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.

King David Dances when the Ark of the Covenant returns!

King David Dances!

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is how King David danced with joy when the Ark of the Covenant was going to be moved back to Jerusalem.  So, I saw something like this on Pinterest and adjusted it a little bit.  We made King David into a puppet!  I printed off King David's "picture" and the little explanation of what happened to put on the back.  I have a badge hole punch, so I punched slots big enough to accommodate the paper loops we put in for King David's arms and legs.  Then, the kids could use their puppet to dance.  I put a little hole in the top of King David's head and attached fishing line, which I then attached to a popsicle stick.

I made King David out of Card Stock and then printed the explanation on plain paper.  I decided to cut the explanation the size of the King David so that the kids could glue the explanation on the back of King David and better be able to explain to their parents about our Sunday School lesson.

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Advent Snowman Calendar

Advent Snowman Calendar Craft

This is a time-intensive craft on the part of the person putting everything together.  I put a lot of work into making the links, but you will still have to cut them all out.  A perfect craft for cutting out while you're watching TV in the evenings.  I wish I had taken pictures of the top of the snowman, but, alas, I did not.

The kids make paper rings and put them together with Dec. 1 at the bottom, leading all the way up to Christmas Day.  The intention is for the family to cut a paper loop off each day and read the Christmas Story day by day until Christmas Day.  Oh,... and to let you know... I put the Bible verses on the inside, and the dates on the outside, so you'll have to turn the paper over and print the dates on the other side of the paper.  Like I said... a little time-intensive, but if the families really do read each day, it's well worth it.

The first three rings are made of card stock, and I put those together.  I used fishing line for the hanger and attached masking tape at the end for the parents to attach them to the ceiling with the masking tape.  I turn the masking tape over to make tabs so you can pull the tape apart.  

Snowmen!!!

Snowmen!

This was a really fun craft to do.  And, while a little time-intensive for the person getting all the things ready, a great craft for the kids.  I usually cut out things while I'm watching TV at night, so, while it takes some time to do it, I'm doing something else at the same time. 

With this, you just take a piece of card stock and cut it into a circle, then starting cutting inside around and around until you get close to the middle.  You will want to cut the snowman's head round in the middle.  Then cut construction paper arms, hat, band for the hat, holly for the hat, carrot for his nose and a scarf for his neck, and voila!   Get some googly eyes and you've got it.  Just glue everything together with glue sticks.

The kids really loved doing this and I didn't dictate anything that they did.  We even had an alien snowman!