We've been going over the fruits of the spirit for our preschool lessons and this week we are on 'peace.' I unfortunately had completely forgotten to get out my camera for our past two lessons on 'love' and 'joy' and therefore did not blog those lessons. I'm a very sub-par blogger, I know.
So what is peace? And how on earth do you teach that to a preschooler/toddler?! It certainly was not easy, as I realized I really didn't know much about peace myself. But if anything, they now have another powerful heart changing word added to their vocabulary, that they do know comes from Jesus.
Peace to me, used to be those things in life that just felt good and brought me relaxation and no worries. Like a nice hot bubble bath, a quiet, clean house, a back massage, etc. And although those things are peaceful, they eventually end! The bath will get cold and at some point you have to get out, the kids will wake up from nap and it will no longer be quiet, nor clean, the massage has to end at some point or you will go bankrupt! True peace comes only from Jesus. It's nothing you can buy and it's nothing you can earn....you can only receive it from our gracious God. And the best part is that it never goes away even through the trials and junk that this life brings us.
I explained the best I could that peace is freedom from worries. And the only reason we can have peace is because Jesus is our peace. He died to take away our worries and anxieties so we could rest in him. So their verse for his week is "For he himself is our peace" Eph 2:14
We read the story about Jesus and the storm and acted it out. I don't have pictures for this because it's really hard to teach and take pictures to share! The kids each got two blue streamers (water) and we pretended to get on a boat. When Jesus fell asleep they waved their streamers all around like it was storming and we all FREAKED OUT. "What are we going to do! We are going to die! Jesus wake up!" And when we woke Jesus up he said "PEACE" and the storm stopped.
Now, I don't think they were able to make the connection that Jesus give us peace in our 'storms' in life, because kids are very literal and a storm to them is thunder, lightning, and rain and that's it. But it sure connected in my heart and was much needed when this happened soon after the lesson:
 | |||||||
| Yep, it is still possible to have peace when an expensive vase gets knocked over and shatters on the floor. Peace (and happiness for that matter) afterall, cannot be bought, right? |
I found the idea for this craft here. We made peace candles. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this craft or not, because candles don't really have anything to do with true peace (more so peacefulness I guess) but I liked that it is something we could put up in the house and we can all see that word PEACE as we go throughout our day. So here's what we did. We colored a piece of white tissue paper. I put a cross and the word Peace on first and then they drew pictures around it.
I wrapped their picture around a white pillar candle and then wrapped the candle in wax paper
 |
| We got out the blow dryer and blasted the candle on high heat. This caused the ink from the marker to melt into the candle. |
Next, we took off the wax paper and voila....a peace candle made just by them!
So if you're looking for Peace, don't go to Target they don't sell it (seriously, I've looked). And don't go to the library, you can't check it out. If you want true peace look to Jesus and accept him as the one that died for you.
