All that patience you practiced paid off! We're continuing on this marathon of Fruits of the Spirit! Seriously, you should see my tabs bar right now. I can't even begin to count how many windows I have open. Lesson learned though... next time I won't start posting the series until I have all the posts written! :)
I know we have some newcomers to Mommy & Her Men, so here's a recap from Day 1 over how the Fruits of the Spirit study works. First, get some breakfast. Not going to lie... in our house, cereal seems to be the go-to. Then, get comfy at the table and get to work!
While we were eating, I had Little Man watch two YouTube videos. One is a song that we watched each day. The other is a great series by a man called Hi Hi the Bible Guy. He is fantastic! He does objects lessons for everything and he does them big! I'm talking fire, explosions, power tools, all of it. Total boy stuff.
After the videos, we would review the page in the story for that particular fruit and give him the descriptive phrase. I'll go into that more later. I would then read our verse of the day. We would talk about it and I would guide him to make the connection between the verse and the fruit. This was just conversation over breakfast. In all of our talks, I tried to be very intentional about relating the fruit directly to Little Man. We talked about things he specifically did or didn't do. I made him come up with examples of how he could demonstrate the fruit. All in all, they were good talks.
After we finished eating, we would do an object lesson. He LOVED these! After the lesson, we would go back to our verse of the day and add our final thoughts. If you have a child that is old enough, this would be a great time to journal. Little Man isn't quite there yet. I'm hoping after a few more units he will be.
As we closed our lesson, we would pray over the verse, using our names to pray it specifically for us. Finally, as an extension, he would work on the stained glass cutouts. These were discussed in the Day 1 post. If you missed it, you can get caught up here. This was the time I would usually clean up breakfast. Sometimes, he'd let me continue the conversation. Other times, he felt he was all talked out. If you really want to extend it, have them watch a Veggie Tales episode while they're doing the stained glass and point out examples of the fruits in the characters.
And that's that! I know it sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. Eat, video, verse, chat, object lesson, pray, extension. Maybe 20 minutes?
Now that we're all caught up, on to our lesson on kindness!
KINDNESS ~ I will be nice to everyone.
Our verse for kindness was Ephesians 4:32.
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
One of the things we talk about in our house is making kind choices. We expect everyone in our home to use kind words and to demonstrate kind actions. Lately, we're working on replacing some *less than respectful* words with kind words. Let's try that again. How can you make sure you're saying that with kind words?
For this lesson, all you'll need is your sink and some objects of various sizes and weights. They should be objects that you don't mind dropping in the water. Fill your sink with water and make sure the stopper is all the way in... speaking from personal experience here.
I started by asking Little Man to drop a heavier object in the water and make some observations. It made a big splash! Those are big waves! Yes. When you dropped the rock into the water, it made a big splash and lots of waves. It changed the water. It wasn't smooth anymore.
We compared the different objects to acts of kindness. I asked him to think of some really big acts of kindness. Giving blankets to the homeless. Collecting food from the neighborhood to take to the food bank. Then we talked about some small acts of kindness. Letting someone else go down the slide first. Smiling at people in the grocery store. We found some big, heavy items to drop and some small, lighter objects.
As we dropped them, I kept asking for observations. He figured it out pretty quickly. They all made the water change. They all made waves. Yes Little Man! Every object made waves in the water! Just like every act of kindness makes a change in the person who receives it. Sometimes people need a big act of kindness and sometimes they just need a smile. Our job is to be kind to everyone... in big ways and little ways.
Kindness is ongoing. We still talk daily about how to choose kind words. We still try to be intentional about finding ways to demonstrate kindness. I firmly believe that kindness is taught in behavior and not just in words. As parents, it's our job to model it regularly. In the way we treat strangers. In the way we treat our spouses. In the way we treat our kids.
As always, we concluded our Breakfast with the Bible time by praying over our verse (using the "ACTS" model and the words from the verse) and working on his torn paper stained glass.
"Jesus, I praise you for showing kindness to everyone you met! I'm sorry that I didn't show kindness when I ______. Please forgive me. Thank you for friends and parents that show me kindness when they______. Please help me show kindness to everyone. Help me to forgive others when they are unkind to me. Amen."
Have you been following the study? Which day has been your favorite so far?
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