Jesus Teaches Me to Love Others

Loving others by showing kindness, sharing, and being helpful are lessons that speak to preschoolers right where they live!

Bible Truth: Jesus teaches me to love others.
Bible Story: The parable of the Good Samaritan.
Bible Study: Luke 10:25-37; 1 John 4:7-8

teach

flannel graph-ooh!

I like to use our flannel graph set to tell this story.  We purchased the small deluxe Bible set years ago from Little Folk Visuals.  It was a costly investment, but it has lasted for over fifteen years, and is used across all our children's ministry classes.  Little Folk Visuals also has smaller Bible sets that provide the characters for a limited number of stories as another option.

For a more economical option, I suggest purchasing a child's Bible with nice, simple pictures.  Cut out the characters and any other accessories you like, and attach felt to the back of the cutouts.  Cover a board with felt as your story board, and now you have a nice flannel graph set for a fraction of the cost!

A great tip is to tuck the flannel graph pieces into your Bible, and pull them out of your Bible to place onto the board.  To get the children more involved with the story, you could give individual children a felt character or object to hold.  Then at each appropriate time in the story, invite the children to place them on the storyboard.

read

God's special rule

This Happy Day Book teaches kids very practical ways to show love to others.  You will likely find this book in your local Christian bookstore.  You can also order it here from Christian Book Distributors, or here from Amazon.  These are relatively inexpensive booklets, with attractive illustrations, to supplement your lessons.  I would also suggest checking your own book shelf or your local library for any books related to sharing, friendship, or showing kindness.  Please use discernment, but if any one of these is the central theme of a book or story, you may use it to demonstrate the practical application of loving others.

sing

Here are a couple great songs to download for this lesson.

• Love One Another from Yancy and Friends
• Beloved (1 John 4:7-8)

I think both of those songs are best served as puppet songs, songs to play in the background while kids are working on their crafts, or to play the games listed below.

play

scripture pass

This is a game similar to the concept of "Hot Potato."
For this version of the game in this lesson you will need:

• a heart-shaped object such as a pillow or candy box
• music such as one of the songs listed above 

The children sit in a circle and pass around the heart-shaped object while music is playing.  When you stop the music, whoever is holding the object stands up and repeats after you, "I John 4:7, Let us love one another."  After playing several rounds, many of the children will be able to say the verse with little help, or with no help at all.

share the love

Add a little variation, and "love in action" to the game.  Whoever is holding the object when the music stops, may also do something kind for another child.  Suggestions are:

• give a compliment to another child
• give a hug,  handshake or high five to another child
• choose a small treat (toy or candy) to give to another child

craft

good samaritan craftivity

 I found the coloring page for this activity here.  For this activity you will need:

• this coloring page
• red paint
• gauze
• heart stickers or cut-outs
• scissors
• crayons 

Allow the children to dab the wounded man with red paint, and then cover the wounds with strips of gauze you have cut out for them.  Then give them a heart sticker, or paper cut-out to affix to the Good Samaritan who showed love to his neighbor.

deco heart art

This is a simple, open-ended art project with minimal prep involved.  You may purchase precut foam hearts, or cut out your.  You will need:

• hearts (foamie or paper)
• these labels
• stickers, sequins and/or other small craft items
• hole punch
• ribbon
• glue

Glue the labels to the hearts, and then allow the children to decorate the hearts with stickers, sequins and/or other small craft items.  Hole punch a hole at the top, and tie a piece of ribbon through the hole.

marbled hearts

This is a fun, sensory kind of art project that I found here via Pinterest, and put my own spin on it.  You will need:

• paper plates
• shaving cream
• washable tempra paint
• paint brushes
• hearts cut out of card stock (pattern here)
• paper towels or wipes (for cleaning hands)

Begin by dispensing shaving cream, and then paint, onto a paper plate.  (I decided that when I do this with the kids I will use about half as much shaving cream as I show in this picture.)

  Allow the children to mix the paint and shaving cream with a paint brush.

Help each child place a paper heart over the mixture of paint and shaving cream, gently press, and then lift the heart off.

The result is a cool, marbled effect.  These could be displayed in your classroom with a "Let us love one another" banner.

Read this post for more ideas about teaching your child these concepts, while practicing preschool skills at home this week!