Dave Johnston

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Our Teacher’s Top 5 Favorite Crafts for Preschoolers

At Faith Christian Preschool, we love getting messy with paints, water colors, shaving cream, glue, and all kinds of other fun art supplies. We asked our teachers to share their favorite crafts they enjoy doing with their students. We received so many fun ideas, and will share our top 5 favorite crafts. Supply lists and directions are included if you’d like to try creating these crafts at home with your children.

Blowing Kisses – Craft idea provided by: Nycole SinksSupplies: Canvas or white cardstock, patterned paper, picture of your child printed out, blue and white paint, scissors, white glue, sponge brushes
Directions: Cut out hearts from the patterned paper. Paint the canvas or card stock with blue and white paint. Once the paint is dry, glue on the picture and hearts. For a 3-D effect, fold the hearts in half first and only glue half of the heart down.     
Sneezy the Snowman – Craft idea provided by: Nycole Sinks & Rachel JonesSupplies: dark blue construction paper, white paint, paint brush, white circle & triangle cut out from white construction paper, black marker, orange construction paper triangle (nose), colorful construction paper, glue stick
Directions: Glue on the triangle (body) to the dark blue construction paper, then add the circle for the head. Glue on the triangle nose to make it look like the snowman is looking up. Cut out strips of colorful construction paper to create a scarf for the snowman with stripes. Add on some black dots with the marker to create a smile for the snowman. 
We enjoy reading “Sneezy the Snowman” or “Snowmen at Night” when we do this craft with our preschoolers. 🙂

For God so loved the World – Craft idea provided by: Rachel JonesSupplies: Blue construction paper circle (use a large bowl to trace a circle shape on the blue paper, cut out), green paint, cross shape cut out from brown construction paper, black marker, glue stick, foam paint brush
Directions: Paint your child’s hands green and make two hand prints in the center of the blue circle (globe). Glue on cross. Once the paint is dry, write John 3:16 with a black marker around the outside of the “globe.” “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

Doily Turkey – Craft idea provided by: Jodi CahillSupplies: white doily (you can find these for $1 at Dollar Tree), dot paints (you can also find these at Dollar tree), brown and orange construction paper, wiggle eyes, red water balloon, glue stick
Directions: Dot paint all over the white doily. While you wait for the paint to dry, cut out a “bowling pin shape” out of the brown construction paper. This will be the body of your turkey. Cut out a small triangle (beak) from the orange paper. Cut two strips of orange paper for the legs. Fold the “legs” back and forth to get fun, bendy legs. Glue the turkey body and legs to the doily. Glue on the wiggle eyes, beak, and balloon. 
Mistletoes – Craft idea provided by: Rachel JonesSupplies: red and white cardstock, green paint, black marker, red ribbon, foam paint brush, hot glue
Directions: Paint the bottom of your child’s feet with green paint and make prints on the white card stock. Once dry, glue to red paper. Write “Mistletoes” on the side, glue on ribbon with hot glue. All done!

These crafts make for some great gifts for Grandparents or other family members or friends. We hope you’ve enjoyed our top favorite crafts! Which one is your favorite? If you’d like to know the other craft submissions, come visit our preschool and our teachers would be happy to share them with you.

A big thank you to all of our teachers for submitting so many fun craft ideas! Special thanks to Mrs. Sinks & Mrs. Cahill for the highest rated crafts among the preschool faculty.

respect

Character Quality: RESPECT

We allow our Senior Council to plan our Flex Chapels about once a month and it is exciting to see them take hold of this leadership opportunity. Two of our seniors, Bethanne Lawson and Elly Hume, wrote and shared the following devotional about this month’s character quality of Respect. 

As you all know, last month we spent a lot of time studying the character quality of humility. This month, we are going to focus on the character quality of respect. I think it’s really easy for us to tune out the word respect when we hear it, since we’ve heard about it so much and it can become redundant. I’m sure when most of us hear the word respect we automatically think of the basics—loving others, being kind, not being judgmental, etc. Which yes, all of that is true and vital as followers of Christ.

However, truly respecting other believers starts with a true and genuine love for God, and out of that will flow a love for others. And loving our brothers and sisters in Christ is so much more than the typical ideas of being nice and not judgmental.

We often forget that truly loving other believers means being willing to open up about the things of God and share how God is working in our lives. It means being willing to lower ourselves and be vulnerable and share our struggles with others. And often times, this means you have to admit things that may not be very easy to admit. Maybe you’ve been feeling lukewarm, or God feels distant, or you’re going through something that you just don’t understand. Talk about it! That’s why we are a body of believers.

It amazes me that we can go to a Christian school and go to Bible class or chapel every single day and learn about God, talk about God, and worship God, yet the minute we step out of the classroom or the auditorium, it’s not natural for us to talk about God. It’s not normal for us to open up about our struggles or ask for prayer.

But that’s not how it should be. James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” As these verses show, we are called to love others by opening up about our walk with Christ and encouraging our brothers and sisters in theirs.

It’s super easy for us to get really excited about, for instance, a soccer game, and want to tell all our friends about it. But how often do we get so excited about the things of God that we can’t stop talking about it? I know for me personally, that doesn’t happen very often.

I do want to recognize, though, that for some of us, our walk with Christ may be rough and seem impossible to talk about. Maybe yours is filled with apathy and distance. Or maybe you don’t even know if you have a walk with Christ at all. I get that. But please talk about it. Speaking from experience, I know that hiding it and pretending everything is okay will only make it worse.

So find a close friend or mentor who you trust will pray for you, share truth with you, and point you to the cross. I promise it will be worth it and I promise it will get better. Talking about our relationship with Christ, or lack thereof, is far more important than talking about anything of earthly value.
Jefferson Bethke once said, “To be truly human is to be truly known and someone who hides can’t be known.” One of the worst and frankly most disrespectful and unloving things we could do to another believer is put them in a position where they do not feel comfortable sharing about their struggles and opening up about their relationship with Christ.

Truly loving and respecting others starts with a choice. We have to choose to humble ourselves and to open up about the things of God, even when it is not easy. So go ahead, be the weird one and talk about God, because if we’re all weird, none of us are, right?

2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “But he said to me, ‘my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ so I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

I want you guys to remember that just because you aren’t perfect, just because you aren’t as good of a Christian as that other person in your class seems to be, just because you don’t have it all together, doesn’t mean that you have to pretend that that’s the case.

My prayer is that Faith becomes a place of authenticity and transparency, in which we are not afraid to vocalize our struggles and be honest. I see so many of you already being an amazing example of this! Keep it up, it is so cool to watch! So go ahead: share your story with others, open up and be vulnerable, show how Christ is working in your life and ultimately give Him the glory for it.

Biblical Integration

What’s the Big Deal about Biblical Integration?

We strive to include biblical integration in everything we do. But what does that look like? Is it as simple as the teacher praying to start class or having a Bible memory verse? Praying and memorizing God’s Word are wonderful, but biblical integration is so much more than just this. It even goes beyond weekly chapels or caring faculty members.

The crux of Christian education is that everything being taught is filtered through the lens of God’s Word. Biblical integration is teaching and training students to discover and see who God is in each subject area. It’s not just adding a bible verse to an academic lesson, but it’s using that lesson to know, glorify, and serve God.

We believe that this foundation of biblical integration will impact our students even more than just purely academic knowledge separated from its ultimate meaning in the nature of God. However, this kind of meaningful biblical integration is not easy, and it takes much thought and intention on the part of our teachers. This year our staff is investing more time into this challenge as we seek to continue to improve in this area.