The Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness has been…well, kind to us. We’ve had a lot of fun with this one and been able to talk about it a lot. Kindness is one of the easiest ones to measure and act on –especially for a 3 year old with a 1 year old brother! Here’s a few more activities we’ve done this past week and few more we haven’t done—but I think would be super fun!

Bible Story

Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I just realized this story may have been even better for GOODNESS! Oh well, the point here is the same—a man is kind to someone different than him.  Lydia has just now started noticing differences in people’s skin and styles, so she didn’t quite get the full depth of this story. We read it in about 3 different Bible story books. Her favorite was from the See With Me Bible. It’s the Bible told in pictures. And the pictures are brilliant. Lydia will look at all 350 pages in one sitting. Speaking of which…

Books

I was looking up ORANGE books on Amazon and found this cute book about a bear, Orange Pear Apple Bear. The whole book only has five words in it. They are just rearranged depending on what Bear is doing with his fruit. This would actually be a great one for any time during the Fruit of the Spirit. I’m going to try to check it out at the library.

I went to the Family Bookstore yesterday to scope out their Holiday books (found nothing interesting!) but while I was browsing through the kids’ section, a title caught my eye: Lyle the Kindly Viking! I had forgotten there’s a Veggie Tales DVD of the same title! We even have it at home. This was the Little Golden Book edition. The book is really more about sharing, but I think that is a valid aspect of being kind. And a very tangible one!

Snacks

Jello Jigglers. Here’s another great anytime snack for the Fruit of the Spirit. In fact, you know what I would love to do? Find some cookie cutters in the shape of fruit (uhm, like these!). Then make several different flavors of jello jigglers, cut them out and have some jiggly Fruit of the Spirit!

We made orange jigglers this week–and I don’t think my daughter has ever had jello! She thought it was the best thing ever. We used some Christmas cookie cutters—so we made presents and gingerbread men to remind us to be kind by giving gifts to people. How’s that for creative?!

Movies

After I got the book, we of course, had to watch Veggie Tales’ Lyle the Kindly Viking. Lydia watched it after church with her Daddy. I tried to quiz her about it afterwards…she didn’t quite get it. I said, “Was Lyle kind? Did he share?” She said, “No. He just talked kind.”

*sigh*

Stay tuned this week for our next Fruit of the Spirit: LOVE!

Lydia is spending the night with her cousin from Mexico. No, Lydia’s not in Mexico. This cousin is. Well, not right now. The cousin is visiting so they are both spending the night at my mother-in-law’s. Is that confusing? Yeah, me, too. Anyway, while she was gone, I made this fun craft for her to play with when she returns.

I saw something like this at Danielle’s Place and again at a Pumpkin Patch this week. But this is my own personal little version of decorate-your-food-to-look-like-people craft or as I lovingly refer to them, “Kindness Kids”. *snort* Anywhoo, I just thought it would be fun to dress up an orange with clothes. So, here we go…

SUPPLIES:

• orange
• toothpick
• tape/glue
• construction paper
• miscellaneous craft foam pieces

DIRECTIONS:

I cut out some hat & clothing shapes from construction paper. Yes, I did these free hand. No, they are not that spectacular. Then, I taped them to some toothpicks.

I was trying to think of clothes I could make instead of body parts a la Mr. Potato Head. So, the first one I thought of was a Princess. A triangle hat with a little gold craft foam on top, some bell sleeves with more gold glitter craft foam, throw on  a heart shaped mouth and she is beautiful! I tried to do a skirt but couldn’t figure out how to keep it on.

Then I decided to go a boy-route. I made some shoes, a baseball hat, glove and even a baseball. And I have to admit…he looks super cute…especially after I got my Sharpie on it.

Asa really liked it. In fact, I had to confiscate it before he took a chunk out of our little baseball player’s rump!

I can’t wait for Lydia to come home and play with these little Kindness Kids! We’re going to have fun dressing them. And I’m pretty sure she’ll have some more wardrobe ideas for me to cut out, too!

TIP: The toothpicks soak up the orange juice inside and will make your construction paper wet. Craft foam may be a better alternative if you want it to last all day. If you wanted to make a more permanent version, you could stick the clothes into a foam ball or playdough ball–no juice!

Sometimes you need a craft that is also a stay-at-the-table-and-don’t-run-around-the-house activity. This is one of those…

Basically, I wrote the word KIND on a giant piece of newsprint. (I pride myself on writing fonts by hand but this is not one of my best examples.) Then I gave Lydia a STACK of old magazines, a pair of scissors and a glue stick. I had her look through the magazines until she found a picture of clothes.

Then she could cut out the clothes and glue it on the word KIND. Remember our verse says we should put on KINDNESS as if it were our CLOTHES. So, here we are putting CLOTHES on the word KIND. A little backwards but I think it reiterated the point!

My tips & thoughts:
1. This thing actually took us 2 different days! It’s very time consuming because she really looked through the magazines for the clothes she liked best! (Maybe it’s a girl thing?!)

2. She cannot see how to cut out a small picture when it is in the middle of a giant picture. For example, if she wanted to cut out a kid’s shirt and that kid was on a swing in the middle of a playground, I had to draw a box around the shirt and make sure the lines extended to the end of the paper. Then she could see where her scissors needed to begin & go.

3. We got to talk about how all the clothes got “put on”. The gloves go on the hand, the buttoning of the pants, the hat on the head, the dress versus the shirt. It was a good conversation starter for “putting on” kindness.

4. Use a good pair of scissors. I have these random plastic things that I discovered in my craft stuff. I am officially throwing them away and buying a real pair of scissors. They could not cut magazine paper without chewing the edges!

5. We hung her KIND SIGN on the front of her closet door. She thought this was so smart. Now every day she stands next to it to admire it. And she usually says, “I like my sign!” or something equally profound. Unfortunately, it kinda reminded me of the day when she’s 14 and pulling pictures out of magazines and taping them to her walls…

I have been so out of touch with my normal life the past few days! I was in California for a vacation/bloggy event/family renunion. My kids are wonked (is that a word?) by the time zones, our house is a mess and still the first thing Lydia says to me when we get home is, “I want to make a craft!”.

So, we jumped right back into our Fruit of the Spirit activities yesterday. I randomly picked an orange to remind us of KINDNESS.* It seemed like a fruit you might share, so orange it is!

I was googling Fruit of the Spirit a few weeks ago and ran across some little books called The Bird With The Word Talks About…by Harvest House Publishers. There are 9 books each covering one of the fruits of the Spirit. The website I found it on showed no pictures whatsoever but the books were only $1, so I bought them all!

I was surprised when the books arrived because they are almost like little pamplets. They are mini-sized with no color pictures. But Lydia thinks they are so fun. The books aren’t amazing or have some unbelievable insight but they do a good job of introducing and giving a solid definition of each Fruit. The Kindness book was about a clown that invited the animals (the main characters of the book) to a Be Kind To Animals Day at the circus. The animals are excited except for the snail. He feels left out because no one will like him. The other animals get ticked that he is ruining their fun. Then the Bird reminds everyone to be kind and nice to snail and to each other. (Really, it was a little more clever than THAT!) Lydia enjoyed it.

Then we picked out Galatians 3:12 as our scripture verse:

You are God’s chosen people. You are holy and dearly loved. So put on tender mercy and kindness as if they were your clothes.

I love this one because it lends itself to so many great activities (I’m thinkin’ collages of clothes, dress up time, dress up an orange day and more!). As we read the verse, Lydia was already confused. She said, “What are they wearing? What are they wearing?”

So, I asked her to get a costume out of her costume box. She of course, brought me a tiara. I asked her what we do when we get out our crowns.

Lydia: I don’t know.

Me: We look at it and say, “Oh! How pretty! A beautiful fairy princess crown!” Then what do we do?

Lydia: I don’t know.

Me: Then we put it on and say, “Oh, Lydia! You are a beautiful fairy princess!” (I put the crown on her.) Then what do we do?

Lydia: (stands up straighter, smiles and pretends to be a fairy princess)

Me: We pretend to be a fairy princess! We talk to all our fairy friends! We say hello to all the princesses!

Then I took the crown off her head and said, “Now, let’s pretend this is our KINDNESS CROWN.” Then we went through the entire conversation again…

Me: What do we do when we see our KINDNESS CROWN?

Lydia: (in awe) I don’t know!

Me: We look at it and say, “Oh! This reminds us to be kind! And nice to everyone we meet.” What do we do next?

Lydia: (shyly) Put it on?

Me: That’s right! Put it on and say, “Oh, look! Lydia is wearing a KINDNESS CROWN. She is so kind!” Then what?

Lydia: (still in awe and puts her arms out again like a fairy princess)

Me: That’s right! We use kindness! We are nice to everyone we meet. Lydia helps people and gives to others.

Then I handed her a few of her stuffed animals. We pretended the animals were having a bad day (they were mean, or someone was mean to them) and I asked Lydia what to do for them since she was wearing the KINDNESS CROWN. She usually came up with an idea like, “Let’s play a game with him!” or “I’ll give you a hug!”

But she was getting it! She was being kind with the same excitement as when she pretends she’s Snow White! Later on when she started playing Doctor or some other game, she ran up to me and said, “Mommy! Mommy! I need my KINDNESS CROWN!” because one of her animals needed some kindness.

I honestly could not have planned this better. She was totally acting out the verse and getting the idea behind PUTTING ON KINDNESS. It was awesome. I can’t wait to do more with this Fruit of the Spirit!

*a word about the Fruit of the Spirit. Some translations give the following nine fruits: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. I’m using the NIRV with Lydia, so we are doing: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, good, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

orange photo by fr antunes

crown photo by swamibu