Golden Rule Group
Group Activities

HEART RUN: Divide the class into teams and each team will run a relay of a HEART RUN by running to the basket on the other side of the room and grabbing a cut out heart and taping it on their shirt and running back to the team for the next player to run to the basket and grab a heart and pin it on the shirt and continue to play until all the team has completed their heart run.

HEART MAZE: Set up an obstacle maze course for children to follow the hearts in the correct order. The hearts all along the maze course will be numbered one to twenty for the children to follow. When the children reach the end, they will decorate a heart and bring it back to place it on giant poster board heart on the classroom wall. Children can write on the heart words such as LOVE YOUR ENEMIES, or PRAY FOR YOUR ENEMIES, etc.

PIN CROSS ON HEART: Let the children take turns being blindfolded and turned around and around and then pin or tape a cut-out cross to a giant heart on the wall. A variation to the game might be to have the children try to tape a small heart with their name on it to a large cross on the wall, so that when the game is over, there will be many hearts on the cross. Then PRAY together as a class for all of their enemies to see JESUS in their HEART and to LOVE them as Jesus wants us to love them.

HEART BOOKMARKERS: Provide the children with various colored heart cut-outs to glue to a book mark that they will decorate and write LOVE MY ENEMIES, or to write today's Bible verse on the marker.

HEART WREATH: Give each child a paper plate that has the middle cut out of it so plate will act as a wreath for children to tape or glue cut-out hearts of various colors around the edge of the paper plate. Hang the plate by a string or yarn. On many of the hearts, the children may want to draw pictures or write names of others to pray for.

HEART BUTTON PIN: Give the children construction paper, markers, stickers and glitter to decorate a badge that they can attach to their shirts. Children may write things such as LOVE AND PRAY FOR MY ENEMIES on the badge when decorating it. Tape the badge to their shirt, or hot glue a safety pin to the back to pin to the child's shirt.

HEART PRAYER: Place a large red heart on the table or tack it to the classroom wall. Let the children take bright markers to take turns writing words from today's prayer on the heart. ("Father, it is easy to love those who love us. Help us to love our enemies so that they might know that we are your children. In Jesus' name we pray, AMEN.) Around the edge of the heart, have the children to write their name in one continuous border for the heart.

HEART MOBILE: Let the children decorate an empty paper towel roll with colored paper and stickers. Cut out and decorate hearts from construction paper. Attach the hearts to the decorated paper roll with short pieces of yarn. Each heart may have parts of today's lesson or Bible verse written on it. Place a long piece of yarn or string all the way through the paper roll and tie at the top for hanging.

LOVE CHART: This activity can be done on a large sheet of poster board or as a chalkboard activity. Let each child draw a heart and write a reason inside the drawn heart that they should love others. This can lead to a group discussion of why and how to love others, as well as problems that children might face in dealing with an "enemy".

SHARE A SNACK: Heart-shaped cookies would be fun to frost and decorate and ENJOY!

Song:  "Jesus Loves the Little Children"

Song:  "Love One Another" - Charles Kirkpatrick