Preschool at Home Week 8 - Noah's Ark Toddler Activities

For the next few weeks, Riley and I are going to be using Bible stories as our springboard into activities, books, and crafts. For week eight, we focused on Noah's Ark. We actually didn't work on a specific letter or shape this week; we just stuck to the Bible story and crafts. It was pretty rainy this past week, so Noah's Ark ended up being a good choice. 

For starters, we read the account of Noah in several different Bible story books. I was disappointed that none of them mentioned the fact that God closed the door to the ark (Genesis 7:16). Almost all of them were written in such a way that the reader would assume that Noah shut them in. We changed that part of the story to match God's word. They all did talk about the promise God made and that the rainbow was given to remind Noah that God would keep his promise. How thankful I am to be able to tell my kids that God does indeed keep his word. I look forward to giving them examples of how God has kept his promises in my life.

After reading and discussing the story, we made this ark and rainbow mobile. I cut the shapes out of paper plates, and Riley sponge painted the ark portion brown. I helped her finger paint the rainbow. We didn't quite have room to fit all the colors but I think you get the idea. For the animals, I googled elephant and giraffe clipart and printed them out. Riley painted the back of the paper with sponges and then I cut them out once the paint dried. I know elephants aren't blue, but I don't have any gray craft paint (or black to mix with white, for that matter). 

Another activity was a dove print. We used white paint to create our "dove" and used green paint to make a fingerprint olive branch. Super simple, but it turned out cute. The problems with this picture were definitely my fault... I accidentally drew the wing backwards and put the olive branch through the middle of the bird's head rather than in his beak. Again, you get the idea we were going for.

I was very happy to remember that we had rainbow sprinkles in the house this week. We halved this recipe to make our batch of cookies (next time I would add a little more butter). The only thing we did differently was to add a handful of sprinkles to the dough. We're actually pretty convinced that Noah and his family ate rainbow sprinkle sugar cookies during those long nights of rain. 

Our last craft was this cotton ball and yarn rainbow. It was super simple to make, and it was a fantastic way to use up some of my scraps. Here's how you can make your own. 

Materials:

• paper plate
• cotton balls
• school glue
• small piece of ribbon
• yarn in the colors of the rainbow

Depending on the age of the artist, you might want to have your yarn pieces cut out ahead of time. I used six 15 inch pieces of each color. You can change the size and quantity of the pieces to suit your fancy. 

Sketch a cloud shape on the paper plate and cut it out. Spread glue all over the cloud template and let your toddler go to town pushing the cotton balls on. When that has dried, glue a ribbon to the middle of the cloud. This will let you hang it up easily. After this, glue your yarn pieces on. This part takes quite a bit of glue. We put a layer of glue on the cloud, stuck the yarn on, and then put another layer of glue on top of the yarn to guarantee it was secure, but you could probably omit this step and be good to go. 

FYI, this craft doubles as a mask or hairpiece. Riley stuck it on top of her head and said, "Where is me?" We might have to add grammar to our weekly studies. 

On a side note, our little sidekick turned three months old today! Look for that update later this week.

 

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