Free Preschool Activities

I love making this Advent calendar with the kids! It’s just so simple, and is a good way to keep track of how many days until Christmas.

What you need:

• Christmas picture to color. You can find several coloring pages here
• construction paper in Christmas colors or your child’s favorite
• child-sized scissors (You and your preschooler will LOVE the ones that come with the Super Scissors Book.
• Glue or tape

What you do:

Have your child color and cut out the Christmas picture you chose.

Count how many days there are left until Christmas morning. Cut a strip of construction paper for each day.

Tape or glue each strip into a ring. Make them into a chain and attach to your picture.

For some extra fun, see if your child can create a pattern with the colors.

Hang the chain up where your child will see it everyday. Before he or she goes to bed each night, have them cut one ring off the chain.

When you cut off the last ring, the next morning is Christmas!

Here is an easy preschool Bible craft that can help your child remember and apply the Bible verse, “Sing unto the Lord.” Psalm 95:1

What you need for each child:

• 1 8 1/2″ x11″ sheet of construction paper - in your preschooler’s favorite color, of course.
• Printed lyrics to favorite Sunday School songs. You can find the tunes and words to many favorite Sunday School songs here. http://www.ebibleteacher.com/children/songs.htm
• Crayons or coloring pencils
• A stapler

What to do:

Fold the construction paper in half to make a cover for your songbook. Help your child print “Sing unto the Lord” on the cover, or encourage them to create a cover design of their own.

Give your child the printed lyrics to their favorite songs. These should be pre-cut so they fit inside your songbook cover. You can invite your child to add illustrations for each song.

Staple together.

Hold a sing-along and have fun singing unto the Lord together! Add lots of actions to your songs… if you can’t think of any ask your preschoolers for ideas.

Ready to Learn Some New Favorites?

When you’re ready to add some new favorites to your repertoire, you might also want to check out Gospel Fun Songs for Kids.

The countdown to Christmas has begun! Over the weekend, we brought out our Advent Snowman.  Every day we change the number on his sign. The smaller the number grows, the more excited the kids get!

You can help your preschooler count down the days until Santa’s arrival and Jesus’ Birthday Party by making an easy advent calendar. This is one of my favorites to make with preschoolers, because they can do almost all the work themselves, and they get to practice their cutting skills.

What You Need:

A Christmas picture from a coloring book, or draw one yourself. You can use a Santa picture or one of Baby Jesus.

Colored construction paper. Christmas colors like red, green and white are nice, but any colors will do!

A stapler (to be used by the adult)

child sized scissors

What You Do:

With your child, look at a calendar and count how many more sleeps there are until Christmas Day. Counting “sleeps” is an easy way for preschoolers to keep track of the days.

Then cut a strip of construction paper for each sleep.

Make the strips into a chain by making each one into a circle and stapling the ends together.

When you have made all the strips into a chain, staple the entire chain to your Christmas picture.

Hang the advent calendar in your child’s room, so they can see it regularly.

Every morning, your child can cut off one of the rings. When the rings are gone, Christmas is here!

by Ruth Willms

“You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
Nor of the arrow that flies by day,
Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand;
But it shall not come near you.
Only with your eyes shall you look,
And see the reward of the wicked.
Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place,
No evil shall befall you,”
Psalm 91: 5 to 10 NKJV

There are many things that can make even God’s children afraid. We should be afraid of some things and make sure we protect ourselves from them. The Bible says we should avoid evil companions. It’s important to choose good friends because we become like the people we surround ourselves with. We should be afraid of addictions to the point that we avoid using harmful substances like drugs. We should fear the consequences of breaking our country’s laws and our parents’ rules.

But we should not live in fear. We need not worry about what bad things could happen to us today. We can ask God to be in charge of our day and keep us safe and make all things work out right. God says He keeps us safe if we make Him our “dwelling place”. That means our faith and trust are in Him. Do you know that God can even take our mistakes and make them into something good for us?

Sometimes bad things do happen in our lives even when we do everything right. I remember two times when my grandchildren questioned me why God hadn’t kept us safe. One was when I was driving them home from school a few years ago before they were homeschooled. My car was rear ended as I was stopped for a red light. The other time was when my grandson was riding his bike and ran into the back of a parked truck. His mouth was cut up and one tooth was broken. We are human and at times we will make mistakes no matter how careful we try to be. We need to ask God for wisdom for our day to know how to handle every situation in the best way that will please Him.

And how did God take our blunders and make them into something good? My grandson and I agreed that if we hadn’t prayed for safety everyday things could have been a lot worse. And the good thing? We both learned to be a lot more careful.

The Adult Version

Last week our neighbors had a small but damaging fire in their house and two days later they had a break-in. Although we live in a big city- Calgary, Albert- where shootings, knifings and crimes are on the news everyday, I believed we lived in a relevantly safe neighborhood and was shocked by the robbery next door.

We had planned on going away for the weekend but I was very on edge to leave our house unguarded for night. We had done what we could to keep our house safe. When we bought our property we researched the safety of our area. We had a burglar alarm installed and made sure our windows and doors were secured. When we are away we have someone close-by keeping an eye on our house.
As I was relaying my fears to God He put these words into my mind, “It shall not come near you.” That sounded like Psalm 91 to me so I looked it up.

I found comfort and safety in its words. Although Christians too are victims of crimes and fires at times, I knew God was telling me I could safely go visit our children for the weekend and leave our property in His hands. It would be safe. And if something happened it would still be alright. Everything was in His control.

Ruth Willms is a Children’s Christian author and creator of The Lion Tree which you can find at http://www.RuthWillms.com
You can find daily devotionals for kids and “going deeper” for parents at http://www.ruthwillms.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com