sunday kids' craft: a lesson on love

My far-away friend, Kristin, has me totally inspired this summer to teach my children something besides how not to fall off a bike, how not to drown in the pool and how not to get fried to a crisp while playing outside all day.  These are obviously important lessons to learn, but there are also other important lessons to learn - lessons about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  In my faith tradition these nine qualities are referred to as the fruit of the Spirit . . . meaning that these are the qualities that others can see in our lives because we love God and God's Spirit is in us.  

Kristin is working on a quality a week at her house.  You can follow her journey on her family blog and be inspired to take a similar journey with your family.  

Due to my work and home schedule, we are learning about and practicing these qualities during the weekend starting on Friday.  We're home on Fridays together, so this past Friday we had our very first Fruit of the Spirit Friday.  We focused on the quality of . . . LOVE. 

This is what our Fruit Friday focusing on love looked like.
1)  We started out in the morning with a small object lesson on love.
2)  We learned a special song about love. 
3)  We read a few children's books about love. 
4)  We went on a love field trip to deliver a special meal to a family in our community who has recently been impacted by a cancer diagnosis and chemo treatments. 

Fruit Friday ended with a special craft.  (Yes, I realize the post is called Sunday Kids' Craft. :)  That's because I'm sharing it with you on Sunday not necessarily because we did it on Sunday.)  

Share-the-Love Magnet Clips-

**Throughout the upcoming weekend and week, I will be looking for ways the girls are showing love - to people, animals or the environment.  As we crafted, we talked about specific acts of love that they could do at the ages of 5 and 2.  At the end of each day, we will gather around the Share-the Love Magnet Clips on the fridge, and I will present them each with a card that has one of my favorite acts of love I saw them do that day written on it.  They will get to put the card into the magnet clip.  Each day we add a card to the clip, and at the end of the week we will take time to read them all together again.

Supplies:
-clothes pins
-heart shapes cut out of felt, paper, craft foam, etc. - I precut these to make this craft simpler.  If you have older children, they could cut out there own shapes.
-old magnets
-craft glue
-hot glue gun
-notecards
-stamps, markers, crayons, stickers, etc

1)  Let children pick out the heart shapes they want to use.  Help them glue heart shapes on to the clothes pins with craft glue in the pattern they choose.

2)  Let dry.

3)  Take an old fridge magnet and cut it up into thin strips.  Use hot glue gun to attach magnet strips to back of clothes pins.

4)  Let cool.

5)  Let children decorate notecards with stamps, stickers or markers.

Each girl made two magnet clips - one to hold the blank notecards and one to hold the share-the-love card for the day.  It was so fun to see their faces tonight as we gathered around the fridge again, and I presented them with their cards.  

Don't forget to check out Kristin's journey and start your own journey this summer on the lessons of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  No matter what your faith tradition, these are lessons we could all use a little refresher on from time to time.  

Craft on!