Sunbeam Lesson I Have a Home

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

Prepare a series of pictures, or a PowerPoint Slide Presentation of different kinds of animal and insect homes. As you show the pictures have the children talk about what they see, and share if they have ever found a bee’s nest, or seen an ant hill etc. Explain that these are all the homes of different living things. If we see these in nature, we should not destroy them.

Show a Youtube video about different human homes around the world. This one is good, but there are many to choose from. As the video plays, point out special things they might see, like what the homes are made of, how big or small they are, how the homes might reflect their environment (no trees, they might use mud etc.). When the video is over, engage the children in a conversation about how all the homes they have seen are really different, but they all have some of the same things. Ask the children what might be same about these homes. Guide them to include things like: roofs, walls, warmth, food, place to eat and sleep, place where families can be safe and together. Point out that no matter what the home looks like, they are places for people to live safely and happily and people take care of them.

Read The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse, or show it as a video, there is also an interactive iPad book. Talk about how each mouse loved his own  home even though it was very different from the other mouse’s home. We feel comfortable in our our homes, but we need to show respect for whatever home we are in or visiting.

Project:

Create a cardboard and cardstock project for each child in the class. (If you have a really large class, you might want to make one large project that they all help to make. I have less than 10 children in my class so I made one for each child so they could take them home.) I cut up a cardboard box for a sturdy foundation and then printed off a “floor” on pieces of cardstock. I divided the cardstock paper into four equal boxes and put the outline of a rug or flooring in each box. The children colored in the different rugs however they wanted. Then we glued the “floor” onto the cardboard to make it sturdy. I then use black and white clipart drawings on room interiors to make walls for each of the four rooms. The children colored in each one and as they did, we talked about how they could decorate the rooms in their favorite colors, and what each room was for, what they did in each room etc. They I slit the coloring templates so they can slide into each other and stand up on the cardboard floor.

I then printed out on cardstock several figures of children doing different chores. Each child got a set. We talked about each room in the house, and what needs to be done in each room, and how the children could help. They picked out the figure that fit each description and put it in the room. For example, in the kitchen we might help with washing dishes, in the bedroom we might put our toys away etc.

This activity took most of the class time given they colored the project, we discussed what each room was for, and we followed up with the chore discussion.

Finish up by showing a picture of a lovely home. Ask the children what they like about the picture and to imagine how nice it would be to live in that home. Explain that it takes a lot of work and effort to keep a home nice however, and they should be willing to help. Show them the other picture, of the broken down home. Explain that this is what can happen if people don’t take care of their homes. Then explain that our home don’t just get dirty or broken if we don’t take care of them, they also can become dirty and broken if we bring bad things into them. Explain that homes need to be filled with good books, good music, and happiness and love. If we bring anger or fighting, or bad thoughts, or bad movies into our home, it will also become dirty and broken. Explain this is the most important thing, no matter what kind of home we live in, we need to try to bring happiness, love, cooperation and only good things into our home.

Broken down home. From Clker.com.

Pretty home from Clker.com

Sunbeam Lesson Sorry

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

Use a video or a book to tell the story of Jonah. I used a read aloud iPad app that tells the story of Jonah but there are many options. Remind the children of the past lesson on obedience and the consequences of Jonah’s refusal to be obedient to Heavenly Father. Point out that Jonah felt sorry however, and returned to do Heavenly Father’s will.

Explain that sometimes we do things we are sorry for and we need to apologize. Explain what the word apologize means. Explain to the children that there is a special way to truly be sorry. Have the children follow the path and color in the diagram as you explain each step in the process.

Show a picture (I found one online by Googling Baseball, Boy, Broken Window) of a broken window from a baseball. Tell the story of a boy who accidentally broke his neighbor’s window with a baseball. He was sorry and told the neighbor he was sorry. But the neighbor needed his window replaced and the boy did not have the money to do that. Another person came by and said he would pay for the window to be replaced. Explain how when Jesus Christ died for our sins, he was paying the price that we are not able to pay. Just the like boy who was sorry, but couldn’t pay for the window so someone else paid for him. Compare that example to how Jesus can help us be forgiven for our sins if we are sorry and ask him for forgiveness.

There are several other books and videos that can be inserted into the lesson. Martha Doesn’t Say Sorry,

or Patrick n Friends Sorry.

Have the children play the Sorry Game. I use a dice from another game to roll and I bought inexpensive plastic cars for game pieces. The “reward” was that the children got to keep the cars at the end. You can make the game board yourself, or use the one here made on Excel so it can be printed in a large size. You can change the game text in any way you think appropriate.

Sorry Game

Template from notebookingfairy.com

 

 

Sunbeam Lesson Obedience

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

Give several commands for children to do, things like jumping jacks, jumping on one foot etc. Explain you are happy they obeyed your instructions because they have been sitting for a long time and it is good for them to get up and move. I gave each child one M&M as a reward for being obedient to what I had asked of them, in addition to getting exercise as a reward for their compliance. This will tie in later with the idea of receiving blessings for being obedient.

Explain that when someone who loves you and cares about you tells you to do something, you should do it. That is called obedience. Sometimes you might not like it, or not want to do it, but your parents, and your teachers at church are trying to help you. You should learn to be obedient. I struggled here with emphasizing that the children should obey their parents and the people who love them and care about them, like teachers at church. I think we don’t want children thinking they should obey and follow everyone, even strangers.

Ask the children if their parents have ever asked them to do something they didn’t want to do. Guide the conversation to the idea that even if we don’t want to, usually the things we are asked to do are good for us or others. Some examples might be to eat vegetables, take a nap, clean your room. All of those are not fun, but if you are obedient you will be happy and healthy.

Show a video or read a book about Peter Rabbit. Youtube has several good videos. I stopped the video in several places to point out that Mother Rabbit told Peter not to go into the garden, and why, but he chose to disobey her. There are several spots in the video (or book) where you can point out the consequences of Peter’s bad choice and the reward the other bunnies got for choosing to obey their mother.

Heavenly Father also gives us commandments and want us to be obedient also. Ask the children what some of Heavenly Father’s commandment are? (Come to church, pay tithing, don’t lie, etc.) Explain how Heavenly father gives us commandments to keep us safe so we should obey Him. Use pictures, or create a PowerPoint slide show of all the things Heavenly Father asks us to do, and talk about the blessings we receive from doing those things.

Read the story of Wilford Woodruff.

Ask the children how things would have been different if Wilford Woodruff had obeyed his father.

Imagine how our lives would be if we didn’t obey.  Show the video of  The Sting of the Scorpian and talk about both the blessings of obedience and the consequences of disobedience. Remind the children that they got an M&M for obeying you at the beginning of the class. Sometimes we don’t get immediate rewards, but we are kept safe from things we don’t even see or know about.

Explain that sometimes obedience is hard. We can ask for help and pray to Heavenly Father to help us be obedient. Use videos or pictures to tell the story of Nephi building the ship. talk about how he obeyed even though he didn’t know how to build a ship, and even though his brothers teased him. Create an activity or coloring page to go along with this story.

 

Sunbeam Lesson I Have Feelings

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

 

Tell the children you are going to play a game. I will make a face and you decide what I am feeling. Make several faces; happy, sad, scared, sleepy, bored etc. Ask the children to guess what you are feeling from your expression.

Have them try the same thing, each one make a face and the rest of the class guesses the emotion. You might to whisper an emotion for each child to mime.

What do we call those things? Feelings, emotions.

Read a story that has several different emotions in it. Where the Wild Things Are is one example. You can also find stories in the Friend magazine, or even make one up. Just be sure to have the character(s) show several different emotions as things happen in the story.

Make paper plate spinners for the kids and stop as you read the story and have the children find the emotion on the paper plate spinner. Talk about why they are feeling that emotion at that time. Ask the children if they have ever felt those emotions and when.

Top plate turns to reveal other emotions.

Give each child a blank face template and a small ball of dough. Be ready to relate several different scenarios with them that might happen each day. Some examples are: You are playing with your favorite toy and your brother runs up and takes it away. How would you feel? Have the children talk about how they would feel and help them use the clay to model the features on the face template. They can make a smiling or frowning, or frightened mouth, and angry or scared eyebrows etc.

This blog has a great example of this.

Explain that emotions are good things and we can learn to look carefully at other people to see what they are feeling. Practice a game with role playing. Pretend you are on the phone and ask one of the children to try to get your attention by pulling at your sleeve. Make an impatient and angry face at them. Ask them what they think you are feeling. How should they react? Tell the children to pretend you are all at the playground. Ask one child to pretend to whisper in another child’s ears. Make a hurt and upset face. Ask the children what they think you are feeling and why. Use similar role playing with body language. The point is to have children become sensitive to body language and facial features and learn to navigate socially.

Explain that ANGER is an important and strong emotion. We need to be in control of it, and not let it control us. Ask the children if they have ever been angry and why. Ask them what they did when they were angry. Explain how sometimes we do things we shouldn’t when we are angry like yell or hit or throw something. Explain that we need to learn to do things to help us control our anger. You might read a story about anger such as I Was So Mad by Mercer Mayer.

There are several videos about anger management for children. This one is good but it has a loud “rock song” in the middle that you might want to mute for a Sunday and just explain the song is about being angry.

 

Have several cards on the table face down. Ask a child to turn one over. Each one should have a picture related to controlling their anger. For example, one could be a pillow. When the child turns that over, ask them how a pillow could help them get rid of their anger. Talk about going into their bedroom and hitting the pillow, or yelling into the pillow to get their anger out. Another picture could be a song. Explain how sometimes when we are angry, singing a song or listening to music can help us to calm down. Have a picture of a child praying and explain how kneeling in prayer and speaking to Heavenly Father might help us control our anger. Have a picture of children talking, or children talking to adults. Explain how when we are angry it is a good idea to talk about our feelings and explain how we feel hurt. A picture of crayons could demonstrate how we might draw a picture of why we are angry and how we feel.

Buy a package of larger balloons and use a marker to draw simple faces on each one. Bring the deflated balloons to the class (one for each child), a funnel, a scoop or spoons, and a bowl of flour. Have the children help you to fill up the balloons with flour to make a stress ball. Tie off the balloons and have the children squeeze them. Explain how they can use these stress balls to squeeze our their anger when they are upset. Here is a link to making them with dough instead of flour. (See note below.)

 

This photo from pre-schoolplay.blogspot.com

If you, like me, are one of those unfortunate people for whom the end product never looks like the one in the magazine/blog etc., you might want to think through the flour balloon project. Ideally, the children can make these with you as you discuss how to use them. However, I found they are not really quick or easy to make so I decided to make them ahead of time and draw the faces on them with the children in the class. Depending on how many kids you have, how patient you are, how tolerant of mess and chaos you are, you might rethink making these with your kids. Also, I found the following works best after trial and error:

1. Blow up a balloon as big as it will go without popping. Hold the air in it for several minutes then let the air out. It should now be stretched out a bit.

2. Put a funnel in the neck of the balloon and spoon in flour. I jiggled it, knocked the funnel against the side of the counter top and used a wooden skewer to encourage the flour to go into the balloon.

3. When it took as much flour as it could, I blew in the tiniest puff of air and tied it off.

4. Lastly, I took another balloon, cut off the rolled neck bit, and stretched it wide over the other balloon, with the tied off end of the inner balloon deep inside. Now there were two layers of balloon so that parents won’t hate you when their child breaks a flour balloon all over the car on the ride home from church.

 

 

Sunbeam Lesson Smell and Taste

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

 

Ask the children to recall what parts of the body they have learned about so far: eyes, ears, hands etc. Tell them we will learn about two more parts of the body today and they need to guess what those are. Give them hints: You can’t see this part of my body if I am not speaking. It is pink and has little bumps on it. I can move it around and it helps me to taste food. (Tongue). I have only one of these and I can’t see it very well unless I look in a mirror. It is on my face. It has two holes in it. I can breath and smell with it. (Nose). Explain that our tongue and nose help us to smell and taste.

 

Have several containers with strong smelling things in each. If the item is easily identifiable by sight, be sure the container is covered so the item can’t be seen. Ask the children to smell each one and try to guess what it is. Suggestions: Cinnamon stick, dab of toothpaste, lemon slice, pineapple, bacon bits, garlic, eggs, popcorn, peanut butter etc. (Be sure to check for allergies in your children first). You can have pictures of each item spread across the table and have the children discuss and agree where each container should go to match the picture. Explain how our noses are very sensitive to smell and we can smell wonderful things like flowers (it would be great if you could have a nice smelling flower for them to smell) and nasty smells too.

 

Have something with a strong flavor, like a potato chip, for the children to eat. Before they eat it, ask them to pinch their noses shut. Tell them to eat the potato chip (or apple, or orange slice) with their noses plugged. Then have them taste it again without plugging their noses. Ask if they noticed a difference. They should notice that they can taste much more flavor without their noses plugged. Explain that our noses help us breath, help us smell, but also help us to taste food better. Be sure to talk to the children about never putting anything up their noses because they might injure themselves.

There is a good video on Youtube about how the nose works. This would be a good time to show that.

Bring mirrors (used in lesson on eyes) for the children to look at their tongues. Point out the tiny bumps on their tongues that help them discern taste. Explain that there are four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter. (The fifth is umami, or savory, which is too complex for these young children to understand. Also, the “tongue map” showing where on the tongue different taste sensors reside has been discredited. I do not use that since it is old information now proven false).

Have several samples of each of the four tastes for the children to taste. As they taste, ask them to decide which flavor it is. Some suggestions are: sugar, salt, lemons, rhubarb. Explain how Heavenly Father created us to be able to enjoy so many foods with different tastes, but also to be warned when we put something in our mouth that we shouldn’t. Discuss with the children that sometimes we would like to just eat sweet things, but that would not be healthy for us. You might give the children some baby carrots, or grapes, talk about the taste and texture, and about how fruits and vegetables taste good and are healthy for us.

There are some good videos on Youtube about how the tongue works.

Use the So Hungry picture story to read to the children and have them try to help you read the story using the pictures. Ask them if they have ever made a fruit salad, or to talk about their favorite foods.

 

Remind the children they have now learned about touch, sight, smell and taste. Create an activity for them to do that incorporates all these senses. There are some very inexpensive, ready-made crafts found at orientaltrading.com, but you can create something similar using cut out pictures from a magazine and poster paper. You could make one large poster with a different colored area and symbol for each sense, and then have the children sort through lots of cut out pictures from magazine to put in each area. (The ready-made craft contains 12 sticker sets for $5).

 

Conclude with a story about the senses like Bear’s Busy Family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunbeam Lesson Eyes

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

 

Read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? to the children. Ask them to look carefully at each page and give details about what Brown Bear sees. Include colors, shapes etc. in their discussion. Ask them what part of their body they used most to enjoy the book–their eyes.

 

Give them a diagram of the eye (see below-from http://www.littleblots.com) and have look at their own eye in a mirror to see the different parts. You can bring several small dollar store mirrors, or one or two from home to take turns. Explain that Heavenly Father made our eyes with special parts to take care of our sight. Point out how our eyelashes sweep away dust from our eyes, our tears wash dirt from our eyes, our eyelid protects our eyes etc.

 

Use a flashlight to demonstrate to the children how our pupil opens and closes to let in the right amount of light. You can turn the lights off in the room and have the children look at how your pupils get large (or use mirrors to have them look at their own pupils). Have the children do the Pupils craft. Give each child a copy of the template and have them put the correct sized pupil on each eye. The template shows an eye next to a small light bulb (dim light), and eye next to a medium light bulb (regular light) and an eye next to a large light bulb (bright light). Cut out small, medium and large black circles for the children to glue over the corresponding eye. Point out how wonderful our eyes are and that we should thank Heavenly Father for our eyes.

 

There are some good children’s videos on Youtube to explain how the eyes work. I liked this one in particular.

Have the children do an easy task like threading loop cereal onto a string, or drawing a features on a blank face on a piece of paper etc. Then have them try to do the same thing with their eyes closed. You could give each child a piece of paper with two head templates (or circles) side by side. Ask them to draw eyes, a nose, mouth, eyebrows  on one of the circles to create a face. Then ask them to do the same thing on the other circle with their eyes closed. Have them compare the results. Explain how useful our eyes are for us.

Tell the story of Jesus healing the blind man using pictures, a book or a video. The lds.org site has materials to support this.

Explain that some people can’t see well, or see at all. Show pictures or a video of how someone who is blind can find their way using a seeing eye dog or a cane. Have the children try to find their way across the room with a blindfold on, put obstacles in their way. Encourage them to use their hands, or bring in a stick, dowel or cane for them to use to feel for objects in the way. Demonstrate how to slowly swing the cane in an arc in front of them to find obstacles.

Use pictures of beautiful places in the world, or show a video of beautiful places and ask the children to talk about what they see and how wonderful it is to have eyes to see the beautiful world. You could also have several pictures of things that you keep hidden while you describe them to the children. Ask them to try to imagine what you are describing, and then show them the picture and ask them if that is what they imagined. Help them to think about how hard it is to accurately imagine something you can’t see. (Some examples might be a picture of a fairy tale castle or a picture of an uncommon animal they might not have seen before etc.)

Lastly, you could play a memory game. Have 8-10 common items on a tray covered with a cloth. Tell the children you are going to show them the items for 10 seconds and then cover them up again.The children have to try to remember as many as they can. Do this several times until they “see” everything on the tray.

There are some free apps for the iPad that help children explore the eye, and some game type apps also.

 

 

 

 

Some images from:

http://www.edupics.com/coloring-page-light-bulb-i10244.html

http://www.clker.com/clipart-blank-face-boy.html (Maria)

 

 

Sunbeam Lesson Ears

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

Remind the children that last week we talked about our bodies, and especially our hands. This week we are talking about a different part of our body. Ask them to guess the body part. Give clues: I have two of these, they are on my head, they are curved, I can only see them if I look in a mirror etc.

Use a Power Point presentation, or several pictures for the next activity. Start with a large picture of an ear. Point out what it looks like and how the “scoop” shape catches sounds. Have the children cup their hands behind their ears to demonstrate how that helps them to hear better, that is why our ears are shaped that way. Explain how what is inside our ears actually allows us to hear. Have a picture of an ear drum. Explain it is very important that they don’t ever stick anything in their ears or they might damage their ear drum. Remind them that Heavenly Father made our ears and they are wonderfully designed. 

Show a video about how ears work. If you have time, you can have a diagram of the ear and have the children color or circle the ear drum. 

Return to the Power Point or the pictures. Have several pictures of things that make sounds like animals, babies, music, firetrucks etc. Show the picture to one child only and ask them to make the sound of that object. The other children need to guess what it is that makes that sound. Explain that they used only their ears to find the correct answer. 

Ask the children to imagine what it would be like if they couldn’t hear. Play a game with them. Mouth an easy, short sentence. Ask the children if they can guess what you are saying by looking at your lips. Let each child have a chance to try this. Explain that some people are hearing impaired and cannot hear well or at all. They can understand what people say by lip reading, looking at the person’s expression, and reading sign language. There are many videos on Youtube that demonstrate sign language, and you can teach your class some easy sign language such as I Love You.  This is a good time to talk about how Jesus healed the sick and the blind and the deaf. The church website has videos, pictures or audio reading on Jesus healing a deaf man.

Mystery Sound. Stand behind the children and have them listen as you make sounds with different objects. Ask them to guess what the sound is. Example sounds:

1. Writing on a chalk board.

2. Clapping your hands.

3.Shaking coins in your hand.

4. Tap a pencil on the desk, or draw on paper.

5. Turn pages in a book.

6. Bounce a ball.

An alternative to this would be to have several covered containers, two each have the same objects. Student shake all the containers and try to match up the ones that have the same object in them. 

This comes from a website that offers several Sound Games for kids.  

If you can take the children outside, you can have them do a MUM WALK. This means they must be silent as they walk outside and hear all the things there are to hear. You can have them raise their hand when they hear something, or wait until you get back in the classroom and have them share the things they heard.

If a walk outside is not practical, you can find several videos of birds, or nature sounds to show the children.  Express to the children your gratitude for the world Heavenly Father made and that you can hear such beautiful things. 

Music is another way to have the children appreciate their ears and hearing. You might have them sing, or listen to different kinds of music and ask how it makes them feel. Place a large piece of poster  or butcher paper on the table and have crayons for the children. Play snatches of different kinds of music and ask them to use colors to show how the music makes them feel: happy, sad, sleepy, scared etc. Model  how different colors might represent the different sounds they are hearing: black or brown for scary music (Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre for instance),  dark blue for “stormy” music (Strauss Ein Alpensinfonie), red, yellow, orange for happy music (Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf, Ravel Histoires Naturelles). They can just make swirly marks instead of pictures as drawing might distract them from the feelings of the music.

Point out to children that what they listen to can affect their feelings. They should be especially careful about what they listen to on the Sabbath day, to keep their minds and hearts focused on Christ. 

Finish the lesson with a craft. You can make very simple sound instruments from boxes, cans, rubber bands etc. Pinterest has a large number of resources for homemade instruments. I have the kids make “rain sticks” for the sound quality. Photo and idea taken from http://www.inlieuofpreschool.com/diy-sensory-bottles-rain-stick/.

Sunbeam I Have A Body

Note:  In the church manual, this lesson is followed by lessons about different parts of the body. I found it easier to combine this lesson into the other lessons so things don’t get repetitive.  I start each of the “body parts” lessons reminding the children that of these things are parts of our whole body.

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

Start the lesson by singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” After the song, ask the children if they know what our Head Shoulders Knees and Toes make up. Our bodies.

There is a great video that goes through all the parts of the body. It is about 5 minutes long. I ask the children to follow along and point out the parts of their body that the boy in the video is talking about. I pause the video at times to ask the children about their body, like “what are some of the things you can do with your feet?” etc. 

Today we will focus on one part of our body. Can you guess? We have two of these things. They help us to eat, and dress and do many things. They bend, they hold things, they have five fingers each. Hands.

Show Power Point slide show, or pictures of hands. I have a slide show that shows an Xray of the hand so the children can see all the bones and joints that help our hands work. I show a close up of the finger tips and our finger prints. The slide show includes all the things we can do with our hands, focusing on taking care of ourselves, serving others, and taking care of animals.

I created a “matching game” with clip art and a color printer. I have two columns on a piece of paper, one column has different animals, including a human, and the other column has paws, claws, hands, etc. The children draw lines with a crayon matching the correct “hand” with the correct creature. You might point out how different the human hand is and how animal paws are suited for what they need.

 

Return to the picture of the fingerprint. Have the children look at their own fingerprints. Talk about how Heavenly Father made each one of us as individuals and no one has the same fingerprints as us.  Bring in finger paint set and some card stock paper. Have the children make some fingerprint art for their mothers. This lesson is often around Mother’s Day so it would work to have them create a fingerprint card for their mother.  Bring wet wipes or wet paper towels to clean up. 

Bring several tactile items  (one for each child) in a container. Without letting the children see, put one of the items in a paper grocery bag. Ask a child to reach in and touch the item. The bag should be big enough so the child can use both hands to investigate the item. Ask them to describe what they are feeling. You might have to help them by asking questions like, it is smooth or rough, soft or hard, big or small, sharp or rounded etc.  Ask them to guess what the item is. Give each child a chance to do this and stress how much our hands and sense of touch can help us discover and explore the world.  Alternately, you could blindfold the child and hand them the object and have them use their hands to figure out what it is. You will have to remind the other children not to call out answers. 

Bring in several socks and have the children put the socks on their hands. Ask them to do things like take off and put on their shoes, comb their hair etc. with the socks on their hands. Explain how wonderfully Heavenly Father designed our hands to do so much.

Have the children do a task with their hands, like stringing macaroni or beads or loop cereal onto yarn. Tell them to watch their hands as they do it and notice how carefully their fingers work together. You could use masking tape to wrap around their fingers and tell them to try to continue to string beads. Notice the difference.  Explain that they should take care of their hands by washing them often, and being careful around tools or anywhere they might hurt their fingers or hands.

Have several pictures of people doing things at church or in service. Blessings, passing the sacrament, holding scriptures, raking leaves etc. Ask the children to talk about how they can use their hands for good things. 

Explain how some people use their hands to communicate. You can learn some basic ASL to teach the children (My name is….,  I love you.), or find a video that shows American Sign Language.

 

There are several hand crafts the children can do if you have time.

http://www.pinterest.com/jeanoram/hand-and-feet-kid-crafts-for-kids/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunbeam Lesson The Sabbath

Welcome everyone by name.

Practice the Hand Raising game. Children at this age need to practice hand raising without calling out. We usually start each lesson with a small snack and we practice raising our hands to respond to questions without calling out.  We will make statements like, “Raise your hand if you like graham crackers,” or “Raise your hand if you are wearing red today.” We emphasize that they can answer the question not with calling out, but by raising their hands.

Have the children all stand and do some kind of exercise. Jumping jacks is the easiest, but you can use anything that will tire them out in a few minutes. Tell them to do the exercise for as long as they can, and when they get tired, they can stop and sit down. Ask them how they feel after working so hard. Guide the discussion to how they might feel if they weren’t able to rest, but had to keep on going. What might happen? Explain that our minds and bodies work hard for us every day and to be healthy we need to rest.

There is a great two minute HooplaKidz video about why we need sleep on Youtube.

Remind the children about all they have learned regarding the Creation. Remind them how Heavenly Father and Jesus worked to create the whole world and everything on it. Ask the students to recall some of the things they have learned. You should have pictures of the creation to help remind them: land, water, plants, fish, animals, people etc. Explain that after all that hard work, Heavenly Father and Jesus put aside a day to rest and think about what they had made.

Tell the children that our bodies need rest, but so do our minds and our spirits. Rest keeps our bodies healthy, but our spirits need to stay strong and healthy too.

Show a picture of Jesus. Ask the children to quietly think about Jesus and how much he loves us. Tell the children to continue to think about Jesus but bring in many distractions. You could bounce a ball on the table, turn on some non-church music, bring out a board game or some toys. Ask the children if it was a lot harder to continue to think about Jesus with all those other things around. Explain how all week we have other distractions that keep our minds busy and it’s hard to think about Jesus. Sunday is the day when we should rest our minds from all those other things and only focus on Jesus. That is what we mean when we say Sunday, or the Sabbath, is a day of rest.

Tell the story of Moses leading the Israelites back to Canaan and how God sent manna to them every day except on Sunday. They had to prepare for that by gathering extra manna the day before. You can make manna as a snack for the children, although not sure how many will eat it! A simple snack that will be close to manna is any puffed wheat cereal. The taste, size and shape are really close to the descriptions we have of manna.

Instant Manna!

Give some examples of how we can prepare for Sunday by doing things to prepare for it. You can have the children do a game of charades of things like putting clothes away, putting out Sunday clothes, cleaning their room, getting their scriptures out etc.

There are coloring pages that can be printed for the children to color while you relate the story of the Israelites. Or use pictures to illustrate the story as you tell it.

Give children the cube template and point out how there are pictures of things they can do on Sunday. Ask them what they think the pictures show as they color them in. You can leave two of the sides empty for the children to draw a picture of other things they might do on a Sunday such as bake cookies, call grandma, color a picture etc. When they are done, put the cubes together and show them how they can throw it up in the air and choose to do whichever activity lands face up on the cube.

You can play a game with the children about Sunday activities. Make each child two popsicle stick signs. Cut out a circle of green with a smiley face on it and glue or tape it to the top of the popsicle stick. Make another circle out of red with a frowny face on it and glue or tape it to the top of the popsicle stick. Use the chalkboard, or print off, or draw pictures of many different kinds of activities. If the children think it is good to do on a Sunday, they hold up the smiley face green stick. If they think they should not do it on a Sunday, they hold up the frowny face red stick. You can play the game several times seeing if they can answer faster each time.