'Tower of Babel'- 'Living our lives to please God' Wednesday club #12

A large part of today's plan came from Ministry to Children.

“Today we’re going to learn about a time when humans started taking credit for the gifts God had given them. In fact, they wanted to make themselves famous and even did the exact opposite of what God commanded them to do. In all this we’re going to learn the difference between glorifying God and showing-off to build our own reputation.”

Active Listening: As the kids prepare to watch the story, ask the children to listen for the following clues. Say, “Each of these items will play a part in our story and I want you to listen very carefully for why they are important.” Show a picture for each clue. Display these items on the wall before you read.

• Bricks made from mud
• Brain power
• Muscle power
• Word power (language)

Watch an animation of the Tower of Babel on You Tube.

Review the Active Listening Clues: Ask volunteers to come up and explain how each of the picture clues fit into the story. For each one ask the children where that item first came from. Lead them to conclude that each of those items were gifts that God gave the people. Say: “All of these things came from God and were given to the people so they could show God’s glory. Instead, the people used this stuff to show-off themselves and try to become important.”

Learning Outcome Test: Ask the children to respond to the following set of statements. If the activity is about seeking God’s glory they should stand with both hands raised toward Heaven, if the activity describes is mostly about seeking their own popularity (aka showing-off) they should cross their arms and remain seated. After each response, briefly point them back to the heart motives behind each action.

• Talking loudly about your good grades so that everyone knows that you’re smart. (showing-off)
• Using your intelligence to helping a friend with their math homework. (glorifying God)
• Doing your best to help your soccer team win. (glorifying God)
• Starting a new business so you can get rich and boss people around. (showing-off)
• Starting a new business so you can give people jobs. (glorifying God)

Gospel Application: Share with the children how difficult it can be for prideful people to accept Christ as their Savior. Explain that only through his grace can we become humble and give glory to God with our lives.

Craft:

Make towers using dry spaghetti pasta and marshmallows.

London with little ones #8 Imperial War Museum

 It has been a long time since I did a 'London with little ones' blog post but I felt today's visit was definitely worthy of a post.
We took the Overground train to London Liverpool Street Station, then the underground train to Lambeth North. The Imperial War museum is a 5 min walk from the tube station and is well sign posted. As it is half term we were expecting the museum to be busy and although it took us some time to get a free table for lunch it was not as busy as the Natural History Museum or Science Museum normally are.

Before we got started we grabbed some lunch in the museum cafe, refilled our water bottles and made a toilet stop.

It is fair to say that MJ and his Grandad were most at ease looking round the tanks, planes, guns etc but there was something for all tastes to have a look at. Even Lj who is 4 yrs old engaged in a few of the pieces. On the third floor a kids activity was set up. Each child was given a piece of paper, pencil and clip board and encouraged to look at the British first world war art and pick out some simple shapes to draw on their paper. One of the paintings really captured their imaginations which annoyingly I can't remember the name of the artist or the painting title. It depicted an explosion in a city, showing a colourful spiral rising through triangular shards of buildings and glass. Lj picked out the spiral and drew it onto her paper. Then she drew a snail, flowers, clouds and a little girl. Once we were finished drawing we headed to the art studio to transfer our shapes to polystyrene sheets, paint the image and print it onto paper. The lady leading the activity commented on Lj's picture saying that it would be nice to see more flowers in the museum!!! MJ's picture was of swords and guns and created a nice print which is was proud of.

Outside the museum, within the grounds there is a play park where the children ran off some energy and filled their lungs with fresh air. After 3 hrs in the museum, 30 mins or so playing outside we headed back to Liverpool street to meet M for dinner before returning home.

On the way back to the station MJ told me that this was his favourite day out in London...high praise from our little man who normally has a more reserved judgement.

'God loves us' Wednesday club #11

On Saturday it is Valentines Day so I thought it would be nice to take a break from our Old Testament timeline and think about how much God loves us, how we know that he loves us and how we can love Him and others.

Illustration:

Show a hairbrush.

I don’t know how many hairs I have on my own head. I suppose that I could try and count them. But even if I managed to count them, every day I lose some hairs and every day some new hairs grow! You can see from my hairbrush that today I have already lost some.

(Pull out one hair from hairbrush.)
The bible tells us that God knows the number of hairs on our head. In fact he knows all about us as He made us. In our Mummies tummy before we were born he was creating us.

We have already learned two verses from the Bible which mention 'Love'. 

John 3 v 16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life

Mark 12v30

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

So the first one gives us a clue as to how we know that God loves us. He loves us so much that he provided us with a way of knowing him and having a friendship with Him. That way was 'Jesus'.
And now that we know God loves us, we should love Him too, like in the second verse!

Cartoon:
I love this little cartoon which helps bring it altogether and reinforce how much God loves you!

Memory Verse:
1 John 4v19
'We love because He first loved us'.
   
Song:
Hearing this little song is one of my earliest memories as my Mum would sing it to us as she soothed us to sleep. 'Jesus Loves Me'

Prayer: Let’s pray and thank God for His love.

Dear God,

Thank you that you love me.

Thank you for knowing me.

Thank you for never changing.

I love you back. Amen.

 
Craft:

A terrible picture but we had fun decorating heart shaped biscuits to remind us of God's love for us!

We had some spare time so the girls happily made some heart hand cards.

'Noah's Ark- God keeps His promises' Wednesday club #10

Noah and the Ark may be the best known Bible Story of all time!

But, it’s more than just a story about the world’s first floating zoo...Noah and his family (8 souls in all) were saved from the judgment of God (The Flood) which destroyed the rest of mankind. Noah, his family, and all of the animals were safe in the ark. Later, after they left the Ark, God promised that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood. He put His rainbow in the sky as a sign of the promise He made between Him and every creature on the earth.

Story: 

We will watch the beginners bible story on You tube- Noahs Ark 

TimeLine:
We will add Noah and his family to our timeline ribbon.

Prayer:
Dear God,

Thank you that you always keep your promises.

Thank you that you love us!

We love you back!

Amen

Craft:
Using Play Mais we will build our own rainbows to remind us that God keeps His promises.