Week 13: March 30

Our theme for March is "Jesus Shows Us What to Do"

Week 13- Ask, Seek, Knock (Matt 7:7-12)

This week's lesson is a tough one that many adults struggle with. 

I'll start out with a lame knock knock joke. Something like...

Knock, knock...
                    Who's there?
Stan
                    Stan who?
Stan' back. I'm gonna sneeze!

Knock knock jokes are funny. But what do people usually do when someone knocks on their door? Yes, they open up to see who it is. When you go to a friend's house and you knock on their door, what does your friend do? Yes, she opens the door. Today's story is a lesson Jesus taught. Jesus liked to use stories to get people's attention. In this lesson, He used a door as His first illustration. 

In the book of Matthew, chapter 7, He says in verse 7, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." 

If you ask your mom a question, she'll answer you. If you search for your missing sock, you'll find it. If you knock on a friend's door, your friend will open the door for you. Jesus used these things we already know to teach us how we should act. 

If we ask Jesus a question, He'll answer us. If we are unsure of something and search the Bible on what we should do, we'll find the answer. And if we knock on the door to talk to God, He will open it for us. God loves us so very much He wants what's best for us. Sometimes we might not get what we pray for, but that's okay. God knows what's best! The next part of the lesson is for you to fill out.

(I'll hand the kiddos the sheet I made for our activity. They'll use a pencil/crayons to write/draw their responses.)

Listen carefully as I read verses 9 through 11. Then we'll go through and fill out the chart together.

"Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will you give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!"

So in Jesus' story, if your son asks for bread, what does He suggest the mean thing to do would be? (To give him a stone). Write or draw a stone in the 'mean' box. What would be a nice thing to give your son if he asked for bread? (Bread). Write or draw a piece of bread in the 'nice' box.

If you son asked for a fish, would you give him a snake? That would be really mean! Draw or write 'snake' in the mean box. What would you give your son if he asked for a fish?

Now let's think of something someone might ask us for. On my sheet, I'm going to say 'a pencil,' because kids ask me for sharp pencils all the time. If you asked me for a pencil, should I give you a pair of scissors? No way! I'm going to draw a pair of scissors in the 'mean' box because that would be very unhelpful to you. If you need a pencil, what should I give you? Yes, a pencil! I'm going to draw a pencil in the 'nice' box because I know that you need a pencil and I should give you one. Go ahead and think of something someone might ask you for. What would be something mean to give them, and what would the nice thing be? 

Now in the next box think of something you need that you might ask someone for. On my sheet, I'm going to say 'candy for Easter eggs' because I need a lot of candy for our Easter Egg Hunt in a few weeks. If I ask your parents for candy and they gave me a dishcloth, would that be nice? No! That would be mean. You do not want to open your Easter eggs and find dishcloths intend of candy! I am going to draw a bag of candy in the 'nice' box because if I ask for candy for our Egg Hunt, the nice thing to do would be to donate candy. Now it's your turn to write or draw something you have asked someone for that you needed.

In the last section, let's think about God. We pray to Him all the time. Now remember He doesn't always answer our prayers the way we think that He should, but let's think about what He said earlier, in verses 7-8. They said, "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

Instead of asking God for something in particular, like, a new cat, let's think of those verses. What if we ask God to help us get through a bad day at school. Would He help us? What about, we ask God to forgive us of our sins. Will He forgive us? What if we ask Jesus into our hearts, will He join us? Choose one of those questions- Ask, Seek, or Knock, and tell how someone 'mean' would respond and how God will respond. 

Week 10: March 9

Our theme for March is "Jesus Shows Us What to Do"

Week 10- The Lord's Prayer (Matt 6:5-15)

This week we'll be making placemats so that the kids can take home a copy of the Lord's Prayer and remember it throughout the week as they sit down for breakfast/dinner. 

I'm going to start out by giving each student a copy of the Lord's Prayer that I made using an adorable frame from Scrappin Doodles and an adorable font created by the amazing Khrys Bosland. It looks like this, with two prayers on a single sheet of paper:

As they color the frame around their prayer (and the older ones can cut around the outside edge as they wish) I'm going to talk them through the first part (verses 5-8)... something like this:

Jesus is continuing his Sermon on the Mount this week, as He explains what we can do as Christians to be a good example for others. He told people about being nice to others, following the laws we have, and even giving to the needy. Then He went on to tell about prayer.

Raise your hand if you pray at least once a week. Keep it up if you pray every day. 
When do you pray? (Before meals, at bedtime, etc.) 
Raise your hand if you think you're pretty good at praying. Keep it up if you would be willing to pray for our snack today or one day. How about upstairs? Keep your hand up if you would be comfortable praying in front of the whole church. 

Some people get really nervous when they pray. I don't mind praying in front of kids, but even I get a little worried when I am asked to pray in front of grownups. Grownups can be scary sometimes! But we shouldn't ever be nervous. After all, we are praying to God, not grownups! It's great to be comfortable praying in front of people, but it's even more important that we can pray when we are alone with Jesus.

In Matthew, chapter 6, Jesus told His friends that when we pray, we should pray in private. This is because some people think that they are really good at praying and want to show off their skills in front of other people. Do we pray to show off? No, we pray to talk to our Father! So Jesus suggests that we pray when we can say whatever we want to Him and not have to worry about other people. 

The next thing He said was to not babble. Babbling means they repeat the words over and over again instead of saying what we want. 

Jesus wanted us to become better at praying, so He gave us a suggestion. Starting in verse 9, Jesus tells us exactly how to pray. Although our English words are a little different from the Hebrew He spoke, the translation in meaning is key. That's what we're going to talk about today. How to pray, and how to know what we're saying. 

At this point in the lesson, I'll have all of the kids stop coloring and I'll collect the crayons. I don't want them to be interrupted or sidetracked while we're doing this next part.

Try to take a couple of minutes and read The Lord's Prayer to yourself. Think about any words that you might consider to be extra-important. If there are words you don't know, think about those, too. We'll go over it together in just a minute.

Alright. Let's look at the first part. "Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name." That's us saying "Dear God in Heaven, your are holy." God is our Father, and "art" is an old-fashioned word for "is." The part that says "Hallowed be Thy name," that's another word for "holy." So the prayer starts out by us addressing who the prayer is to: God in Heaven, who is holy.

Read the next part to yourself as I read it out loud. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven." We are asking God to do His will and not our own. We don't want to be selfish, do we? "Thy" is an old-fashioned word for "your." We're saying, "Your will be done, not ours."

In the long part that comes next, it says, "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." We are asking for God to give us what we need (not want), and to forgive us for our sins. The last part means we are also asking God to help us forgive people who have sinned against us, or, those who have done mean things to us. That's kind of hard sometimes, isn't it? But if we want God to forgive us, then we need to forgive others.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;" That means we are asking God to keep us away from sin. We definitely need that, don't we?

And the last part adds, "For Thine is the Kingdom, And the Power, And the Glory, forever. Amen." We are once again saying that God is everything we need, forever. And then we close our prayer with respect by saying "Amen." 

That's pretty powerful, isn't it? If we were to put the prayer into modern words, it might say something like this:

Dear God in Heaven, you are holy! Everything will be just as you say it will, both on earth and in Heaven. Please give us what we need, and forgive us of our sins. Help us forgive others, too. Keep us away from things that are bad, and keep us near things that are good. For You are everything we need, forever. Amen. 

After this I will have the kids repeat each verse as I go through the prayer so they will all get the chance to pray to themselves. I'll then give them each a gluestick and piece of card stock so they can attach their prayer to the placemat. I'll give the crayons back out if they want to decorate the outside of their card stock, and will provide stickers as desired. I'll then call the kids up by tables to bring their placemats up for me to laminate. 

My laminator is a personal-use one I got for Christmas a few years ago. (Don't hate... I make a lot of workstation activities for my classroom!) It's like this:

Anyway, this will make them a bit more sturdy than if we had just used contact paper, and I hope by it looking somewhat professional they'll be encouraged to keep it out so they can learn the prayer! 

Week 8: Feb 23

Our theme for February is "Jesus Shows Us How to Love"

Week 8- Jesus Talks to Nicodemus: What You Can Say to a Friend (John 3:1-21)

I had planned on having the kids make friendship bracelets (with the popular loom band craze going on right now) and brainstorm ways that we can be good friends and how to encourage others, but instead I'm going to do the lesson that we missed when it snowed back in January, since it was prepared and has been sitting there, waiting for me to use it for a month now. So instead of Nicodemus, we'll be talking about how Jesus faced temptation when he was on this earth, and how we face temptation today. I will still try to toss in a few lines about how sometimes it's tempting to not be a good friend (gossiping, tattling, etc.) just so it won't be completely skipped over. 

Amended Week 8 (As planned for Week 3)-Jesus Faced Temptation, Just Like Us (Matt. 4:1-11)

All of us make mistakes; nobody is perfect. No one in the history of the world has EVER been sinless... except for Jesus. This is a main part of today's lesson. But even though we are going to slip up, we don't have to knowingly do things we shouldn't. 

To hep get this lesson across, I'm going to start out by giving students a fun size pack of m&ms or skittles. I'll tell them not to open/eat any while I'm handing them out. Then I'll ask them if they want to eat it (sorry, you can't!), Then I'll let them open the bag and pour them into their hands. I'll ask again (nope, not yet!). I'll tell them to smell the candy in their hand. Did any of them stick out their tongue for a quick lick?

Ask them if they can eat the candy (No). Why not? (Because you told us not to). Some kids might have by this point. Don't fuss... just continue the lesson. Talk a few minutes about how good M&ms taste and how they are messy if they stand in your hand too long, and how you love the feeling of them on your tongue, etc... Then tell them you'll be right back. Step out of the room for about 10 seconds. When you come back in, see if anyone has eaten their m&ms. Ask them if they like waiting and having to follow directions. Say something like, "Even though you know you're going to get to eat them eventually, it's really hard to not eat them right now, isn't it? Even if you're not supposed to. That's called temptation. Temptation is when you want to do something that you know is wrong."

Let them eat their candy as you tell students that Jesus faced temptation, just like we do today. I like to paraphrase the Bible stories so they'll flow better for little ears to hear. I'll type up the story the way I want, then print it out and stick it in my Bible, so it will give the appearance I'm reading from the Bible. This is a great example for kids to learn that reading the Bible is important and we learn about Jesus by studying the Bible. (Paraphrase below)

After reading the story, hand out the chart to each child, along with a pencil. Have them fill out the chart as you go over each thing Satan said, as well as Jesus' reply. Go into discussion here and answer any questions the kids might have about what each means. Here is what my chart looks like.

The Verses: 
Matthew chapter 4, we'll start with verse 1. When Jesus was an adult, he went into the wilderness and was tempted by the devil. He fasted, which means he didn't eat for 40 days and nights. He was VERY hungry. While he was there, the devil came to Him. He pointed to a pile of rocks and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread." 

That was temptation. Jesus was very hungry and would have enjoyed eating bread, but he knew he was supposed to be fasting and it would go against the fasting rules to eat. What do you think He did? Let's see.

Verse 4. But Jesus told him, "No! People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Jesus knew that even though he was hungry, it was more important that He listen to God. 

Just like when I told you not to eat candy, you knew it was important to listen to your teacher, even if you really wanted to eat it without permission. Let's keep going.

Verse 5. Then the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, to the very top of the Temple.

The temple is what the jews call their church. Could you imagine standing on the roof of our church? 

Anyway, verse 6. The devil said, "If you really are the Son of God, then jump off! You'll have angels to protect you, right? You won't get hurt!" But Jesus said, "You should not test the Lord your God." 

This meant that even though God can perform miracles, we shouldn't put ourselves in dangerous situations and expect God to protect us. We shouldn't pray for God to keep us in the car instead of using a seat belt. We have seat belts to protect us. We shouldn't jump off a roof and expect God to keep us from breaking a leg. Even though God could keep us from breaking it, that's not His job! We have to use good sense and not put ourselves in tempting situations.

The last temptation was when the devil took Jesus to the top of a very high mountain. He showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all of their fancy things. The devil said, "I will give it all to you, Jesus, if you will kneel down and worship me." But Jesus was too smart for that! He said, "Get out of here, Satan! The Scriptures say, 'You must worship the Lord your God and serve only Him." Then the devil finally went away and angels came and took care of Jesus.

What do you think that lesson could teach us? Even though there are lots of fabulous things in this world (like money and nice clothes and big tv's), we need to make sure we are worshipping and serving God and not any of those other things. If we spend more time playing video games than we do learning about God, which are we serving? This is a big temptation for lots of people. It's easy to put other things ahead of God, but Jesus shows us that if we obey and worship God, then He will take care of us. Not because we listen to our friends, and not because we put ourselves in dangerous situations, and definitely not if we care about things more than we care about God, but because He loves us very much and wants us to listen and obey Him.

Here are a couple completed story maps and the kids who made them!

Week 2: Jan 12

Our theme for January is "Who is Jesus and Why Does it Matter?" 

*Since we got off track this was actually our Week 2 lesson

Week 1- Jesus as a Kid (Luke 2:41-52)

The first week in the new year is a great time for self-reflection. Most kids in school will have to write their own resolution when they get back in their classrooms, so I like to do something a little different at church. A lot of families make their resolution to get back in church so I generally try to find something fairly simple that can be done with any number of students (we have usually between 25-35 kids each week, but New Years' often brings in 40+).

This year I'm going to focus on what Jesus was like when He was a kid, compared to what they are like today. I'll put my kids in groups by tables and give each a piece of big chart paper. They will brainstorm characteristics kids have, and characteristics Jesus has. After about 8 minutes, I'll collect all papers (probably 3-4 since our tables are large) and hang them for the kids to see. 

Then we'll read through the thoughts together. I'll hand out a venn diagram copied on regular white paper for the kids to fill out as I fill out a large version on the wall. We'll talk about how we are different from Jesus, and how we are the same. The kids should understand that Jesus was fully God but also fully human, and He probably enjoyed a lot of the things they do today (running outside, playing with friends, etc.) For the kids that can't write, I'll let them draw a picture of themselves in the first circle, a picture of Jesus in the last, and something that they have in common in the middle. 

Here is a sketch I made, but it will be a bit neater for the kids. If you've never used a venn diagram before, you can see how the bubbles overlap with similarities, and differences are on either side. 

Here is the one I made for my kids. I used ScrappinDoodle's awesome border graphic and a font by Khrys Bosland.

Here are a few of my kiddos' charts... I always set out crayons when we're writing for the kids who finish fast and the littles who draw pictures instead.