Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Happy Thanksgiving! This week we are going to focus on the holiday and turkeys!

Table Activities- This week's table activities include a paper turkey creation, candy corn shapes, counting and patterns, playdough turkeys, Thanksgiving pattern blocks, Thanksgiving dot painting and corn, feathers and leaves sensory bin.

Small Group- This week our small group activities include making a turkey with feathers that spell out our name, adding an "I am thankful for..." page to our journals, and making Mayflower boats.

Large Group- This week we are playing "Pilgrim" on the boat, playing some of the games they played that first Thanksgiving and seeing if we can get our Mayflowers to float!

Bible Stories- This week's story is the story of Jonah. Jonah was a prophet in the Old Testament and God told him to go to the large city of Nineveh to call that city to repentance. Jonah was given the job to walk in and around the city calling out their sins and telling them that God's judgement was at hand. Jonah decided he didn't want to go, so he boarded a boat going in the opposite direction. Exhausted by his efforts to flee the Lord's will for him, he fell into a deep sleep once he was on the boat. While he was sleeping, a huge storm came up. The sailors began to throw cargo overboard, hoping to keep the boat from sinking. They knew that a god was angry with someone on the boat, so they woke Jonah up and everyone drew straws to see who was the cause of the storm. Jonah got the short straw. He admitted to going against the one and only God's will and told the men to throw him overboard. They were reluctant to do so, thinking they would be responsible for Jonah's death. Jonah told them they must throw him off the ship! They did, and he was swallowed by a giant fish. Jonah spent three days in the belly of that fish, praying and asking God for another chance. God did give him another chance. The fish threw him up on a shoreline close to Nineveh. Jonah went and preached God's message. The Ninevites repented and God didn't bring judgement down on them. Our story ends there, but Jonah's doesn't. Once he preached repentance, he went outside the city to wait for fireballs to come down from heaven and destroy Nineveh. There was a plant that was shading him as he waited. God caused a worm to come and eat that plant so that it died and Jonah was given no shade. Jonah complained bitterly, here he had done what God had commanded, Nineveh wasn't destroyed and he was roasting in the sun, how unfair!! The Bible doesn't tell us where and how Jonah ended up, but it does give us a reality check about "not fair!" God loves us, even though we don't deserve it. Jesus dies for us, even though he's done nothing wrong. God is a God of unfair- thank goodness he is! He blesses and loves us at our worst, even when we hate or don't even acknowledge his existence. Thank Him for all the unfairness in your life this Thanksgiving!!

Books of the Week- "Oh, What  a Thanksgiving!" by Steven Kroll and "A Plump and Perky Turkey" by Teresa Bateman.

We didn't get to do all our fish activities, but we will come back to it later on this school year! 

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!!