PATIENCE: Trusting and waiting on the Lord’s timing.
“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” Luke 8:15
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Nature Search & Story Exploration
I started by reading the story of the Sower, explaining as I went. I read directly from the Bible for this one, saving my re-told story for a review later. I told them to listen carefully for the 4 different types of soil in the story, because we’re going to go on a hunt to find those afterwards. After I read and explained, and they had answered a few questions, we headed outside with 4 buckets. They went on a hunt to bring me the 4 soils: sandy (or clay) path, rocks, weeds, and good soil. Once each bucket was filled, we all gathered around for a story retell as we planted seeds in each bucket of soil.
- The seed that was sown on the path was eaten by birds. (pretend that your hands are bird beaks and let the kids “peck” up the seed on the path.
- The seed sown on the rocks was not able to take root and grow. The dirt was too shallow and the sun baked it’s leaves against the hot rocks.
- The seed that fell among the weeds were lost and choked out by the long grasses and thorns. (shake the weeds to allow the seeds to fall to the bottom and be covered.)
- The seed that was sown in the good soil grew deep roots, tall stems, and good fruit. (plant some seeds and even little seedlings in the good soil. )
Water each soil, leave in a sunny place and observe what happens.
Seed Bins
See download for instructions
Window Garden:
Patience. It takes time for seeds to sprout and grow. It was so fun to “plant’ our little seeds in baggie window gardens. But wow, is it hard to wait for change and growth. Every hour on the first day, they would run to the window to see if it had grown yet. We talked often about patience and how waiting can be so hard. See download for instructions
Seed Pictures:
The easy thing to do as we made this craft would just be to dump a handful on the outlined drawings, and for sure that was a temptation for a three year old. The harder thing to do was to patiently and carefully place each seed on the picture to create something beautiful. See download for instructions
Musical Soils
Let your children move their bodies in a game similar to musical chairs as they try to remember the difference soils and consequences! Includes a separate download for soil & consequence playing cards. See download for instructions
Dirt Cups
What could be better than chocolate pudding and oreos?! Add gummy worms to that and you’ll just make a child’s day! We used cute little silicone cupcake liners to keep our portions small as each child made their own, but you could use any small bowl or cups available to you! See download for instructions
Good Soil Crackers
For a less chocolate-y treat, here’s another gardening snack idea. After the kids had prepared their “dirt”, I opened the box of runts candies and talked about the Fruits of the Spirit. God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us live for Him. As we love Jesus and trust Him, the Holy Spirit begins to grow these fruits in us. A Farmer may grow an apple tree on his farm to get good apples to eat. The Holy Spirit doesn’t grow an apple tree inside of our hearts, but He does grow love. A Farmer may grow a strawberry plant on his farm to get good strawberries to eat. The Holy Spirit doesn’t grow a strawberry plant inside of our hearts, but He does grow peace and patience. Patience means waiting for something. I told the kids that as I was speaking, what were they doing? They were waiting. They were being patient to wait for the candies for their gardens. These are the beautiful fruits that the Holy Spirit loves to grow in our lives.
Yummy snack with with meaningful conversation. Win Win. See download for instructions
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