Week Two will focus on Joy.
Day One:
1. Say the verse Galatians 5:22-23 out loud to the family. Everyone who knows the verse can say it with you, or say the parts they know. By now, the kids should be able to say much of it with you just from hearing it repeated over and over. By this time, my kids are saying many of the fruits with each other during play time, and I find ample opportunities for helping they learn the order of the fruits each day.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY!” My kids love shouting out the fruits when we say this.
3. What is joy? Younger ones will understand a few important concepts about joy. Joy is what we have when everything is right, or the way it is supposed to be, in the Kingdom of God. There are four things I explained to my young ones, one concept per day. First, they will understand the mindset they are in when they get something they want, like for a birthday, or when they get to have what they asked for for dinner. Explain that this is part of joy, but it is a very small part because very soon the feeling of contentment may wear off as new desires arise. However, they will understand the mindset they are in, the happiness they feel, when they get something they want.
Part of learning about joy is learning about the opposite of joy. Today we talked about what it is like to want something really badly and to be denied again and again. My kids have wanted a puppy for 5 years, and especially my eldest has yearned almost daily. She has been denied a dog all that time, and she was often very, very sad that while all her friends were getting dogs, she did not get one. Birthday and Christmas after birthday and Christmas passed, and still no dog. We talked about how this yearning affected her and how hard it was to be completely content without that dog. We talked about why she wanted a dog so badly and what she thought she would gain from having one, and how her life did not seem right with each denial. She finally got a dog a few weeks ago, and she was filled with joy.
Each child has yearned for something over time and experienced denial again and again. Think of an example from your own children’s lives, and use that as an example in today’s lesson to replace our example of wanting a dog.
Older children: Older children should learn these four concepts regarding joy over the next few days, as well as learning about the Greek concept of blessedness/eudemonia as presented in the New Testament. A word study on blessedness and joy in scripture will likely suffice to give an understanding of elements of contentedness and peace of mind implied in the Biblical concept of joy/blessedness/eudemonia.
4. Memory work:
Ages Three and under: Psalm 66:1 “Shout for joy to God, all the earth.”
Ages Four to Five: Add Proverbs 29:6 Evildoers are snared by their own sin, but the righteous shout for joy and are glad.
Ages Five and up: Add Psalm 65:8 The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.
5. This week, we are focusing on joyful experiences. We will focus on creation, singing and dancing, as well as art {My kids LOVE crafts, so we try to do one every day}. Today’s craft was a piece of white paper, so feathers, and some bird stickers, as well as star cut-outs. I asked the kids to think of God’s joyful creation, and birds in particular, as they created something with these items. I let them free-form anything they wanted. My eldest drew a bird and pasted the feathers onto it and the stars in the sky. My boy randomly pasted the feathers all around and talked about how birds fly so fast and sing loud, happy songs. He took the feathers and pretended they were birds and ran around the house a little as he made his project {It is always good to allow each child to express the lesson in their own way}. My youngest pasted the feathers in a neat row and talked about singing. Encourage discussion during this craft, as it is meant to inspire deep talks rather than a distinct finished product. Remember to keep each finished project in each child’s binder/notebook. By now, each child should have four to five pages of finished projects they will like to flip through.
Day 2
1. Say the verse Galatians 5:22-23 out loud to the family.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY!”
3. What is joy? Remember that joy is what we have when everything is right, or the way it is supposed to be, in the Kingdom of God. The second joy concept we will learn this week is that joy is come by through our own actions of righteousness. Throughout Scripture, we find that joy is a result of the righteous life. It is the result of making conscious choices to do the right thing in every situation. Choosing to do what is right is part of reconciliation with God.
We have ample examples of children really trying to do right in our home, as do you, and I used these examples to demonstrate how hard it can be to do right, but how much joy comes from it. I asked the kids to think of righteous deeds they had done that day or the previous day, and we talked about the joyful consequences of their actions. We also talked about what might have happened had they made an unrighteous decision instead.
Learning about the opposite of joy: Today, talk about what happens when your children fight with one another. Discuss the sadness and anger they feel, and how they know that sadness and anger is something they don’t want. There is something wrong, all is not right, when they fight. It is more than just the fight itself. They also notice division among themselves, and that division is not eradicated until they reconcile. With my children, I have always used the words, “Make it right among yourselves” when there is a fight so that they begin to understand that there is a way things ought to be in relationships and a way things ought not be in relationships. We then talked about how unrighteous deeds makes your relationship with God wrong. Reconciling with God is necessary for joy, as it makes things right in that relationship once again, and our conscious effort to do righteous deeds is our outward demonstration to God that this relationship matters to us. The result of a right relationship with God is joy. To illustrate, I used a simply chunky puzzle and we put the pieces in together. I told them to try putting in the pieces upside down, and they looked at me weird. They knew that the puzzle piece needed to be made right before it could fit into the puzzle board. Even my two-year-old understood this concept.
4. Memory work: Same as Day One
5. Today we tied love in with our discussion of joy. I had leftover large heart cut-outs, and I asked each of the kids to draw a picture of themselves loving others by doing a righteous deed. They wanted something to glue onto their hearts, so I gave them sequins and these little person outline cutouts I got at Lakeshore. I put their heart projects into their binder. During our project, we sang our love verse songs as review.
Day 3
1. Say the verse Galatians 5:22-23 out loud to the family.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY!”
3. What is joy? The third concept of joy for the week is that living the righteous life is impossible without the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Explain that as hard as we try, we can never be righteous enough to have joy in the Kingdom of God. We will always do something wrong, and so that relationship with God will be constantly broken unless there is a remedy. Because of this, we need to accept the sacrifice of Jesus for our unrighteousness as the way God provided for us to have a right relationship with Him. Accepting Jesus’s sacrifice for our salvation is what marks us as a child of God and maintains our relationship with God even though we fail to be righteous all of the time. Accepting that sacrifice of Jesus as our Savior is how our joy is made complete.
Learning about the opposite of joy: This year in school, we learned about the creation of the heavens and the earth, and within our discussion of the heavens, we learned about things seen {stars and planets and such} and things unseen {God and souls and angels and such}. When we talked about souls, we went over what souls are and what happens to souls after death. With this background in place, today we discussed our relationship with God with respect to souls. Those who accept Jesus as their Savior have joy on earth and their souls stretch out to God daily. The souls of the righteous in Jesus can’t help but be joyful because they are marked with the blood of Jesus and they rest in that knowledge. They are now and forever will be with God. Souls that do not accept Jesus as their Savior are eternally seeking joy, and do not find it.
4. Memory work: Same as Day One
5. Today’s activity was not a craft. Instead, the kids put on blindfolds and I hid a fruit snack for each along with a little card I cut from card stock with the word God written on it. I told them to feel around the living room until they found it. I hid the fruity snacks on the mantle where they could reach them if they tried, but it would be next to impossible for them to find without sight. I let them search for about minutes, and by the end, they were all slightly frustrated {I didn’t let them get to the point of becoming angry, just slightly frustrated} and the all really really wanted their fruity snack. I then let them take off their blindfold and search. They found their fruity snack within a minute, and my oldest was able to read the word God on the card. We then talked about how souls search and search for joy in God, and they are like people running around blindfolded. They get frustrated and angry, and sometimes they give up. This is the way they will exist for eternity. However, those who accept Jesus as their savior are like people who don’t have a blindfold, and they can easily find God, and joy, through Jesus.
Day 4
1. Say the verse Galatians 5:22-23 out loud to the family.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY!”
3. What is joy? The fourth concept of joy we talk about is that joy is found by observing God’s creation and standing in awe of God through His creation. When we look around us, we see amazing, beautiful animals, trees, flowers, mountains, etc., and we are filled with awe for the Creator, resulting in great joy. I asked them to close their eyes and think about the night sky and tell me what they “saw” and what they thought was amazing about it. I then asked them to do the same for mountains and animals and plants. We then talked about who is great enough to have created this [ only God ] and how amazing God must be to be able to create all of this out of nothing.
Learning about the opposite of joy: We have a lot of wild fires in our area, and our children are used to seeing burned areas, and areas that are then re-establishing themselves with plant life. For this day, we remembered places we have recently been where God’s creation has been burned. When we are in areas that are very recently burned, it is dusty and grey with nothing alive at all. Sometimes it feels scary to be in these places. We talked about how sad it makes us that the beautiful things God has made are gone from those areas. Then we remembered places that were burned in the more distant past, and how even in the desolation, God creates beauty, little by little, as the plants are re-born. Sometimes new plants we have never seen before grow beside the plants we are familiar with. I re-affirmed God’s love for all of creation, and his amazing ability to create anything, whether it be beautiful forests from burned areas, or the entire universe from nothing with his words, and how much awe we ought to have when we experience this.
Older Children: This would be an appropriate time to introduce the argument for the existence of God from design. A very understandable presentation can be found in Scaling The Secular City, by J.P. Moreland. You should be able to find this in most libraries.
4. Memory work: Same as Day One
5. Today we learned the hymn “This Is My Father’s World.” You can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byIpfEVxhs4. We sang it while on a nature hike. Staying indoors for a craft just didn’t seem appropriate for today’s lesson.
Day 5
1. Say the verse Galatians 5:22-23 out loud to the family.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY!”
3. Memory work: Same as Day One
4. If you didn’t get a chance to go on a nature hike on day four, I would encourage you to take time today to experience the joy of God’s creation by taking that hike today.
Today’s craft is making and decorating a dance shaker. These are really easy to make.
Supplies:
two paper plates per child
some dry beans, lentils, unpopped popcorn, anything like that you have in your kitchen.
A stapler
some streamers
paint or markers
stickers or any other embellishments you have laying around the house
Okay, now get ready for the Dance for JOY dance party. Take two paper plates and place about twenty beans on one of them. Place the other plate face down on the first plate, and staple the edges together all the way around so the beans won’t fall out. Have your child color and decorate the plates for about 5 minutes. As the decorating is winding down, staple streamers onto the edges of the plates. Now crank up the music, shake those shakers, and dance for JOY!!!
Day Six
1. Say the verse Galatians 5:22-23 out loud to the family.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY!”
3. Memory work: Same as Day One
4. Today we made another Shrinky Dink charm. I printed bird outlines on a shrinky dink sheet [from Michael’s] and cut them out. Then I punched a hole in each, and let the kids color them. Colored pencils are by far the best choice for this as other color choices seem to stick in the cooking process. Then we baked the plastic and strung them up as necklaces. The kids LOVE this craft!
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