"Letting My Light Shine For Jesus" Lantern

So I'm sure everyone is familiar with the old paper lantern. It's been around forever. Well, one year when I taught Sunday School, I decided to incorporate them into a lesson.

What do lanterns do?
They give off light. They help you see. "They are a light in the darkness."

So how can we be a light in the darkness? How can we let our light shine for Jesus?

I decided this lantern activity would be perfect to make for Holidays. 'Tis the season of giving!

I'm pretty sure you already know how to make the lanterns, but just in case you don't...

We folded our paper in half longways and cut strips in the folded side. (Not all the way to the end)

Open up your paper and write on the strips ways you can let your light shine for Jesus.

    We can help others.  In what ways?

 

  Mathew 5: 14-16         “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

A Spooktacular Halloween!

The kids had a great Halloween.  We've been doing a lot of fun activities throughout the last week or two.  They have completely been sugared up and worn out and so have I. 

Beforehand, we went to the Christian bookstore to find our regular pumpkin prayer bracelets and bookmarks, but they no longer had them.  However, while we were there, I found this book.  In between the ghosts, boogers and blood, we always try to incorporate Jesus in Halloween.

  I let Aj read it to the kids.   "Yes, Halloween is jack-o-lanterns, costumes, and candy on a dark and spooky night...But Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus said to the people, "I am the light of the world.  If you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life."  John 8:12

  I decided to dress Caleb up as a construction worker which he wore to story time at the library.  After a few minutes, though, he was ready to take it off.  I can't get him to keep anything on.  

Then after school, AJ came home with an invitation to join the National Beta Club.  I was so proud of him!  The club recognizes "outstanding qualities of academic achievement, character, leadership and service."  What a great Halloween surprise! 

 

  We went to the local park for trick or treat night and, of course, Miss Caitlyn was so excited she left her bag at home.  We had to find plastic in the car.  I had accidentally left her tights for the cat costume at the church this past Sunday with the rest of the praise dance clothes and didn't realize it.  So she decided she would be a princess.   Well, remember Aj wanted to be a skeleton for Halloween.  The Adobe Reader just refused to work on the computer to print out the skeleton bones for AJ's costume so we started looking to buy one.  Even at 50% off, they were still too much.  He wanted this Scream character costume which was half off at $17.  Still just too much for my taste.  I ended up going to the Dollar General later and finding the mask for $3 and he's wearing one of our graduation gowns with black pants underneath.  WIN! WIN!  He loved it!   He couldn't understand why everyone kept calling him Scream, though.  I told him when he was old enough, I'd let him watch the movie. lol. (We already have two in the bed with us at any given time.)



 

They trick o treated around the park and then played a few games.  We were trying to make sure we got home in time for Charlie Brown and pumpkin carving.  Halloween really should have been on a Friday night.

    The kids cleaned out the pumpkin while watching Charlie Brown.  However, Caleb was not at all about that mushy stuff and he didn't last long.  Cate and AJ, on the other hand, had a blast making a mess.   We took a break to eat.

  Fruit parfaits made with pineapples, mandarin oranges and topped with whip cream.  I wasn't sure how that whipped cream would taste on top, but it was great!  

    We made some mummy dogs and I called these apples and caramel booger fingers.  Gross!  The kids loved it.

 

 

Now if I hadn't have waited until the last minute to buy pumpkins, we would have had about 4. And got really creative with our pumpkin carving.   However, I did and I think there was some pumpkin gauging going on.  lol.  We bought one giant pumpkin and did the pumpkin prayer.

 

    The kids drew the parts on the pumpkin first before I butchered it.

    Next time, I need to get a saw to carve this thing or lift more weights.  It was tough, but the kids had a great time.   How was your Halloween?

10 Lepers Bible Activity

One week Bible Study was cancelled at church and since Caleb and I were already doing Bible Stories, we decided to do one that night. I wanted to start out reading the story but, out of the almost 15 different Bibles in the house, I couldn't find the one I wanted to use. It was the Beginners Bible but Cate said she must have left it at church. So I ended up telling them the story first. I used foam and star stickers as our fake leprosy and stuck them up explaining how contagious it was.



Then, we watched a few videos on YouTube. I had previously stumbled across the lego Bible on YouTube and found a video for the 10 lepers. AJ thought that was the coolest thing ever. So of course, we ended up re-creating the story.



And then this is the little craft Caleb and I did earlier in the day.

I traced his hands and turned them into people on a folded piece of construction paper. Then opened it up and traced one finger.



This is a simple easy activity to do at home or church. One tip though, never answer your door forgetting that you, too, had fallen victim to leprosy. I'm pretty sure whenever my husband appears tired or stressed out his business partner will have this wild image of a spotted crazy lazy appear in his head.

Noah's Ark Crafts

Last week after being trapped in the house again with so much rain, I changed our Bible Story from Jonah and whale to Noah's Ark.  Besides I was beginning to feel like I was trapped with a bunch of wild animals.  LOL!

First we read the story of Noah's Ark from our Beginner's Bible.  This is the one we have but our front cover is gone. 

Then I searched YouTube for videos but none of them are ever completely true.  We did watch one but it showed people mocking Noah for building the ark but Noah building the ark was a covenant between he and God.  I couldn't get it to pull for you guys though.

 

  We found a picture of a boat, printed it out and colored it brown.  Then cut pictures of animals out of a magazine and glued them on the boat.  If you can see those dots all over the paper, we tried to do fingerprint raindrops.

 

 

 We made another boat a few days later.

Paper Plate Boat:  We took a paper plate and cut it in half then stapled it together.  We didn't staple it exactly even so it would have a little pooch in the front.  Next, we cut out rectangles one bigger than the other ( out of a paper plate) to glue onto the front.  I flipped it over and taped the back just for extra security.

 

Cate decided to help Caleb glue them together since he decided to play with the blocks.  She didn't want to make one herself.     I punched two holes in the top and added ribbon and it wouldn't be an ark if we didn't add some animals.

Scripture Comics

We've been learning scriptures in the Bible. Every week, we post one on the wall and try to memorize it. I decided since the kids like to draw, they could draw a picture to help them remember the scriptures. We used a composition notebook to write the scriptures and draw and we will also be adding Bible stories to the books. I like to call them scripture comics. The kids think it's pretty cool.

Learning Books Of The Bible

Write books of the bible on popsicle sticks. Kids can practice putting them in order. Add a magnet and stick on the fridge or magnetic board.