Why we LOVE Little Hands to Heaven...
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 2:01 pm
Little Hands to Heaven is the best preschool program that I have ever seen! 
It's so much more than just learning letters, sounds, and numbers. While those things are taught or reinforced, what I love about LHTH is that it is teaching my little ones Who God is and what He's done, and how they should respond to Him. It's teaching their hearts to be tender to Him at this tender age, and LHTH does it right on their developmental level. We're "playing" and they're learning! Since you don't have a LHTH guide, let me give you a sneek peak into what kinds of things you'd get to do...
~Daily, there's a fingerplay to do. These are a tie for "favorite activity" at my house! The finger plays include truths from the Bible story while also emphasizing the letter sound for the week.
~There's a Bible story daily, too. We're using the Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, which is one of the story Bibles reccommended.
~Several times a week (almost daily) you get to act something out. Frequently we're reencting the Bible story. This really helps the truths of Scripture to stick with them, and at this age learning by doing is very important - not to mention enjoyable! Sometimes there is acting out to see how God wants us to respond based on choices that the Bible characters have made. (ie Lying vs Being Truthful from the story of Jacob, Anger vs Kindness from the story of Cain & Abel, etc)
~Active Exploration such as experimenting with what things float after reading about Noah and the Ark, looking for different color things after reading about the variety of things God made, having a "picnic" with Abraham's 3 heavenly guests, making rubbings of different coins and learning the difference between them after reading about Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery...
~The Singing Bible has some great songs that put the Bible stories to music to match what you're reading.
~There is a different letter activity every day. One day each unit you make a huge masking tape letter on the floor and do something special with or on it. THIS is the other tie for favorite activity at my house! In fact Tape Day may be pretty close to a holiday! Carrie's creative ideas of things to glue on a large letter (to recognize the shape of it) and to practice "writing" it in are great! This week we "wrote" D's in pudding. Yum!
~You do an art activity weekly to go along with the Bible story. These are wonderfully fun and use things that I have around the house. They're doable for my kiddos and aren't too time-consuming.
~For the 1st 10 units, you make a "number page" for a little 1-10 book. You also do a counting page weekly that corresponds with the Bible lesson and has the kids either counting by 1's or 2's.
Now, I've scratched the surface of LHTH here, but I think that's it. There is so much more in there! (I bet you'll be surprised at all that's there just as you were with LHFHG. ) All the things I mentioned above are in the 1st 5 units...I've got 28 more to go! I probably sound like an infomercial by now , but honestly, we truly love LHTH! We're making wonderful memories!
You, too, can enjoy leading your little ones to lift their hands to heaven!
Kathleen
It's so much more than just learning letters, sounds, and numbers. While those things are taught or reinforced, what I love about LHTH is that it is teaching my little ones Who God is and what He's done, and how they should respond to Him. It's teaching their hearts to be tender to Him at this tender age, and LHTH does it right on their developmental level. We're "playing" and they're learning! Since you don't have a LHTH guide, let me give you a sneek peak into what kinds of things you'd get to do... ~Daily, there's a fingerplay to do. These are a tie for "favorite activity" at my house! The finger plays include truths from the Bible story while also emphasizing the letter sound for the week.
~There's a Bible story daily, too. We're using the Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, which is one of the story Bibles reccommended.
~Several times a week (almost daily) you get to act something out. Frequently we're reencting the Bible story. This really helps the truths of Scripture to stick with them, and at this age learning by doing is very important - not to mention enjoyable!
Sometimes there is acting out to see how God wants us to respond based on choices that the Bible characters have made. (ie Lying vs Being Truthful from the story of Jacob, Anger vs Kindness from the story of Cain & Abel, etc)~Active Exploration such as experimenting with what things float after reading about Noah and the Ark, looking for different color things after reading about the variety of things God made, having a "picnic" with Abraham's 3 heavenly guests, making rubbings of different coins and learning the difference between them after reading about Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery...
~The Singing Bible has some great songs that put the Bible stories to music to match what you're reading.
~There is a different letter activity every day. One day each unit you make a huge masking tape letter on the floor and do something special with or on it. THIS is the other tie for favorite activity at my house! In fact
Tape Day may be pretty close to a holiday! Carrie's creative ideas of things to glue on a large letter (to recognize the shape of it) and to practice "writing" it in are great! This week we "wrote" D's in pudding. Yum! ~You do an art activity weekly to go along with the Bible story. These are wonderfully fun and use things that I have around the house. They're doable for my kiddos and aren't too time-consuming.
~For the 1st 10 units, you make a "number page" for a little 1-10 book. You also do a counting page weekly that corresponds with the Bible lesson and has the kids either counting by 1's or 2's.
Now, I've scratched the surface of LHTH here, but I think that's it. There is so much more in there! (I bet you'll be surprised at all that's there just as you were with LHFHG. ) All the things I mentioned above are in the 1st 5 units...I've got 28 more to go! I probably sound like an infomercial by now , but honestly, we truly love LHTH! We're making wonderful memories!
You, too, can enjoy leading your little ones to lift their hands to heaven!
Kathleen
I agree, Little Hands is THE best preschool program, we had so much fun with it!