives & He loves you! ~Amber Dover