Cut out three larger rectangles of wonderwall or velcro fabric and sew them onto your background page vertically.
Cut out 9 rectangles of stiff felt and sew them down onto more stiff felt. Cut them out.
Cut out all the pieces for this page and sew them onto the stiff felt rectangles in the following order: tunics, arms, coats, heads, beards, turbans and crown.
Cut lengths of velcro and hot glue them onto the back of the stiff felt rectangles.
Arrange and re-arrange the pieces to form Abram, Lot and Melchizedek.
Difficulty Level = Easy.
A very easy quiet book page!
Key Learning Areas and Skills
Genesis 14 - Learn how Abram rescued Lot when he was captured from Sodom
Puzzle/Matching - Match the three body sections with each other - mix them up for fun!
Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination
Unfortunately I couldn't think of a very relevant activity for this Bible chapter. Perhaps I just didn't understand the story enough.
The obvious thing to talk about here is Melchizedek. He was both a priest and a king, which is very much unusual. And of course the book of Hebrews talks about how Jesus will be a priest in the order of Melchizedek. He will be both our Great High Priest, and our King. Thankfully He has proved Himself trustworthy and selfless by His willingness to take our place and receive the punishment for our sins in order to share His reward of righteousness. You wouldn't want anyone else to be holding all the power.
Perhaps I should have added bread and wine to Melchizedek's arms to make his priesthood clear. He is offering God's people (through Abraham) communion - a representation of Jesus' offering of His body (the bread) and His blood (the wine).
Abraham accepts and responds with a tithe of all. What will your response be?
The Three Angel's Messages of Revelation 14 are a reminder that God is our creator who alone deserves our worship, and that judgement is coming for those who don't.
Memory Verse: “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people— ” Revelation 14:6 NKJV.
Materials needed to create the The Three Angel's Messages quiet book page:
three gilded pearl shank buttons - I bought this (not an affiliate link)
black iron-on Velcro material (or use with double-sided interfacing)
The hook side of some Velcro or diaper hook and loop tape material (like Velcro but doesn't wreck felt so much and is wider and can be cut to the size needed) - I bought this (not an affiliate link)
Hot glue gun and glue
sewing threads to best match the page
marker and scissors!
Firstly, cut out an angel (you can sharpen the shape between the back of the head and the first wing a little) and the sections of the Earth to use as a template or pattern.
Also cut out the entire Earth on the outside line. Use this to cut a circle out of your black iron-on velcro material.
Cut about three 25-30cm lengths from the gold ribbon and melt the edges to prevent fraying - see my post on How to Stop Ribbons Fraying. Sew a buttonhole at one end of each (do a few practice ones first - you may find it easier to make the buttonhole and then cut the ribbon shorter). Alternatively, you could make ribbon loops at the end instead of a buttonhole. I make a larger buttonhole than I would for clothes to make sure it is easy to do and undo. I also marked where I wanted the buttonhole to start with a pen so I could line it up easily.
Place the opposite ends of the ribbon underneath the Velcro earth in the bottom left area with the backing paper removed. Make sure the buttonhole ends of the ribbon line up with where you want to place the buttons at the top right of the earth.
Ensure the earth is in the centre of your page before ironing it down. Use the lowest iron setting that you can to iron it on to your background page. Mine melted slightly in one spot, but it still works and you can't notice it under the puzzle. Use a tight zig zag stitch to finish around the edge.
Sew your buttons to the top right of the earth - you can use pins to position them correctly.
Trace three angel shapes onto your felt and cut them out. Sew some white ribbon onto the right side just below their wings along the sides of the angel (not through their middles) to form a slot to thread them onto the gold ribbon later. Place the angels onto white felt wrong side down, tucking the ribbon ends between the two layers of felt and sew them down. Cut them out and thread each of them onto a length of gold ribbon so that the angels can be lined up across the Earth.
Cut out the Earth sections from your dark blue felt. Place the wrong sides onto some more dark blue felt, sew them down and cut them out. Cut some diaper hook fabric in sections slightly smaller than these and hot glue them to the back sides. I actually sewed them on first and then had trouble sewing the blue sections to each other, so I don't recommend that. Arrange them like puzzle pieces onto the black Velcro material.
Finished!
Difficulty Level = Intermediate
The hardest part of this page is cutting out the little holes in the angels - use some sharp cuticle scissors to help with these sections.
Key Learning Areas and Skills
Revelation 14 - It is wise to listen to the Three Angel's Messages: 1. everlasting gospel preached to the whole world, for the hour of God's judgement has come 2. Babylon the great has fallen because she caused all nations to drink the wrath of her fornication 3. If anyone worships the beast, and receives it's mark, they will drink the cup of the wrath of God
Imaginative play - slide the angels up and down the ribbon as they fly around the Earth giving their messages
Puzzle - sort out the arrangement of the Earth sections
Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination
The three angel's messages remind me a lot of Noah's preaching. Or at least how I imagine the years leading up to The Flood. Noah had an urgent message to share. If everyone would only listen and believe. It was also a message from the God who made the Heavens and the Earth. And at least the animals took notice. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could have been an atheist or agnostic at that stage in Earth's history. But I think what they didn't believe was that God was going to actually punish them. Rather, they felt like "everything was going to continue" as it had since the beginning.
In the same way, the three angels make reference to God's creative power. Creative power is much more complex than destructive power. Is it easier to paint a masterpiece or burn it? Is it easier to build a house, or blow it up? It takes far greater skill to fashion something, so why would you question God's ability to destroy it?
Maybe they thought God was too soft, but let me assure you, Jesus had a tradie's beard, not a Soy Boy one.
Today, people believe that everything will continue until either we destroy ourselves, or we evolve enough or develop better technology to survive under harsher conditions. Not many are expecting the soon return of Jesus. But, in the same way that the World was destroyed the first time, the end of the second is decreed. Better to listen to the Good News of the three angels - for indeed it is good news if you are saved from the destruction due Babylon (who has already fallen). We know the outcome, Jesus already scored the winning goal and demonstrated His ability to raise from the dead. If you know which is the winning side, why not join it?!!
First cut your template pieces out and tape them onto your black stiffened felt. This is so that you don't puncture the felt with pins and so you can see where to cut as it is difficult to draw on felt in that much detail.
The next step depends on whether you have a second piece of tie dye felt or not (I didn't). If you do, you can eliminate some of the following - I'm sure you can work out which bits ;)
I sewed my peace sign down onto the middle of my tie dye sheet by the inside sections only. Do not sew the outside circle yet. This enabled me to cut out the peace sign and fill in the background space with black soft felt. I also sewed the peace sign to black soft felt around the outside edge and cut it out again. Now simply sew your peace sign back over the hole you cut it out from around the bottom half leaving the top half open to form a pocket.
Cut your velcro dots in half and hot glue the soft side to the outside rim of the peace sign in the middle of each quarter. Glue the scratchy half to each puzzle piece.
Finished!
Difficulty Level = Intermediate
It will be easier if you have two sheets of the tie dye felt rather than trying to use one. I only had one and had no way of getting more.
The hardest part is getting motivation to cut out the menorah!
Be careful to glue the velcro dots on the correct side - unlike me who had to try to pull one off and re-glue it...
Key Learning Areas and Skills
Psalm 122 - This page teaches about the map of the Old City of Jerusalem in modern times and about how we are all connected to each other - when we harm others we harm ourselves
Puzzle Pieces - connect the puzzle pieces together
Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination
Neverlesless, we are all connected to each other, and when we harm others, we harm ourselves. It is for his own family's sake that the Psalmist wishes for peace.
I imagine Jerusalem will never achieve peace before the Second Coming, nevertheless it does need our prayers. But perhaps this verse is asking us to pray for the Kingdom. Perhaps we are asked to pray that the peace of Jerusalem to come will be present in our lives regardless of our circumstances. May the Prince of Peace bring comfort, hope and joy to your soul as He has done for so many others already. I pray this peace for you.
In Genesis chapter 2, God asks Adam to name the animals.
Memory Verse: “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” Genesis 2:18
Materials needed to create the Adam Names the Animals quiet book page:
A4 felt background sheet - I used light green.
Stiffened felt - I used black.
Wonderwall (or Veltex and double sided iron-on interfacing) scrap - I used light grey.
Velcro sticky dots
hot glue and glue gun
sewing thread to best match the page
Tangram template from webdelmaestro.com - they also have the image below which demonstrates how to make a heap of animal shapes out of the tangram which goes perfectly with this page
Sew your Wonderwall to the background page, leaving enough room for a colourful border and to allow you to sew your pages back to back once you are ready to sew the book together.
Cut out the shapes from the template and use the paper pattern to cut the shapes out from the stiffened felt. It is probably better to make your size smaller than mine so you have room rearrange the shapes on your page.
Cut your Velcro dots in half and attach the Velcro dot to the same sides of the stiffened felt shapes so that they will fit together to form a square when you are done. You will need to use a little hot glue to hold them in place as the sticky will wear out rather quickly.
Stick your shapes onto the Wonderwall with the Velcro and re-arrange to make all sorts of animals. They should all fit on the page for storage purposes.
Finished!
Difficulty Level = Easy, plus No Sew version.
A very easy quiet book page!
Just use hot glue wherever sewing is recommended for a no sew version.
Key Learning Areas and Skills
Genesis 2 - God asked Adam to name the animals, what an awesome job!
Imaginative Play - animals are so much fun to imagine with
Shapes - tangram, square, triangle, parallelogram
Puzzle - place the tangram shapes in a way that will form a picture and then back into the shape of a square
Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination
Some people say that you can't appreciate the good without experiencing the bad. I'm not sure if I agree.
I can see that experiencing bad can enhance your appreciation of the good. But does that mean that if Adam and Eve had never fallen and evil had never entered the world that we would not have appreciated the goodness in the world around us? God pronounced everything He had made "good" and when it was finished, it was "very good". If it is not possible to appreciate good without evil then I think it was not possible to make a decision on the matter, and yet they were required to. Therefore it is possible to appreciate good without experiencing evil.
BOB DYLAN - (COVER)
MAN GAVE NAMES TO ALL THE ANIMALS
Nevertheless, it appears that lack of good may increase your appreciation for good. In Genesis 2, God demonstrates to Adam that he is lacking something before He provides that something. Before God creates Eve, He asks Adam to name all the animals - who all have a mate.
The willingness of Jesus to die for our sins on the cross is the most abhorrent thing possible. We deserve such a death and yet the Crown Prince who is and has always remained perfectly innocent endured a torturous death. Evil is so destructive that it reached all the way to the top and resulted in the death of the Creator. Yet goodness demonstrated it's superiority to evil in that even death of the life-giver could not defeat LIFE itself.
A very interesting talk about the Hebrew alphabet and how the letters give pictorial meaning to the words. It talks about Adam naming the animals :)
I recently went in a quiet book swap with a group on Facebook.
We each made seven copies of our own page and sent them to the host. She sent us back one of our own pages, and six different pages made by the other participants. It is a great way to build a quiet book. You only have to think about one page layout so it saves on supplies and effort.
With not a lot of time before Christmas, this was meant to be a quick and easy basic swap. The theme was puzzles, and the size of the pages was reduced to 8"x8", which makes it an ideal book for occupying the little ones while travelling.
This is the page I contributed:
It is a themed button maze - there are a couple of mobs of sheep in a bunch of paddocks. The gates can be opened and shut, and the sheep can be fed on a lush pasture of clover or a pile of hay, and you can bark at them while you do it all - whatever your imagination can muster.
I drew out where I wanted fences on a piece of paper so I could organize the paddock layout in my head. After sewing the buttons under a piece of tulle, I laid strips of rik rak down for the fences and sewed them down, leaving it open where the gates were to go. Cut the rik rak where the gates go and melt the ends with a match to stop it unraveling.
Done!
One of the other pages contributed was an entirely hand sewn Little Bo Peep - now that is dedication! One sheep is detatchable with velcro, and you can trace over the different paths to find which one leads home.
Our swap host made a cupcake puzzle and pocket. The pocket was made by laying two pieces of fabric over each other, turning the top edge of the top one down and adding a piece of velco to each respective side, then stitching around the three edges of the top layer of fabric - I loved the idea because it was really easy!
There were three tangram pages done in this swap. They were all made with an embroidery machine. This first one is of a rabbit. The theme went great with this bunny material I had, so I made a pocket for the pieces like the one made for the cupcake. Unfortunately I forgot to get a photo of this page with the pieces laid on it before it got given to it's new owner...
The next tangram puzzle was of a cute little house.
And the last tangram puzzle was of a horse. I love the colours chosen for this page. It came with it's own pocket built into the page by sewing down three edges of the horse tangram outline which had been embroidered onto felt.
My sister, whose Fairy Tale Quiet Book you have already seen, contributed this I-Spy page:
Again, layer two squares of fabric over the top of each other, right sides facing up. She cut an 'x' shaped opening in the middle of the top square of fabric and folded back the edges on them. Folding them back on themselves several times is a good idea to avoid them getting in the way when trying to find items. Then she inserted a smaller square of clear vinyl underneath, sewing around the inside edge, and zig zaging around the outer edges. She used her machine to do the 'Find 10 Things' lettering at the top. Next, she sewed the two squares of fabric together leaving a 1" gap around the edges to allow for binding, as well as a small opening so she could fill the space between them with ten small items and bean bag beans. She was going to use rice, but since we had to post the pages to the host and back, she decided bean bag beans would be a lighter and therefore cheaper option.
The ten items in our I-Spy page are a small plastic baby, a flower button, a Lego block, a wooden leaf picture, a wooden drum picture, a small wooden painted peg, a small glitter button, a wooden cat head picture, a wooden number '2', and a large google eye. In other versions, she has included small plastic bugs and animals. Small shells, gum-nuts, beads, paper clips, and any small, non-sharp household items would also work well.
