Dear Friend,This year I want to start a devotion series on the names of God. This is based on a book by Diane Stortz. I hope that as you think about the names of God, you learn more about Him, and grow in Him!⭑ ༅｡.｡༅ Elohim ✼ ✿ Creator ✿ ✼Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." ༅｡.｡༅ ⭑"From Genesis 1-2. Long ago, God made everything out of nothing. First, God made the world, and then He began to fill it with beauty. God said, "Let there be light." And right away, light shone all around. God knew it was good. He parted the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and He called the darkness night... On the second day, God said, "Let there be sky," and the sparkling blue heaven appeared... Next God said, "Waters, gather together so dry land can appear." The waters obeyed God! God called the waters seas, and He called the dry land earth. God liked what He saw--it was good! "Now let plants and trees grow up out of the earth," God said, "each with its own kind of seed." Pop, pop, pop! Plants with colorful, crunchy vegetables and sweet-smelling flowers sprang out of the ground. Trees grew tall and bloomed with delicious fruit. God like what He saw--it was good! ... On the fourth day, God decorated the sky. "Let there be lights in the heavens," He said. God made the sun for the day and the moon for the night. And he made the stars--so many stars that only He could count them! God knew it was good... On the fifth day, God said, "Now for the living creatures! First let's fill the seas and the heavens. Let there be big and small creatures to swim in the seas and birds to fly through the air." Swish! Splash! Swoosh! Fish and turtles and whales swarmed through the seas, and birds winged their way over the weather. God liked what He saw--it was good! ... On the sixth day, God said, "Let there be animals on the earth." He made every kind of animal that lives on land--from the roaring jungle tigers to the wiggly, wriggly desert lizard. And God saw that it was good. But God had saved the best for last. Now the world was ready for people! "Let us make people in our image," God said, "They will take care of this beautiful world and all the living creatures and animals." So God made a man and woman, Adam and Eve, and He blessed them... Everything God made was very good. And on the seventh day, God rested.God the Creator made the heavens and the earth--but He made everything out of nothing! No one else could ever do that. The very first name of God in the Bible is Elohim, which means 'the highest, no one better.' Only God could create our beautiful, wonderful world!" Please read Psalm 100:3-5!Love, Hannah
The Journey through Genesis has some great activity pages and coloring pages, which I plan to include along with some of the book's illustrations. I also like Mary Dean Draws coloring pages!
I also sent a letter sharing the story of Katje the Windmill Cat with our kids, along with art from Durer or Vermeer. The information about the Netherlands came from NatGeo Kids.
For homeschooling, we did some art studies and imitated art techniques by Durer and Vermeer, and so I thought the sponsored kids would enjoy seeing some of the artwork and trying it themselves! Since we have some kids who attend the same project, I have a few slightly different variations of the artwork included.Dear Friend,In November we studied the countries Germany and the Netherlands in Europe! NatGeo Kids shares this about the Netherlands, "The Netherlands is a small country sandwiched between Belgium and Germany in Western Europe. The North Sea, located to the north and west of the Netherlands, is continually battering the land... The Dutch have a saying: "God made the Earth, but the Dutch made Holland." The North Sea would have washed away the Netherlands if the Dutch had not erected defenses to protect their land. Over the centuries, the Dutch have built series of canals, dams, dikes, and pumping stations to keep the sea and rivers back. Today more than 2,400 kilometers of dikes shield the low, flat land—almost half of which lies below sea level—from the North Sea. Without the existing dikes 65 percent of the country would be flooded daily."I want to share a true story of a cat saving a baby from the Netherlands! Gretchen Woelfle changed the names of the characters, but she writes, "On November 5, 1421 a violent storm blew in from the North Sea, breaking through the dikes and flooding small village in South Holland... A cat and a little baby did live through that flood." Here's how she tells the story: It was storming, and Nico, the miller, was working in the windmill, grinding grain between the millstones. But as his wife Lena brought him breakfast, a crowd of villagers ran down the road. "The dike has broken! The sea is flooding the town!" Water rushed in to the house. Katje, the cat, jumped on baby Anneke's cradle as it swept out of the house in the rush of water. Nico and Lena hurried to get the rowboat to rescue their baby. They saw the cradle tipping back and forth, but Katje was jumping from side to side to keep Anneke safe. Finally the cradle bumped against the dike. The rowboat bumped next to it, where Nico and Lina were able to rescue Baby Anneke and their brave cat Katje.As we studied about the Netherlands, we learned about the artist Johannes Vermeer, who is known for his light-drenched genre pictures—scenes from everyday life. They are both realistic and poetic, conveying the sense that Vermeer saw beauty in the simplest object. And while studying about Germany, we learned about Albrecht Dürer. Dürer worked at both painting and wood engraving, and he was friends with Martin Luther, the reformer, who wrote the song "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."I hope you enjoy the art. We send much love!Hannah
With a quick Google search, it's pretty easy to find famous artwork and coloring pages. I encourage you to take some time to color a picture for your kid and include it with a blank version, and the artist's version!
Happy Writing!
