Little Hands to Heaven
For Ages 2-5
Set out on an exciting journey through the Bible from Creation through Paul’s missionary journeys in Little Hands to Heaven. Help Noah usher the animals off the ark, pray with Jonah inside the fish, stand up to Goliath with David, find missing sheep with the Good Shepherd, and set sail to spread the Good News of Jesus. Through 33 exciting weeks of Little Hands to Heaven, your children will enjoy Bible stories, take part in fun activities, study letters and sounds, and begin a lifelong journey into God’s Word!
Overview
Designed for ages 2-5, Little Hands to Heaven makes teaching quick and easy by bringing together engaging daily lessons, captivating stories, and memorable activities – all from a solid biblical perspective. This unique combination makes school enjoyable to teach and fosters a love for learning and a love for the Lord. Take a look at the delightful array of Bibles, devotionals, and music your child will get to experience in Little Hands to Heaven!
Need help with placement?
Visit our “Guide Placement” page!
Features
Little Hands to Heaven integrates a wide range of subjects with a unit study feel, giving your child a story-based overview of the Bible from Creation through Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys. The guide also teaches essential preschool readiness skills to prepare your child for kindergarten, such as letter recognition, letter formation, letter sounds, early math skills, fine motor skills, and large motor skills. To learn more about what Little Hands to Heaven includes, have a look below!
What's Included in
My Guide?
A Foundation of Scripture
Little Hands to Heaven gives your child a story-based overview of the Bible from Creation through Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys. Along with the Bible stories, your child will complete fun activities, learn new skills, sing catchy songs, and enjoy heartfelt devotionals that illustrate the virtues of Christian living.
- See God’s plan for mankind through the beautifully-illustrated Bible stories in either A Child’s First Bible (for ages 2-3) or A New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes (for ages 3-5). Each Bible contains over 125 beloved stories from Scripture followed by simple questions to answer, so you can highlight Biblical truths and train your child to listen to God’s Word.
- Use a variety of daily Bible activities to teach needed skills such as number and color recognition, counting, cutting, gluing, coloring, listening skills, directional words, dramatization, and life application. Each unit has a theme centered around Bible characters, and the daily activities are linked to the Bible stories.
- Enjoy colorful, kid-friendly devotions with either Big Thoughts for Little People (for ages 2-4) or My ABC Bible Verses (for ages 4-5). Each devotion is linked to the letter studied for the week and emphasizes biblical lessons and Godly character. A related story, corresponding Scripture, and everyday application are part of each devotion.
- Listen to more than 50 catchy songs from Focus on the Family’s Singing Bible that use a variety of musical styles to retell biblical stories in song. This lively collection of music will have your children tapping their toes, marching around, and singing along in no time!
A Round of Rhymes
Little Hands to Heaven uses engaging “fingerplays” to teach letter sounds, encourage left-right brain integration, and practice motor skills in a fun and imaginative way. As students learn a new fingerplay each week, they will perform accompanying hand motions keyed to letters and their sounds at the same time.
- Act out fingerplays that coordinate with the Bible stories in Little Hands to Heaven. As students sing or say the rhymes, they will practice hand motions or movements like pointing, leaping, crawling, marching, stomping, beckoning, jumping, crouching, swaying, spinning, galloping, clapping, tiptoeing, kneeling, touching toes, tapping in rhythm, rocking side to side, holding up fingers to count, and more!
- Enjoy a sampling of the fun skills that your children will build as they perform our fingerplays! These include skills such as retelling Bible stories, counting and keeping track of numbers, learning letter sounds with matching motions, developing rhyme and rhythm, practicing listening skills and memorization, learning how to sing to a tune, becoming familiar with the days of the week, and more!
A Look at Letters
Little Hands to Heaven includes daily letter activities introducing a new letter each week. These letter activities emphasize the same letter and letter sound as the fingerplay. Activities rotate to provide students with a variety of hands-on methods for learning each letter.
- Practice letter flashcards with corresponding sounds and motions. As students learn new letters, they will add to their flashcard collection until they are familiar with the entire alphabet!
- Gain awareness of letter shapes by painting, drawing, or decorating letters. Practice fine motor skills by gluing items like cotton balls, yarn, O-shaped cereal pieces, macaroni, raisins, or other small items to the letter.
- Use whole-body movement to trace masking tape letters while saying the letter sound. Students will trace large taped letters on the floor by tiptoeing on the letter and jumping off the end, rolling a toy car along it, walking a stuffed animal over it, outlining it in blocks, or sitting on a pillow and scooting along the letter.
- Provide tactile activities to form each letter using letter slide activities such as tracing the letter with an ice cube on construction paper, outlining the letter with sidewalk chalk or two crayons taped together, drawing the letter with chocolate syrup in a pan, using a finger to outline the letter on carpet, or forming the letter out of playdough.
- Play letter “hide and seek” to find and circle letters in lines from the fingerplay. Trace dotted lines from left to right to match uppercase and lowercase versions of each letter. These activities help children practice finding letters in context, while training them to track from left to right.
A Picture of Art
Each week, Little Hands to Heaven incorporates an engaging art project that relates to the biblical theme. In order to encourage self-expression and teach needed skills, these creative activities focus on the artistic process rather than the product.
- Help your child build artistic skills with hands-on art projects like crafting a brown paper basket for baby Moses, assembling a rainbow out of colored paper, using sugar or salt to make a sparkly Egyptian desert scene, and making Abraham’s tent with an index card surrounded by a nighttime sky.
- Paint a watercolor picture of the Red Sea, build the wall of Jericho out of crackers, make a field of sheep out of cotton balls, use toothpicks and marshmallows to form God’s temple, make a model of Elijah’s alter out of playdough, decorate paper strips to make a crown, draw and color a whale for Jonah, craft a lion’s head out of a paper plate, build a paper house on a “rock” foundation, and more!
A Structure for Mathematics
Once a week, Little Hands to Heaven includes a math activity that reinforces the biblical theme. These hands-on, concrete activities gently introduce mathematical concepts through guided play.
- Learn basic mathematical concepts like shapes and numbers, patterns and fractions, counting forward and backward, early addition and subtraction, length and size, general time (yesterday, today, tomorrow), coin recognition and values, ordinal numbers (first, second, third), spatial terms, weight measurement, and more!
- Practice patterns and counting by building a block tower of Babel, compare toy sizes as you compare David to Goliath, draw various shapes like the Magi’s star by imitating a design, sort and count coins as Joseph’s brothers sold him for money, cut and arrange different lengths of yarn to be Absalom’s long hair, divide snacks into equal parts to share, arrange paper cutouts of hearts and crosses into a simple graph, and much more!
A Dose of Dramatic Play
Once a week, Little Hands to Heaven includes a “dramatic play” activity that reinforces the biblical theme. Dramatizations based on the Bible story encourage creativity, using play to learn skills.
- Bring history to life with dramatic play activities like pretending to be animals traveling to the ark, serving the 3 guests with Abraham, taking care of “baby Moses” like Pharaoh’s daughter, acting out the story of the Good Samaritan, gathering “manna” from heaven, and practicing obedience with King David.
- Celebrate the finished temple with musical instruments, act out Jonah’s rescue by a giant fish, search for baby Jesus with the magi, act out Lazarus’ resurrection with paper towel bandages, find cotton ball “sheep” and bring them safely back to their pen, demonstrate the destruction of Jerusalem with a block city, lay down your coats for Jesus at Passover, and more!
An Active Exploration
Little Hands to Heaven also includes a weekly “active exploration” activity that is linked to the biblical theme and develops needed skills. These hands-on, concrete experiences help children make connections to the world around them.
- Develop thinking skills with entertaining game-like activities such as identifying and expressing emotions, following positional directions on an Israelite journey, sharing childhood memories to celebrate the birth of Samuel, and accurately whispering messages like Jonathan and David.
- Test items to see if they float like Noah’s ark, see the Nile turn red with food coloring, leave gifts of coins and perfume in a block tabernacle, make bar soap as Naaman washes in the river, patch and repair “God’s house” with cornmeal paste, work to sort and stack containers like Martha, collect full and empty items to symbolize Jesus’ empty grave, and much more!
Can I Tailor This to
Fit My Child?
Yes! We’ve provided plenty of opportunities to customize with different options for Bible and devotions. Since preschool-aged children vary widely in their attention span, these options allow you to mix and match different resources to better suit your child’s needs. The music works well for all ages, retelling the biblical stories at the heart of our program. No matter what you choose, Little Hands to Heaven pulls it all together for you!
What Do Other
People Have to Say?
“I have been using Little Hands to Heaven with my two little girls. They love the activities, and I love the short prep. time and Biblical emphasis."
Kari in Cedar Falls, IA
Look Inside
Little Hands to Heaven includes 33 engaging units with open-and-go daily plans that pull everything together. Units include plans for five days a week, taking 30 minutes a day for students to complete all subjects. Each day is conveniently displayed on a single page, making it easy to organize your day at a glance. Let’s have a better look inside, so you can see what using Little Hands to Heaven is like.
See the Video
In this video, Julie gives a brief overview of Little Hands to Heaven including a quick peek into the daily plans. After watching this video, you’ll have a clear picture of how each day is organized and a better understanding of what to expect from our complete, Bible-based, hands-on, educational program.
Daily Format
Each day of Little Hands to Heaven is organized on a single page, with each subject contained in its own box. Boxes can be done in any order, and subjects are seamlessly rotated to cover everything you need. Once you complete each box on the page, you are done!
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Teacher's Guide
Little Hands to Heaven features open-and-go daily plans with an appealing mix of oral, auditory, visual, and hands-on activities. Daily lessons incorporate a variety of learning styles and a perfect blend of teacher and child. Step-by-step directions, a careful balance of skills, and helpful key ideas bring everything together. By keeping our design both constant and coherent, we have created a strong foundation you can rely on year after year!
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Shop
Now that you’ve seen a little bit about Little Hands to Heaven, are you ready to shop? We can’t wait for you to see what’s in store!
Not sure you’re in the right place? If your child is too old for Little Hands to Heaven, we’ve got you covered.
Need something older?
Have a look at Little Hearts for His Glory. It might be just right for your child.
Dig Deeper
Still want to know more about Little Hands to Heaven? Have no fear – there’s more here! See the following excellent resources for more in-depth information about this program.
