Moses in the Basket

Following our God's Little Explorers curriculum, this week we have reached Moses.  The suggestion for today was to act out the story of Moses as a baby and how he was left in a basket in the river.  I thought Aria could get into that, especially since it involves a baby and a princess.  She does plenty of acting stories out or retelling stories on her own, but often gets shy when I want her to do it for me.  She was a little timid at first and didn't want to speak to tell the story.  It didn't help that I tried to record our little "show" right away.  However, after one very hesitant retelling, without much smiling, she said, "I want to do it again."  And we were off.  We told the story of Moses in the basket at least 7 or 8 times with all the characters changing roles.  I started off as the Mommy.  Moses was one of her dolls.  The mean king was a large stuffed penguin.  Moses' sister Miriam was another doll.  Aria, of course, was the princess and we had another doll for the servant girl of the princess.  We found costumes for everyone and marked out places in our living room for the river and where Miriam would hide.  In our retellings I got to be the mom, the princess, and the mean king.  When Justin got home, he got to be the mean king and I even saw him as the mommy after I went off to make supper.  Over and over again we told the story and Aria got more comfortable as we went.  It was a truly great time.  I already knew Aria was familiar with the story.  I've heard her "read" it to herself.  But I really saw her brain go to a new level by acting it out.  I guess we will have to do this kind of thing more often!