Fruit of the Spirit Bible Lesson and Crafts for Sunday School

Fruit of the Spirit Lesson 5 - Gentleness

 

In this lesson Squirmy Worms learns about gentleness. Children learn how Paul became a gentle person after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.

 

 

Gentleness and Love

Gentleness and love go hand in hand. Against hate and lies they take a stand.

They take care to never hurt. They do not pull on someone's shirt.

They speak softly and don't yell when things don't go so well.

They don't call mean names or ever lay the blame.

They keep control when they are mad. They look for the good and not the bad.

Yes, they go together, hand and hand, spreading hope across the land.

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©2004 Carolyn Warvel

 

 

Color a Bible Verse Picture for Gentleness

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Tomato Balloons

Children tape or glue eyes, mouths, feet, and leaves onto balloons to make tomato characters. (This craft will be used for an activity below.)

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Taste Tomatoes

Bring in cut up pieces of tomatoes and let the children taste them. You may also want to bring in some sugar and let the children dip their piece of tomato in the sugar.

Talk about tomatoes, how soft they are and how you have to be very gentle and careful handling tomatoes because they bruise easily.

Bring in apples, pears and other firmer fruits and compare them to the tomatoes. The idea is to show the children that they have take more care when they are handling the tomatoes.

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How to make:

1. Before class cut tomato leaf shapes from green craft foam and punch a hole in the middle and write the Bible verse or the word "gentleness" on the leaf with a permanent marker.

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2. Help your children fill up red balloons with flour using a funnel. Place the funnel in the opening of the balloon and place flour in the funnel. Use a pencil to push the flour down into the balloon.

3. Stick the top of the balloon through the hole in the leaf. Tie the balloon. Let your children draw faces on the balloon with a permanent marker. Tell your children that when we are under stress we sometimes aren't as gentle as we should be. When things are going their way or they are very frustrated they can squeeze the balloons and ask God to help them not to loose control.

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3. Before class go over the Bible verse. Write it on a sheet of paper or on the board to help younger children.

4. Give each child one of the worm patterns.

5. To play children take turns throwing the die.

Older children write in the word they rolled in the appropriate space on their worms.

Younger child color the appropriate segment of the worm. If a child rolls the same word twice, he doesn't do anything on his turn.

6. Keep playing until a child has colored in all the segments.

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Gentle Relay Race

Place your children into teams. Have a relay race between the teams. Each child places his tomato balloon down in front of himself on the floor and uses a newspaper bat to gently push the balloon across the floor. If the balloon falls over the child has to start again. Emphasize that they have to be gentle with the balloon or they will fall over.

Instead of using a rolled up newspaper you can have them get behind their balloons and blow them forward using a straw.

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Hot Tomato

Play like "Hot Potato" except use a tomato. Tell the children that they will have to be gentle because tomatoes are a lot softer then potatoes.

 

 

Gentle Balloon Toss

Have your children throw red water balloons (tomatoes) into a bucket or other object. Remind them that they have to be gentle with the balloons or they will break. If a child's balloon breaks, he has to say the Bible verse. After all the children have had a chance to throw their balloon, move the bucket farther away from the throw line. Keep playing until all the balloons have broken except one. The last child holding an unbroken balloon wins. Discuss times when it is hard to be gentle.

 

 

Make Gentleness Soup

We added something the kids really enjoyed. One of our helpers dresses up as "Chef Jellybean" about once a month and we tie in some part of the lesson to his character. This week, he made "gentleness soup" with a pot, spoon, and some spices. He would pick up a spice and say something like this, "Ok boys and girls, this spice is called 'calling names'. Do I need to put this in my gentleness soup." Do this with several bad spices and be sure to put in some good ones too. The kids love it. Sent in by Mr. Ricky

 

 

Fruit of the Spirit Ideas from Readers:

 

My daughters were having a hard time (as we all do sometimes) exercising the Fruit of the Spirit. I printed off some fruit pictures and printed a Fruit of the Spirit on each one of the fruit. I then found a basket picture in a clipart program of mine and attached a small magnet to the back of it and to each of the fruit pieces and stuck it on my refrigerator. As my children exemplified a certain fruit during the day, I told them they could go to the refrigerator and place that fruit in their basket (They each had their name printed on their basket.) The goal was to see who could fill up their basket during the day. It worked very well ! Kerrie Wade

Make a Fruit of the Spirit Lapbook to go along with these lessons - 1+1+1=1 Blog has a picture and directions on how she made a lapbook using the printouts from these lessons.