Transfiguration of Christ

Transfiguration of Christ

I wanted to find a craft to do with the kids for Transfiguration Sunday, so I came up with this...

Print one side on card stock and then turn it over and print it on the other side.  Cut the circular form at the top and cut within the lines so it looks nicer.  I use the scissors to score the light gray lines on the front so it's easier to fold.

 Here's what it looks like.  When closed, it looks like this:

 Then open it up and see what you have.  As well as talking about the scripture story, the kids will paint the picture. I'm going to have some glow-in-the-dark pain to paint Jesus' robes at the end.

Psalm 40- He lifted me out of the mud and mire

I love Psalm 40:1,2  "I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;  He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand."

I wanted the children to realize that we are all sinners.  The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but over and over again, the Bible tells us that God is there for us, to forgive us and pull out of our sin.  This is simple craft that helps ( I hope) to illustrate that to the kids.

Here's the youtube video I made:    https://youtu.be/uYeijRpyLAU  copy and paste the link into the url address line.

I printed off all the kids faces and cut them out.  There's an outline of a child in a robe, so I had the kids color the clothes and then paste their own faces onto the body.  Paste the body with their face onto the tongue depressor at the bottom and at the top of the tongue depressor, paste God's Hand reaching down.  There's a blue larger piece of card stock and a smaller brown piece of construction paper.  The kids drew rocks at the top of the brown paper so that when God lifted them out of the mud, there was a firm rock to stand upon.  The kids glue just the sides of the brown paper onto the blue paper so that their person on the tongue depressor can be placed into that pocket and lifted out of the mud.  The above jpeg can be copied or dragged into your own print shop software and printed.  I printed it onto card stock, but you can print it on regular paper if you'd like.

Print off the hand of God on card stock and cut around each one.  It doesn't have to be precise.

Print the child's body on card stock and cut out.

This just makes it easy to cut out the blue card stock.

Here are our kids enjoying the craft and hopefully learning that our God forgives sin.

Psalm 103:12

Psalm 103:12 Sunday School Craft and Lesson

Psalm 103:12 "As far as the East is from the West... so far has God removed our transgressions from us."  (NIV)

 

 https://youtu.be/EoaA1hBFRwc

click on the above link or copy and paste to the url address line to see my YouTube video of this craft.

This Scripture is a wealth of meaning.  I love doing interactive lessons with my kids in Sunday School... to get them thinking and to hopefully help the lesson stick.

I made an interactive bookmark.  We talked about all the components of the lesson and then I told them to take the bookmark home and put it in their Bible to mark Psalm 103:12.

I used yellow card stock for this bookmark. I made it 9 inches in length so that it would fit most Bibles.  Trim it and cut the interactive questions to the middle line.  Then print the lines on regular paper, cut and use glue stick to paste to the inside. 

You may have to extend the jpeg picture to fit the page with the length being 9 inches.

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The Holy Trinity Lesson and Craft

The Holy Trinity Lesson and Craft

 The Holy Trinity is a difficult concept even for adults, but it's important to introduce kids to difficult concepts.  The more they are exposed to these difficult concepts, the more the meaning will begin to sink in.

I started with a simple lesson:

  Explore some simple concepts.  God is three in one:  God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  All three aspects of God have been around forever.  They are all eternal.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit were instrumental in the creation of the earth and heavens.  Talk about what it means for something to be eternal.  No beginning and no end.  Also, talk about the symbols that are used to portray the three aspects of God's Deity.  The Hand coming down from Heaven portrays God the Father.  That's kind of simple to understand. Imagine God's helping hand coming down to help us in our lives.  The Lamb carrying the cross is our Lamb of God, Jesus, Who died on the Cross to save us from our sins.  And, the Holy Spirit is protrayed by a dove.  Think about when Jesus was baptized by John in the Galilee.  After Jesus was baptized, a dove came down from Heaven and God said, "This is my Son, in Whom I aam well pleased."

Then we made the lanterns.  I used vellum that I printed on the inkjet printer.  You just have to be careful because as it is coming out, the ink will smear easily.  

 

The items you will need for this craft are:
* Vellum that will be printed with this picture.
* Glue sticks
* Colorful paper for the top and bottom of the lantern
* Hot glue to attach the lantern at the end
* Scissors for the kids to cut the colorful paper
* Battery operated votive lights.  I got 12 for about $6

Here's Miss Lisa with Eliza Jane and her lantern

Here's Cait and her lantern

Here's Claire with her lantern

Here's Boe with his lantern

Here's the lantern with the votive candle inside.  So pretty when the lights are out.  I told the kids they could put it on their bedside tables.

Another way you can explain the Holy Trinity is to say that you are a daughter, a mother, a sister, an aunt...  It's really a simple way to think about it, but it might help a child to grasp the idea.

All the kids with their lanterns!

New Year's Resolution: Cultivate a Gratitude Attitude!

If I do nothing else as a Sunday School teacher, I hope I can instill in the kids the need to be grateful for the many blessings that God has given them.

So, for our New Year's Day craft, I came up with a "Happiness Tub".  Inside are little slips of paper that say:  "Thank You, God, for..."  Every day the children are supposed to write a little note to God, thanking Him for His many blessings.  I encouraged them to thank Him for one thing each day.

I told them that there are so many wealthy people out there who aren't very happy.  They are constantly buying new gadgets that give them very temporary "happiness", but it doesn't last.  They don't cultivate a "Gratitude Attitude", thanking God for the simplest of blessings and being satisfied with what you have.

Have you ever seen pictures or videos from mission trips to Africa where the people are so joyous, and yet they seem to have so little?  "Things" don't make us happy.  Being thankful for God's many blessings to us... does.

I made a typo when I was putting the Bible verse on the picture to place on top of the little plastic tub.  Sorry.  After the kids color their picture, have little foam brushes and plates of ModPodge on them.  Put a liberal amount on the top of the tub, place your picture on top, smooth it out, then cover with another liberal amount of ModPodge.  Smooth out the ModPodge.  Let dry and it will be beautiful.

For the little strips of paper, you can gather them together with a rubber band and then the child can take one out at a time to write their praise to God.

O Christmas Tree!

The kids really enjoyed doing this craft.  You need to trim the green and yellow construction paper down to the size where you can print off the templates in your printer.  And, I made "ornaments" on card stock because I'm certifiably crazy and do way too much.  I had thought about getting little packs of those star stickers for the kids to put on their trees as ornaments, but couldn't find them easily, so opted to make the ornaments myself... which took a long time to cut out.

You can put as many "trees" and "stars" together to make the 3-D effect, but I think at least three are needed for a nice tree.  The tree above has three trees and three stars glued together, but I was able to give each child 4 trees and they looked a lot nicer.  And, of course, the label at the top is essential.  "Jesus is the Reason for the Season".  I printed that off on card stock.

Just fold each of the trees and stars in half and have the kids use glue sticks to glue the halves together, working your way around until you have the full effect.