He Cares for You
Group Activities
Sermon Title: "He Cares for You"
Scripture Reading: Matthew 10:24-39
JELLY BEAN RELAY:
Children can be divided into teams. Each team can be given a large spoon to fill with jelly beans from the teams' bowl and run the jelly beans to the other side of the playing area and drop the jelly beans into another bowl. The team will continue to take turns in running jelly beans until all the beans are gone. If beans fall off the spoon. the child will stop and place the fallen beans back onto the spoon and continue to run.
FLYING SPARROWS:
ALL the children can fly around a designated area with arms out until the teacher says... FREEZE? They will stop in exactly the position they were "flying" in until the teacher says to FLY. (This is a good way to get alot of extra energy out of the children before story time!)
FALLING SPARROWS:
(This one can be added to the FLYING SPARROWS as a variation or just done separately).... All children can fly around the room like sparrows until the teacher shouts out -- FALLING SPARROWS! Children will all fall down on floor until teacher shouts out -- FLYING SPARROWS and continue as time allows. The final FALL can then be story time as children gather in a circle.
COUNTING HAIRS:
Divide children into groups of 2, or children can pick a partner. Give children 60 seconds to COUNT the hairs of their partner's head. If children are older, the time allowed could be 90 of 120 seconds. Children will begin to realize just HOW AMAZING it is that GOD knows the hairs on everyone's heads!!
CROSS BEANS:
Give children jelly beans to glue onto a piece of poster board in the shape of a cross. Let children know that the various colors of the jelly beans can stand for things that pertain to the CROSS of Jesus --- white for purity and being washed as white as snow; red for Jesus' blood; yellow for heaven; green for Christian growth; blue for baptism, etc!
HAND SPARROW:
Let children trace their own hand and try to color and form into what could look like a bird with the eyes on the thumb finger, etc. Write words from today's lesson on the feathers/fingers of the "sparrow bird" and glue the bird hand onto a piece of construction paper. Children can write today's Bible verse on the fingers of the hand, or on the piece of construction paper.
LETTER GAME:
Give each child a piece of construction paper and stickers for happy faces, hearts, crosses, birds, etc. Have children write their INITIALS only of their name on the piece of paper in bright letters. Then children will make phrases about today's lesson from those initials, on their paper. (Ex: if initials are A.B.C -- child could write "Always Believe Christ", or "All Believers Care"; or if initials were A. G. L. of a child, a phrase could be "Amazing God's Love", etc MY initials are C.A.W. so I could write "Christ Always Cares").
PAPER PLATE SPINNER:
Provide a paper plate and bright colored markers and stickers for each child. Children can lightly color sections of the outer edges of the paper plate and then write on each colored section of the plate - all the ideas of how GOD loves us and cares for us. The inside area of the paper plate can be colored and write today's Bible verse, etc. Children can then use a brad to poke into the middle of the plate and fasten onto a piece of construction paper and SPIN the "wheel" and enjoy all the colors of the SPINNING plate.
BIBLE CHARADES:
Let children take turns making actions for ways that GOD loves and cares for us from today's lesson. Children can work as teams in guessing or as the entire class trying to guess. When someone guesses what the action was, then that child can take a turn in showing the class an action.
SPARROW BRACELET: Give each child a strip of paper to draw a sparrow on the paper as well as today's Bible verse or key words from today's lesson, such as GOD'S AMAZING LOVE; GOD CARES FOR ME, etc. Tape the strip of paper around child's wrist to wear today as a bracelet to remember our Bible lesson.
JELLY BEAN WRITING CONTEST:
Each child can be given a small bowl of jelly beans. As the teacher gives a word to spell, the children will try to form that short word with their jelly beans, such as GOD, LOVE, CARE, CROSS, etc. If children are younger, the teacher could have them form a cross or a bird, etc. Children may eat their beans if their hands were clean before doing the writing contest.
SING A SONG:
HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW; JESUS LOVES ME; JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN
SNACK TIME:
Jelly bean cupcakes with beans on the frosting. IF time allows, the children could be given a cupcake to frost and add the jelly beans on their own.
Song: "Jesus Loves the Little Children" by George F. Root
Words and music (pdf)
MP3 Piano Accompaniment- Right click to download to your computer.
This song is in the public domain and can be freely downloaded and reproduced for ministry purposes.
Song: "He Cares for You and Me" by Mary Rice Hopkins (Used by Permission)
Words and music (pdf)
MP3 Demo - Right click to download to your computer.
This song is provided for use with this sermon through the courtesy of Mary Rice Hopkins.
