Creation

January 12th, 2011

In honor of the New Year, Grandma Mouse is presenting some new games related to the first book of the Bible, Genesis. The first is the Days of Creation Game.

Bible scholars do not all agree on whether the days of creation were 24-hour days. However, many people do not believe in a creator God at all. If we believe the Bible, the most important thing is to believe and help others to understand that God is the one who brought the world and everything in it into being.

Is there any benefit in learning the days of creation in order? The goal should never be enabling someone to spout off the information just so they can say they memorized it. However, I think we can learn some lessons from studying God’s creation activities:

  • God has a plan and does things in an orderly fashion. Days 1 through 3 prepared for days 4 through 6. The sun, moon, and stars (day 4) shine the light (day 1); the birds and fish (day 5) live in the skies and oceans (day 2); and the animals and people (day 6) live on the land (day 3).
  • People are God’s highest creation. God created human beings last and put them in charge of everything else that he had made (Genesis 1:27-28).
  • God rested on the seventh day to set an example for us. God referred to this when he gave the fourth of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8-11).

I hope you enjoy using the game to better understand the days of creation. The next Genesis-related game will be about Abraham’s family – their family relationships, their travels, and how God worked in their lives.

Posted in Bible Games | No Comments »

Christmas Stockings

December 1st, 2010

Original stockingWhen I was a teenager, my mom and I decided to make Christmas stockings for the three people in our family – my parents and me. At the time we had a sewing machine with a double needle feature, so we created each person’s initial in green and white stitching on the red stockings. We hung the stockings on Christmas Eve, placed some small items in them, and looked to see what we got the next morning.

Stocking for husbandWhen I got married several years later, I made a stocking for my new husband. Green is his favorite color, but not that shade of green! (I guess that’s the fabric I had available at the time.) By this time we had instituted the practice of each person putting one small gift into each other person’s stocking.

Stocking for my childWhen each of our two children was born, I made a new stocking. The two-color feature was no longer available, so each initial was a single color contrasting with the stocking color. I never made stockings for my husband’s parents, but they got out some large stockings that they already had, and for several years, we hung up stockings twice each December, once at my in-laws’ house and once at my parents’ house.

Grandma stockingNow we have a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. The stockings for our children’s spouses are pretty plain, with a simple initial like our daughter’s and son’s. Adding a new daughter-in-law with the same initial as my mom caused Mom to add a small cross-stitch G to her large initial L (G standing for Grandma, of course).

Stocking for my grandchildFor the new generation I decided to get a little a fancier, especially since there are now more L’s and more stockings altogether. I cross-stitched a small Christmas picture and the child’s name and added it to the stocking. The stockings are still all the same size and shape; I cut out each new stocking by laying an old stocking on the fabric and cutting around it, leaving room for the seams.

We pin the stockings to the back of the sofa, attach them to kitchen chairs, or use a towel rack over a door, whatever works. When an item won’t quite fit (or won’t fit at all), it ends up somewhere outside but near the stocking.

Neither my husband or I were taught by our parents to believe in Santa Claus because they didn’t want us to become disillusioned later and decide God was also imaginary. Our children never received presents from Santa either. We sort of pretended that the presents in the stockings were from Santa Claus. However, as soon as they were old enough, we helped each child choose a package of inexpensive items, such as pencils or combs, at the store and then participate in the tradition of putting presents in other people’s stockings.

For the last few years, our family – my husband and I, my mom, and our children and grandchildren – have been getting together right after Christmas. Both of our children married into larger families than ours, and it’s simpler to let them visit there on Christmas. But whenever we get together, on the night closest to Christmas, we hang up our stockings; and the next morning, we look to see what we got. I look forward to when my grandchildren are old enough to experience the joy of giving by placing gifts in the stockings.

Grandma Mouse’s family Christmas game, Christmas Bingo, is inspired by the tradition of personalized Christmas stockings. The bingo cards feature stockings personalized with the names of family members, combined with other Christmas symbols. For those of you who are more interested in personalized ornaments, there is an ornament version.

What are your favorite Christmas traditions with your family?

Posted in Personal, Personalized Games | 1 Comment »

Using Bible Games in Teaching Children

November 16th, 2010

Bible games are a valuable tool in teaching children about God. Here are some principles to keep in mind when selecting and using games:

• A good Bible game reinforces important ideas. The emphasis should be on the concepts, not on winning the game.
• A good Bible game does not embarrass anyone. If answering questions is involved, the players could be given an opportunity to look up the answers in the Bible, or they could play as teams so that individuals are not put on the spot.
• A good Bible game does not need prizes in order to be fun. In my experience, children are motivated to learn by fun activities, and prizes are not necessary.

Thanksgiving Bingo and Simple Thanksgiving Bingo use repetition to remind kids what we should be thankful for. So that the game is not just about pictures of a church, a house, and a pet, the leader can read a sentence such as “Thank you, God, for my home and family” while holding up each card. A bingo game avoids embarrassment because the players do not have to answer questions.

Does the Bible Say That? (a new Christmas game) asks players to identify whether the statement on each card is true according to the Bible. For example, “Three wise men visited baby Jesus.” (The Bible does not say how many wise men there were.) While this game calls on the player for an answer, each card includes a Bible verse reference so that the facts can be checked before answering the question. This helps avoid embarrassment and has the added benefit of practice in looking up and reading verses. The object of seeing who can collect four cards first is actually secondary to the learning.

Bible games are valuable when used along with Bible stories, crafts, and whatever learning activities your particular group enjoys. A game is a good activity to use when the available time is unknown (while waiting for parents to pick up children, for example). I hope you and your students find lots of enjoyment and learning opportunities in Bible games.

Posted in Bible Games, Children's Games, Preschool Games | 1 Comment »

A Game for Luke

November 9th, 2010

I had brought my granddaughter Lydia a birthday bingo game for her fourth birthday, so I wanted to make something for her brother Luke, who is turning two. I decided on a simpler game, where small cards are matched to pictures on larger cards, and made a card for each person in Luke’s family, plus Grandpa and me.

There are four pictures on each card. I immediately decided to use a photo of the person and a shape in their favorite color. Luke has not stated a favorite color yet, so I made his shape blue, since no one else has that as a favorite.

At first I was going to give everybody a car, truck, or other vehicle. Then I decided to broaden this category to anything with wheels. This allowed a wheelbarrow for Grandpa, who likes to garden, and a shopping cart for Mommy, who doesn’t necessarily like to shop but loves to prepare healthy food for her family.

The last category is a “tool”. Lydia, for example, likes music, so she has xylophone mallets. I am a math teacher, so I have a pencil.

Other families would have other objects that represent their family members better than “vehicles” and “tools”. What objects would you use to represent the people in your family?

Posted in Personal, Personalized Games, Preschool Games | No Comments »

RSS Feed

October 27th, 2010

Mouse Musings now has an RSS feed. If you like to keep track of the blogs you read in a newsreader such as My Yahoo or Google Reader, just look for the link at the bottom of the right sidebar. If you don’t know what this means or you don’t care, you can still access Grandma Mouse’s blog the same way you always have. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to comment on any interesting posts.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Red Ribbon Week

October 22nd, 2010

Red Bingo

I was not aware that next week is Red Ribbon Week until my friend asked if I could create a game for her daughter’s classroom. I decided to use red objects to represent ways we can say “yes” to healthy activities while saying “no” to drugs.

I named my game Red Bingo. I think the name Red Ribbon Week or Red Ribbon might be copyrighted. Does anyone know?

I hope my new game will help some teachers and room mothers as they encourage their students to say “yes” to the right things.

Go to the Red Bingo page

Posted in Free Games | No Comments »

What Everyone Needs to Know about the Bible

October 5th, 2010

The Bible is God’s message to people. It is also a long continued story – of how God created the world, chose a special group of people, blessed (and punished) his special people, promised to send a Savior, sent Jesus into the world, and directed Jesus’ friends to go everywhere telling about him. Most importantly, the Bible tells how every person can have a personal relationship with God.

The Bible consists of 66 books, which were written by many different people under God’s leadership. These books are divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament, with five divisions in each. Understanding what is contained in each division helps us see the progression of events in the Bible.

  • Old Testament – Events occurring before Jesus came into the world
    • Law – God chose Abraham’s family as his special people. After they became slaves in Egypt, God sent Moses to lead them out and to give them his laws.
    • History – God’s people entered the land he had promised them. After they repeatedly disobeyed God, he allowed them to be taken to another country as slaves.
    • Poetry – These books contain songs and wise sayings written during the times recorded in the books of history.
    • Major Prophets – These men spoke God’s messages to the people during the reigns of the kings, the captivity, and the return home.
    • Minor Prophets – These men also spoke God’s messages to the people. These books are shorter than the books of the major prophets.
  • New Testament – Events occurring during and after Jesus’ life
    • Gospels – Each of the four gospels tells how Jesus lived, died on the cross for our sins, came back to life, and went back to heaven.
    • History – The book of Acts tells what Jesus’ friends did after he went back to heaven.
    • Paul’s Letters – Paul wrote several letters to individuals and churches, teaching more about God.
    • General Letters – Several other people also wrote letters teaching about God.
    • Prophecy – The book of Revelation tells about heaven and future events.

Is it a good idea to memorize the names of the books of the Bible? This should be part of a larger learning experience – learning about the people, stories, and important verses in each book, along with which division the book is in and how it fits into the overall story told by the Bible.

Grade school is a good time to start learning about the structure of the Bible. In any Bible class the teacher can talk about where today’s story is located in the Bible and whether today’s Bible character lived before or after other Bible people that have been studied.

Bible Bingo introduces younger grade school students to the structure and divisions of the Bible, emphasizing the Old and New Testaments, the first and last books of the Bible, and the four gospels, which tell the story of Jesus.

When the Bible Book Cards collection is complete, it will include a card for every book of the Bible. The card will show how the book fits into the overall structure of the Bible, what the book is about (people, stories, and ideas), and the reference of a well-known verse in the book. The cards can be used to practice putting the books in order or to play “trivia” games about the books of the Bible.

In a future post I will talk about how to set up a Bible bookshelf as a physical and visual representation of the divisions and books of the Bible.

In the meantime, I would love to see some comments on my blog. How have you used Bible Bingo or the Bible Book Cards? What other ways have you helped people learn about the books of the Bible?

Posted in Bible Games, Children's Games | 1 Comment »

Teaching Kids about the Armor of God

September 22nd, 2010

In Ephesians 6:11-17 Paul uses the word picture of the armor of God to teach us how to be prepared to fight against evil. This lesson lends itself to helping children visualize (and in this case, even wear) what is being discussed.

If you are doing a six-week unit with a different part of the armor each week, you can actually have the kids make and wear the featured piece of armor each time you meet. I will not go into details about the Bible lesson and discussion, but here are some ideas for making the armor.

  • Belt (representing truth) – After discussing what we believe to be true, have the students write true statements (about God) on small pieces of paper.  Give each student a long piece of yarn to wear as a belt.  Before tying on the belt, attach the true statements to the belt using shorter pieces of yarn.
  • Breastplate (representing righteousness) – Use a piece of yarn to hang a piece of construction paper around each student’s neck and in front of his/her chest.  Before putting on the breastplate, glue on a picture of Jesus and/or write the word “Righteousness.”  You also might want to add a verse or reference such as 1 Corinthians 1:30.
  • Shoes (representing readiness to share the gospel of peace) – Talk about going to share the gospel and  how shoes are a symbol of going. Write verses that are used to share the gospel (such as John 3:16, Romans 6:23, etc.) on pieces of paper and tape them to the sides of the children’s shoes.
  • Shield (representing faith) – Have each student make a shield from cardboard or paper, decorate it, and write the word “Faith” on it. Have pre-written on sheets of paper (multiple copies of each) words representing problems that the devil sends our way, such as anger, fear, and discouragement.  Let the kids make paper wads, hurl the problems at each other, and fend them off with the shield of faith.
  • Helmet (representing salvation) – Talk about how a bicycle helmet, motorcycle helmet, or military helmet protects our life by preventing us from being badly injured or even killed.  God’s salvation gives us eternal life, which no one can take away from us.  Make a newspaper hat (you can find directions online) and write the word “Salvation” on it with a marker.
  • Sword of the Spirit (representing the Word of God) – Have each student make a cardboard sword and write Bible verses all over it.

Grandma Mouse’s newest Bible game, the Armor of God Card Game, can be used to reinforce all of these ideas.  Each card shows a piece of the armor, its name, and its meaning, and the object of the game is to be the first to collect all 6 cards.

Grandma Mouse’s online Armor of God Game requires the player to match each item with each meaning and will provide a good review of the armor of God.

What ideas have you used for teaching about (or making) the armor of God?

Posted in Bible Games, Children's Games | No Comments »

Baby Shower Bingo

September 18th, 2010

In my experience, almost everyone likes to play bingo.  There are no questions to answer, and it is fun to yell “Bingo!” after you cover a whole row.  Bingo can be a learning experience in school or Sunday School.  At a party it can be a fun way to honor a friend.

Grandma Mouse now offers Baby Shower Bingo.  The squares contain photos of the parents-to-be, the due date, and various pink or blue items.  Unlike many personalized bingo games where only the title or color is personalized or you have to write in your own information, this game uses your pictures and information throughout the cards.

Do you have any favorite memories of playing  bingo?  What is your favorite baby shower game?

Posted in Party Games, Personalized Games | No Comments »

Open for Business

September 10th, 2010

Grandma Mouse is now open for business! I had the opportunity to teach a summer class and to do some things to help a friend, and these delayed finishing up the website. Thanks for your patience.

Posted in Online Business | No Comments »

« Older Entries