LETS PLAY DRESS UP: Provide children with items to dress up in, such as baseball caps, t-shirts, cowboy boots, toys for playing such as balls, bats, Frisbees, etc. A big pile of all the items can be in the middle of the room and all the children can run to the pile when the teacher blows a whistle for GO! Allow enough time for everyone to dress up in at least one thing and then blow the whistle to STOP -- Make sure to take a picture. Let them know that they'll learn in our lesson today, that Jesus was just like them and liked to play with his friends when he was young!
LOYAL AND TRUE LETTERS: Divide the class into two teams. Tell the children that it is important for us to be LOYAL and TRUE to Jesus. Give each child a letter of the L-O-Y-A-L and T-R-U-E on team ONE and have them arrange the letters to spell out the words LOYAL and TRUE. Let Team TWO do the same. Time each team and see who is the quickest at becoming "loyal and true".
WHERE IS JESUS HUNT: All the children will gather around the teacher while the teacher secretly places a sticker with the name JESUS on one child's back or shoulder. The children should not know what the teacher has done, so the teacher will be patting all the children and chatting with everyone as they gather around the teacher for a short while. Then the teacher will tell the children to go on a JESUS HUNT... give them a designated area to HUNT for Jesus. They won't realize that they are looking for JESUS within their own group of classmates.
FOAM HEARTS: Let the children know that JESUS loves us and is loyal and true even when we turn against Him. Give each child two foam hearts and some craft lace which can be found at a craft store. The children will lace or "sew" the hearts together. Before finishing the lacing, children can stuff some tissue paper inside to pad their heart a little bit more. Write JESUS,LOVING, LOYAL AND TRUE on the heart. (If you can't find the foam hearts and lacing materials, you could cut heart shapes from red construction paper and lace them together using yarn.)
FINGERPRINT TOWN: Give each child a sheet of construction paper and an ink pad. The children will place many finger prints on the paper and then use ink pens to draw faces and arms/legs to their finger prints to form a person. Tell them they are drawing Jesus' hometown friends and name one of the fingerprints JESUS. Write words from today's lesson on their FINGERPRINT TOWN and encourage children to tell today's story to someone else after class.
HAPPY/SAD FACES: Children can either make up a booklet or a poster of many faces - both with HAPPY and SAD looks. Then pass their booklet or poster to another child and have them circle the faces that would make JESUS know that they are happy and thankful that HE is loyal and true to each of us. Then pass the faces back to the original "artist".
JESUS BANNER: Let children work together as a class or in small groups, as desired, depending on the size of the class. Children can make and decorate a JESUS banner from today's lesson, using words, stickers, and pictures to show all the things that JESUS can do and WHO HE IS. Children could title their poster -- WHAT CAN JESUS DO - ANYTHING... but Fail!
SHARE A SNACK: SNACK BAGS.... provide children with different types of small snacks that they could choose from and put into a little lunch bag for a hometown picnic together at the end of class, sitting on a blanket together. Share parts of today's story and what they would do if JESUS was just one of their hometown people. If the teacher wants to, the snack choices could be items that Jesus might have had to enjoy as a snack in HIS day, or treats/foods that could represent one of those snacks.
SING A SONG: JESUS LOVES ME; I HAVE DECIDED TO FOLLOW JESUS
Song: "Jesus Loves Me"