Wednesday Night Lesson - God Is Love

What a wild class! We had about 11 kids show up, but it sure felt like 20!

Last night, we did our third Character class. We changed a bit, since we were supposed to do God is Merciful, but we did instead, God is Love. (We'll do mercy next week).

Here is what we arranged our class to look like, in order to be kid-friendly.

• Set up "walls" for a boundary to the class, hung colorful banner for one wall (yellow on the side)


• Moved small table to one end of classroom for snack time and craft time


• Put posters on wall


• Lay down story-time quilt


• Have stool for story-teller/reader


• Put craft supplies on easy-access book shelf

Every week we have been making a banner with our word on it and hanging them on the wall. Last night was so crazy we didn't get our banners done, but here are the first two.
Every week, to start, we have the kids pick a sticker to put on the calendar, marking that they are here.

Last night, after that, we handed out mirrors to all the kids and sang Jesus Loves Me. (Our "brilliant" idea was to give the oldest kids mirrors and have them pair up with a younger kid while singing....not sure that worked exactly like planned!)

Next, Keren read Luke 15, the story of the Prodigal Son. She also used Mr. Pig puppet. After a few minutes of rowdy-ness, the kids did settle down and listen.

After story, we moved to the table and had our snack "Mud." We talked about how the younger son was rude and mean to his father, and how he ended up feeding stinky, dirty pigs. (Hence, the mud) We talked about how much the father loved his son, to welcome him back after all that! Then we remembered that God is just like that father, and He loves us that much too!

After snack, we took them all outside for two games.

1. Balloon Puzzle. We had pre-blown up some balloons with hidden words inside them. The kids were to pop the balloons and find the letter, then re-create the phrase "God Is Love." They loved the balloon popping.....but were too wound up to do the puzzle so we actually skipped that part :)
2. Ladybug Love Tag. We had sheets of ladybug stickers that we handed out to the kids. The objective was to "tag" others with all your stickers, but not get any on yourself. On the count of "Go," they ran around wildly and "lovingly" tagged each other. We had big stickers for the little kids, and more small stickers for the big kids.

After that, we all sat down and prayed and had crackers and cheese. That was the end of class.

I should note, that we had planned on the kids being wound up a bit, since we new company was coming, but we didn't realize how many kids would come. Therefore, the class was really quite rowdy and loud. We had fun, I think they rememberd the story, but I'm not so sure they got the point that God is Love!

After class, they played some other games while the adults visited. Hopscotch. Tag. Pom-Pom-Pull-Away. and Wrestling.

Looking back, I hope the kids learned something. I definitely did. (See below post)

Next week we will try and do God is Merciful.