Waiting Place Group
Actividades del grupo

CELEBRATION BALLOONS. Let children blow up red, green and white balloons to “celebrate Jesus’’ birth”.

BIBLE VERSE BULBS: Give children pictures of Christmas bulbs to trace, cut out and decorate with glitter or flocking. Write parts of today’s Bible verse on the bulbs and hang them on a large green poster-board tree (either with the branches in the drawing or just a triangle). Children will enjoy learning their Bible verse from their own designed bulbs.

CANDLE ART: Give children small rectangle strips of paper to glue to a piece of construction paper to look like candles. Children can draw the yellow flame or be given cut out yellow flames to glue on their art as well. Give children ideas of words to write on their candles, such as CELEBRATE JESUS’ BIRTH, or WATCH FOR HIS RETURN, or GREAT JOY, etc.

MANGER BUILDING: Give children supplies to build a manger scene, and let them be creative to make their very own manger. Supplies can be chenille wire, building blocks, craft sticks, molding clay, etc.

PAINTING A JOY CHART: Children can work together to make their JOY chart or they could EACH make a JOY chart to take home. The children can PAINT the word “JOY” in the middle of their paper and use smaller paint brushes for words around the chart such as Worship, Praise, Love, Serve, Share God’s love, etc.

HAPPY FACES: Give each child a very LARGE CIRCLE for them to decorate and draw their happy face of their choice. For younger children, the teacher can have the face “lightly” drawn on the big happy face for the little ones to trace. Let children be creative and write JOY along the edges, or on the mouth, or in the eyes, etc. Around the edges of the happy face, children can write “Jesus is coming back”! Yarn for hair, to glue on the top of their happy face, will make their little faces come alive!

CHRISTMAS IS…BANNER: Provide a long piece of white paper for children to decorate in ways that will help them to anticipate Christmas and to know the TRUE MEANING of Christmas, such as JESUS IS CHRISTMAS, or GIVING INSTEAD OF RECEIVING, CELEBRATE JESUS’ BIRTH, or WORSHIP AND PRAISE JESUS, SERVE AND LOVE JESUS, SHARE HIS LOVE!

BALLOON POPPING: At the end of the class, let children play a balloon popping game as balloons from the first activity of this lesson, are divided evenly among the children. When the teacher says, POP, the children will see which team can pop ALL of their red, green and white balloons, the quickest! The first team to complete popping all of the balloons can have first pick of some Christmas Hershey kisses or other treat. After all the teams have picked up all of their balloon pieces and thrown them away, they can all share in a treat and talk about the JOY and celebrating in our story today!

Song:  "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus " - Charles Wesley/Roland H. Prichard

Lead Sheet (PDF) - 1st Verse Only

Piano Accompaniment (MP3) Right click and save to your computer. (1X with 4 measure introduction.)

This song is in the public domain and may be downloaded and reproduced for religious or educational use by churches, schools, home schoolers, and other non-profit organizations.