Pin It

Can I be honest? This week of INCREDIBLE LOVE has been hard for me. I’ve wanted to lash out at my kids, roll my eyes and breathe heavy aggravated sighs at almost everything they do. Today I had a few minutes before lunch and was planning on doing this activity with them but I was so incredibly tired of interacting with them, of correcting them and leading them.

How incredibly UN-loving am I being if I can’t even do a LOVE craft with them? So, I swallowed my pride (aggravation? sin?) and grabbed a Bible, my computer and the kids.

First I turned on Seeds’ Greatest Commandment song and the kids had a dance party! (Ooh, look! I just found a LIVE video of the song!) This song is from Mark 12:30-31 and is Jesus quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and more…

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.

So, if we want to be super, not only do we need to love God with all of us, we need to love others the same way we love ourselves. I asked the kids if they loved themselves. And I’m happy to report Lydia hugged herself and said, “I looove myself!” We talked about how we know we love ourselves because we eat food we like, read books we like and do the things that we want to do!

This was an easy thought to switch over to loving others. How can we love our friends and family like we love ourselves? To help us figure this out, we made this paper heart garland and wrote our “neighbors” on the hearts. As we made each heart and wrote each name we talked about how we could love that person (sharing with someone from church, obeying our teachers, etc).

Now. The garland. It’s easy peasy.

Grab some construction paper and cut it into 1″ strips. (I do hope you have a paper cutter!) Take two strips and staple it at the bottom.

Fold the top two ends to the middle to make  a heart! But don’t staple it yet!

 We’re going to stick the next two pieces of paper in.

Once the second heart has been made, staple both hearts together.

Continue this until it’s as long a you like! It was a great activity to do together–one could hold it, one could put the strips of paper in and the other could staple. Then everyone can write friends names on it!

The kids absolutely loved thinking of all their friends and writing their names down. And I’m glad I worked at loving my most important neighbors–my children and did this activity with them. It softened my hard heart and helped me show them an example of incredible love (well, as incredible as I can muster!).

We only got to do two INCREDIBLE LOVE activities this week, but tomorrow I’ve got a round-up of some other fun LOVE books, music, Scriptures, crafts and activity ideas. You’ll love it!

Don’t forget to grab your free Super Hero badges!

Felt Valentine Wrist Corsage from Lilly Cakes {Lydia and I are making this today!}

Heart Shaped Beanbags {and fun family activity} from Make and Takes

Buzz Lightyear Learns Scripture from Home With The Boys

How To Dye Rice or Pasta from Totally Tots

Naturally Sweet DIY Valentine from Twig and Thistle {candy-free, super easy printable!}

Picture Frame Calendar from Let’s Explore

Lickety Stickety Valentines from I Can Teach My Child {SO AWESOME}

Love Rocks from Redbird Crafts

Let’s Make Butter & Spread Love from Mazie Hutton

linked to Saturday Stumbles at Simply Staci

source: michael david

Yesterday we were listening to Psalty’s Heart to Change the World CD. Yes, it was produced in the late 80′s. Yes, it features a great big blue singing songbook. Yes, we listen to it and love it. If you want your kids to listen to KIDS music that is full of Scripture and God’s Word–you need Psalty.

{Just found a coupon for Psalty: FREE Heart to Change the World CD when you purchase $35 or more PLUS 20% off. Expires Februrary 14, 2011. Use code: CHANGE}

Anywhoo. Where was I?

Oh yeah, we were listening to this Heart to Change the World CD during lunch. The story is that Psalty is explaining to the kids about people around the world who lack basic needs AND have never heard about Jesus. They have a big international potluck with red paper mache hearts on the wall. Well. It totally made me think of Valentine’s Day and how I want my kids to have a heart to change the world!

One of the songs on the album is a straight scripture song based on John 3:16. I asked Lydia what fun craft we could make to help us remember this verse–maybe something with the world? or a heart? Her idea was a world in the shape of a heart. I thought this was genius.

So, we got out our Sculpey clay (which I have never used before so I was super excited to try!) in blue and green and started making hearts. Well. We discovered clay is really hard. It does not feel like play-dough. In fact, Asa used his clay as bricks instead of dough.

We switched gears and decided a regular world of blue and green would work just fine. We just added a small clay red heart to our globe.

Then we pushed a wire (actually, a Christmas ornament hook) through the equator and wallowed it out a little. Then we stuck them in the oven for 20 minutes or so. When they were done, we strung them and wore them! Aren’t they cute?

We made several beads so Lydia could give them to her friends on Valentine’s Day. In fact, she told me she wants to deliver them inside a heart envelope!

ps-ugh! Have you noticed my pictures are messed up lately? I broke my lens and have to HOLD it on the camera while I’m taking pictures. Worst. Thing. Ever. Just had to share…

linked to: