Greek Art for Kids

December 2nd, 2013

greek-art-for-kids

Are you looking for super easy Greek art for kids? This art activity is the easiest I’ve ever seen! I saw this entry at the state fair and decided to do it with my own children. All you need is orange and black construction paper, scissors, and a black marker.

You will use the orange construction paper as the background of your project. We have chosen orange because it looks like the terra cotta pottery from Greece. Now you can cut out shapes of people from the black construction paper. It might be easier to draw the figures in pencil before cutting them out. Make sure the figures all face the same direction.

For the finishing touches, take your black marker and add embellishments and twirls to the top and bottom of your paper. If you need to look at Greek pottery designs, you can look here for inspiration.

If you liked this simple Greek art for kids activity, you will love my free Ancient Greece Unit Study. You might want to subscribe to my YouTube Channel to not miss any upcoming unit study videos.

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Excuses for Not Praying

November 29th, 2013

excuses-for-not-praying

So many Christians give excuses for not praying. They think that they are too busy, that their prayers won’t change anything, or that God doesn’t command us to pray. They don’t realize that they are walking in disobedience to God, and that they will not walk in victory over sin unless they are people of prayer.

My women’s prayer Bible study brainstormed a list of reasons why people don’t pray. After each reason, I debunk each of these excuses, and giving true reasons that you should pray. Afterwards I give you an audio workshop on prayer, giving examples and bringing to life how we are to avoid excuses in our lives.

Excuses for Not Praying

  1. Not enough time. Rebuttal: God gives our time back and helps us to prioritize what is truly important. God energizes us to accomplish what we need to do.
  2. Mind wanders aimlessly. Rebuttal: Take control over your mind. You don’t have to be ruled by aimless thoughts. Praying out loud or writing down a stray thought can help to keep your mind focused.
  3. Apathy, not caring about people. Rebuttal: Praying causes you to love others, so pray anyway, and the love will come. Ask God to help you care. God will change your heart if you ask Him.
  4. Selfishness, obsessed with our own lives. Rebuttal: Repent of the sin of selfishness.
  5. Fear of having sin exposed. Rebuttal: You must have your sin exposed and confessed for God to get rid of it, to have a real relationship with God. God will not hear our prayers when we are walking in overt sin. (Psalm 66:18)
  6. Angry at God. Rebuttal: If you are angry at God for allowing your child to die or allowing you to go through other horrendous pain, be honest with God, and ask Him to remove your rage, and He will. God is not out to harm you, but to draw you closer to Himself. (Jeremiah 29:11)
  7. Guilt. Rebuttal: Learn the difference between true guilt and false guilt. True guilt is from something specific you haven’t repented of yet. False guilt is a general feeling of defeat from the enemy.
  8. God is silent; He is not answering my prayers. Rebuttal: Maybe God is answering in a different way than you expected.
  9. Belief that it doesn’t change things. Rebuttal: Repent of not believing God. James 1:6-8 says a double-minded man gets nothing. Ask God for more faith to believe that He is powerful enough (and loves you enough) to answer your prayers.
  10. Laziness, too much of a burden. Rebuttal: Repent of the sin of laziness.
  11. Boredom. Rebuttal: Wow… you’re talking with the Creator of the universe, the All-Powerful, and you are bored? Ask God to reveal Himself to you, and you will never be the same. Get to know Him through Scripture, and you will be amazed by Him!
  12. Improper understanding of God as Father. Rebuttal: Unconsciously we relate to God the Father with the same patterns that we saw in our earthly fathers. If your earthly father was distant, you feel distant. If your earthly father was abusive, you think God is out to get you. If your earthly father was hard to please, you always feel like you have to perform for God. Get to know God for who He is through Scripture.
  13. Tired, exhaustion. Rebuttal: God gives inward strength. Are we spending our strength on things that don’t matter for eternity?

Here is the audio workshop, where I explain how to overcome each of these excuses:

To keep up with prayer posts, here is my Prayer Facebook Page.

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Food Web Activity

November 28th, 2013

food-web-activity

Look at this exciting food web activity you can do with your biology students! All you need is a pile of plastic animals, a dark blue poster, string, a silver Sharpie marker, and tape. This food web activity will help your biology students to understand which animals eat which other animals. This is more complicated than the food chain that goes in a straight line that you learn about in elementary school. In real life, some animals eat each other!

Grab the dark blue poster and set it down on the table. Dump the plastic animals out of the bag. I bought a huge bag of plastic animals at a yard sale for fifty cents, so you don’t have to buy the plastic animals new. Goodwill is another source. Or you can borrow the animals from a friend with young children, and give the animals back after this activity.

Students will now set up the animals with the tertiary animals near the top, the secondary animals near the middle, and the primary animals at the bottom of the poster. You might want to include a plastic plant because many animals are herbivores. All primary animals are herbivores, so connect the string from the plant to the herbivore. Tape it down on each end. With a silver marker, draw an arrow indicating that the herbivore eats the plant. (The arrow points to the plant. Unless you want to show how the food energy flows, then do it the opposite direction.)

Continue in this way. The secondary animals eat the primary animals, but some of them also eat plants. One animal can point to more than one food source. This is why the food web looks like a tangled spider web. The tertiary animals eat the secondary animals.

You will notice that an eagle will eat a snake, but that a snake can also eat an eagle! Amazing!

For more fun biology activities, join the Unit Study Treasure Vault.

 

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Lego Bacteria

November 27th, 2013

lego-bacteria

When studying about bacteria in biology, one of my sons decided to build a Lego bacteria. He used two small base plates, which he connected with black Legos representing the cell wall. Green Legos projected out of the cell wall, representing the pili used for locomotion. The flagellum is made of green Legos, and it looks like a tail coming out of the back of the bacterium. The flagellum is also used for locomotion.

The ribosomes are red Legos, and they synthesize protein in the cell. The ribosomes are what powers the bacterium because they take the DNA and turn it into protein for the cell to use. The DNA is made out of blue Legos arranged in a squiggly pattern. Without DNA, the cell would die very quickly because the ribosomes would not be able to make any protein.

Many bacteria are harmful to humans, but other bacteria help humans. People who study bacteria help us to stay healthy, which is one reason why my son wants to be a microbiologist.

If you enjoyed making Lego bacteria, you will love the biology activities in the Unit Study Treasure Vault. If you are homeschooling, your whole family can enjoy biology through the videos and activity demonstrations in the biology section of the Vault!

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