If Jesus Came to my House {B4FIAR}

In this latest book unit, we focused our attentions on Before Five in a Row book If Jesus Came to my House by Joan G Thomas. I chose the topic of hospitality for this weeks theme because this book lends itself well to this.

This year I want to be a little less haphazard about my two little one’s activities.   Abigail (4) will continue to have her one hour school with me doing Mathusee Primer and Jolly Phonics.  I want to be more  purposeful about the fun school I do with the two little girls.  To this end I’ve created a Preschool Adventure Box. In addition, I’ve written a frame-work with which to organise my planning of the short units I do with them. 

Each week the two youngest are given a preschool adventure work box full of lots of exciting activities for them to do throughout the week.  They are allowed to have a quick look through to build up their excitement for the week ahead.

This week we did a bit of schooling together with the older children.  Periodically a topic comes up which I feel all the children would benefit from.  This week, using the book ‘If Jesus came to my house’ I decided we would look at hospitality and how, as a family, we could serve our neighbours with it.

Read Aloud Books

The Salamander Room, another FIAR book, is a perfect go along. It describes the trouble a young boy goes to in imagining how he can change his room into the perfect home for his newly acquired salamander. Its message of considering the needs of the person (or animal) who is coming to stay is such a lovely introduction to hospitality.

Not really anything to do with hospitality, The Very Worried Sparrow is about a sparrow who worries about everything. That is, until he finds out about God the father who made and cares for him. I think sometimes we worry about our homes being good enough for guests. This is a lovely reminder to not worry. About anything.

I love all things Emilie Barnes! Her books are cosy and homely and remind me to turn my focus to the home and those I love. The following books are children’s books of hers and teach hospitality from a Christian perspective. Absolutely perfect for this week!

If Jesus Came to my House: Activities

Play Dough

Each morning I put out some play dough at their table with a photocopied sheet of the cover of the book we are studying.  They both really enjoy play dough and having different themed cutters and molds each week keeps it fresh and exciting.  This week I changed it a little by giving them moon sand play dough with a making food kit to go with it.  I also borrowed some plates and cups from their pretend play box so they had something to put their creations onto:

Dress Up and Drama

Posh Frocks

Dress up this week consisted of me going through the clothes which I put aside for them for their seasonal clothes package I do.  I picked out the sweetest little tea dresses I could find and popped them into the box for wear during our tea parties.  These were dresses the girls hadn’t seen before so it was very exciting!

Dolls House

We have a dolls house which my dad bought the twins years ago, with all the bits inside.  This was used to role play working together to help have the house in order for guests:

Tea Party Set

My mum bought A4 a tea party set in china with napkins and table cloth all in a beautiful basket which was perfect to be used this week:

If Jesus Came to My House Tray Activities

We did very few trays this week as most of the activities we did we all did together.  The odd couple we did do were all about building skills:   folding napkins and laying the table;  making up a jug of drink and pouring it into glasses.

We also used an art curriculum which we own which reinforces manners and hospitality:

There are lots of drawing and colouring in activities inside, so A4 did some for tray activities.

If Jesus Came to my House: Games or Group activities

Most of our time this week was spent talking.  Prior to B1 being born we had people around for a Sunday roast every week.  This has happen less frequently over the past year or so, but has remained a priority and something we always planned to return to.  With B1 sleeping through I felt the timing to start up again was right.  Really my goal this week was to show the children that hospitality was all about love, about that important commandment to love our neighbours.  Then the guys roleplayed and roleplayed and roleplayed some more ALL week!

Tea Parties

Tea parties encouraged them to see and find and make beauty in the everyday events of life:

Making Scones for a Tea Party

We also learnt how to make scones and jam and served them with a pot of jam each day when daddy got home from work:

Things to Watch

The Little Princess was a perfect end to our lovely week. We watched this whilst we ate our muffin tin meals:

Our muffin tin was three mini, heart shaped scones with jam in a pot, cream, cut up strawberries, bananas and kiwi with milk to finish. Seriously, how beautiful is that?!

Showing Hospitality

We invited Granny and our neighbours around for a little tea party:

This was a lovely week, which we all tho