Planting the Seeds of Promise

Today we talked about Noah, after the flood.  The Bible, doesn't only talk about saving the animals and Noah's family, The story also mentions saving the plants of the earth by taking seeds with them as well, though it doesn't necessarily mention who does that work.  (foreshadowing for our story of the week) 

It's also Reformation Sunday - the Sunday that Lutherans celebrate Martin Luther posting the 95 theses to the church door and inspiring change.  Likewise, our parent topic was about things that you would like to do differently raising your kids from the experiences you had growing up. Some people didn't have anything they would change and that is great!  Sometimes, with a loving understanding of the choices your parents made, you may have some ideas, as well as the benefit of hindsight and experience, on how you would approach things differently with raising your children.  Great answers from everyone.

Back to Noah!

Today, we did a bunch of singing about rainbows and animals (I don't post all of the songs here because I don't always have the original source handy to cite) and then read a great board book called: Naamah Noah's Wife by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso.  There is a longer, hardback storybook version of this for older kids, but we read the board book, which is shorter, but still well-written and appropriate for our class.  This story imagines Noah's wife, Naamah doing the work of saving all the seeds of the earth - storing them in an apron full of pockets and then planting them after the flood. 

Then, we made playdough mandalas and planted seeds, sticks, moss, leaves and other found objects into some homemade playdough, which was scented with essential oil (the oil was an Aveda peppermint stress oil that I had left over from my days in the paid work force.  To me, it smells like work.  To everyone else, just a nice minty-smell ; )  Here's my 2-year-old with hers and one other student's:

 

The playdough recipe was a no-cook version, which you can find Here.  There are also probably every other playdough recipe you can think of on that site.  I like the no-cook recipe (instead of cooking it in a saucepan, you pour boiling water into it, which "cooks" it) but it seems a bit crumbly at first.  Once you work it in your hands a bit, it is just fine - just like regular playdough.  Perfect for our mandalas.  The kiddos stuck nature pieces into their dough, after molding it to the shape they want and I provided wax paper to take it home and let it dry.  The 'under 1-year-olds' were happy just feeling and smelling the dough, assisted closely by their parents. 

Here are a few of our finished mandalas:

It's kind of funny to talk about planting in the fall, but so far in Mustard Seeds, we've planted some great ideas, stories and experiences in the kiddos minds and hearts.  I think we've also planted a community for the parents and that's something that is good for everyone.