Stories

Noelle loves to be told stories. At first I started with The 3 Bears. It’s a good story until about the 45th time and then it’s just old. I got so desperate that I made up 2 stories about a rooster named Ralph. Although they’re creative and have a good moral, they get monotonous for the storyteller after a few dozen times as well.
Then it dawned on me, I should be telling her Bible stories in order to “talk about [the Bible] when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deu 6:7 (duh!) So I now have about a dozen stories Noelle refers to as “Jesus Stories.” They are typically parables that Jesus told.
I’ve found, however, I have to use some creative liberties to make a story longer then the 2-minutes it may take to read it from the Bible. For example, we discuss what kind of clothes the Prodigal Son wore when he was rich and what kind of clothes he wore when he was poor. We also talk about what was in the pig slop that the son thought was so appetizing.
The biggest exaggeration I’ve had to make is with The Good Samaritan. Since a priest, Levite and Samaritan don’t mean much to a 4-year old, I’ve translated it into a dog that gets beaten up and is passed by a prim and proper poodle, a powerful wolf and saved by a cat pulling a wagon. The cat’s name is Samaritan, so it all works:)