The Holy Spirit Works

The Holy Spirit works in incredible ways, both then and now.

Our bible story this week was from Acts 2 when the spirit overtakes the hundreds of people throughout the crowd.

Our craft was so insanely simple. We took 3 popsicle sticks and cut 1/4 of them off, drew faces on them, and then had them color in bubble text of saying Jesus, representing that they all spoke the same language, and they all understood the name and love of Jesus. 

It's so simple that it may have not even crossed your mind.

I Can Pray

Every week in Sunday school, we stress the idea that prayer is important. On a regular Sunday school morning, we pray 4 times in that one hour of class. We pray before the story, after the story, before snack, and then an open ended prayer at the end for all of the kids to pray about whatever that want. If you ask me, it's only fitting that we do a lesson on prayer.

This story was a collection of verses from Matthew 6. The story takes place when Jesus is sitting on the mountain side preaching to the masses. He gives instructions on things like giving to the needy, fasting, worry, and also prayer. He tells the people to not pray like those in the synagogue or those who are praying for attention, but to pray genuinely with all you are. He then gives the example of the Lord's Prayer that displays the different aspects a prayer has: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and sacrament.

To teach this to a 3 year old, we really focused on the fact that you can tell Jesus everything and that he wants to hear about everything -- big and little. 

For their take home, they made a "spinner" out of 2 paper plates, a brad, and some paper. 

 It does require about 10 minutes of prep work, but it's just cutting.

One the sheet of paper, draw a circle that is the size of the center of the paper plate and cut it out. If you're feeling lazy, here's the circle that I used without the things they can pray on it. 

 On the sheet of paper, I mentally divided it into four sections and wrote in three of the sections things they can pray for, leaving the fourth one blank. I've learned that vague and simple things like "for my family" or "for my school" works best. 

Leave one plate in it's original, whole circle form, and on the other plate, cut out a quarter of the plate. On this 3 quarter plate,  write "I can pray..." and Matthew 6:6, or another reference about prayer.

For them to make it, I had them color pictures of the things they can pray for as well as come up with an additional thing to pray for to fill in the blank quarter.

Once they colored it, I had them glue the circle onto the whole plate. Then, I took the quartered paper plate and brad and assembled the spinner part. 

From bottom to top, it should go whole plate, circle glued onto plate, quartered plate, and the brad.

If you were to make this with older kids, they could write "I can pray.." and the chosen reference. 

One mom told me that her son took it home and keeps it on his bedside to decide what to pray for each night before bed.

Relatively simple yet useable at any point in life as a reminder to pray about everything.

Never Be Thirsty

Another Sunday, another craft, right?

This week's story was about the woman at the well, who met Jesus there. In quick synopsis, this woman (who remains unnamed) goes as she does every day to this well to draw water, and on this specific day, she encounters Jesus there. Though first caught off guard for she is a Samaritan and he is a Jew and the simple conversation breaks the normal social ladder, Jesus tells her how this water she is drawing will never quench her thirst, but if she drank from the water He gives, she would never be thirsty. Obviously going over her head, she asks where to get this water. He proceeds to reveal some facts about her that only a prophet would know, and then, He reveals his identity as the Messiah. She runs back to town, and because of her testimony, many Samaritans become believers.

To me, this is a great story of undiscriminating love that only Jesus can give.
Since kids are very physical learners, as some entry activities, we got large bowls and filled them with water as well as some items that they could transfer the water from bowl to bowl with as if "drawing water."
For the craft, we made cups of water. It is so simple, and can be altered depending on age levels.

For my 4 year olds, I cut the water drop, punched the holes, wrote the reference, and cut the string. If you have older kids, I suggest letting them punch the holes and write the reference.

By tying the drop to the cup, it lets them "fill the cup" just like the woman at the well would have.

My church provides labels with the unit verse on it that we placed on the outside of the cup reading a paraphrase of Matthew 28:19-20. A few of the kiddos also decorated their cups with crayons if this seems a bit bland to you. 

For older kids, you could get a water drop for each word and have them write each word on one drop and tie them together. I would write the end of verse 13 reading "whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst."

The suggested craft provided by my church looked like this, but I thought this was too coloring based for my class of all boys to enjoy.

If you're interested in this one, here is a file of the print out of the well. They used 2 man di-cuts to represent Jesus and the woman. Everything else was colored on.

"Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" 

John 4:13-14

I think verses 13 and 14 convey the overall message of the story very well that nothing in this world can satisfy us except for Jesus. Friends, sports, fame, work, none of that can satisfy us.

This week, let's focus on the one who can satisfy us, and worship him in all that we do.

Hannah Prayed

This week's bible story was about Hannah.

For those who don't know, Hannah was Samuel's mother. Her story is a story of faithfulness and trust in God. 

In short, Hannah was one of two wives to Elkanah, and Peninnah was the other wife. Hannah did not have any children, while Peninnah did, and back then, how many children you had was a big deal. For many years, Hannah prayed to God about becoming pregnant. She actually prayed so hard that she could not eat, and another time, she prayed so hard the priest thought she was drunk...Hannah even made a promise to God that if He gave her a son, she would have her child serve God for all of his days. After all this time of praying, Hannah became pregnant, and later, she gave birth to Samuel. Once Samuel was old enough, Hannah indeed turned him over to serve God. 

Even though she was giving up her baby, something she prayed for years about to the point that she was sick over, she still praised God. She still praised him for being holy. You can read her whole prayer in 1 Samuel 2, and more about her conceiving Samuel in chapter 1.

Originally, I had this craft in mind, but I could not find the printable for Hannah. My artistic abilities are not that extensive, so I settled with this.

We made prayer books with things we can pray about. Super easy if you can't tell, and it sparked great conversation with the kids.

On the inside, we had 4 pages with 3 of them being things that they can pray for.

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We put things like my family, my friends, and my church, and had them illustrate who/what they were praying for.

To make the hands, I just traced a rough, slightly larger mitten shape of my hand and cut it out on 5 different colors to make it a little more appealing to the eye. For the words to the book, I uploaded the file here and you are more than welcome to use it in your book. 

Super easy, and a great discussion starter that can also serve as a reminder to both us and them to pray about everything.

xox,

lauren

Jacob and Esau

For those of you who aren't familiar with this story, in short, it's about a Jacob, Esau, Isaac, and Rebekah.

Jacob and Esau are twin brothers, Esau being older and hairy, and Jacob the younger and smooth skinned. Isaac is their dad, and Rebekah is their mom. When Isaac is old, blind, and dying, Rebekah tells Jacob to go get his older brother's blessing. To trick Isaac, Jacob wears a fur coat/pelt/hide thing to feel hairy like Esau is naturally.....and that's where we get the craft. 

Super simple and a great way to engage their sense touch, which helps them remember it much easier.

Here is the coloring sheet we used.

To save it, right click and click "save image as"

We also put a verse from the passage, Genesis 27, at the top so the parents could help talk to their kids about the story at home.

We used Gensis 27:11, but any from that chapter would work.

"Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin."

To enhance story time, we brought in a piece of fake fur and let the kids close their eyes and feel it, like Isaac did.

Since Jacob fed his father soup, we served "soup crackers" (more commonly known as oyster crackers).

At first, I thought this would be a hard lesson to teach them, but they understood it and the touching of the fur/pom poms really made an impression on them. Though we couldn't explain the significance of the blessing in full, they understood that Jacob lied to his father and that we don't want to do that. They also understood very well about how Esau (eventually) forgave Jacob and how we need to forgive each other,

 I'm forever amazed at the many things we can learn in just a short story.

xo,

Lauren