The 10 Commandments Hopping Mat

Objective: To provide a fun and active way for young children to learn the 10 commandments

Materials:
1. 1 dice
2. 1-10 homemade disposable number mats
3. Masking tape
4. 1-10 commandment flags. The following are child friendly version:

1. Love God
2. Don't worship other gods
3. Respect God's name
4. Rest on Sunday
5. Love your mommy and daddy
6. Don't hurt anyone
7. Keep your ways pure
8. Don't snatch someone's toys
9. Always tell the turth
10. Don't wish for your friend's toys

Directions:
1. The children take turns to roll the dice and jump the number of space indicated by the dice.

2. When the child stops, he picks up the respective 10 commandment flag, and the teacher reads it out.

3. The child rolls the dice again and repeat until he hops to the no. 10th commandment.

4. The next child's turn to roll the dice and hope.

Additional Information:
I made this game and hope to try it out at the next Nursery lesson.

A Pair of Hands

Rochelle taught me this today, which I would like to share with everyone.

Age: From 2.5 - 5 years old

Objectives:
1. To teach the concept of praying to God in a fun way.
2. To teach counting.
3. To train fine motor skills with cutting with scissors.
4. To provide opportunity to practise writing skills in a fun way for the older children.

Materials:
1. 1 piece of construction paper
2. 1 scissors
3. 1 pencil

Directions:
1. Tell the child that as usually when we pray, we fold our hands. Thus, today we are going to make a pair of hands.

2. Fold the paper into half.

3. Trace the hand of the child very close to the edge so that you only get to cut it on 3 sides, with the left hand side as the folded side untouched.

4. For older children, let them cut out the hand themselves. For younger children, help them to cut the hand.

5. Open it up like a book. Take this opportunity to revise Maths with the children, and invite them to count the fingers. For younger children, count the 10 fingers with them.

6. Tell the child we are going to list down 5 - 10 peoople whom we could pray for this coming week.

7. Ask the child whom he would like to pray for and invite your child to write it down for each finger. For younger children, write down for them the names of the peope he would like to pray for. For older children, it is a chance for them to practise writing :-)

Additional Information:
This is a fantastic idea from Rochelle that I learned and I would like to record it down. I asked Joshua who he would like to pray for and we talked about the following people:

1. Amy
2. Anna
3. Jeffrey
4. Jesus
5. Chen Ying
6. Daddy
7. Mommy
8. Farfar
9. Farmor
10. Ye Ye in Singapore
11. Nai Nai in Singapore
12. himself

Joshua was so thrilled to show it to Florian, when we reached home, that he did not take off his shoes, but rushed straight in to Daddy.
We don't have enough fingers to write all the names down. This evening, I hope to take this pair of hands out and use it to pray with Joshua.

Thank you to Rochelle for such a fantastic idea :-)

Prayer Jars

This is one of the ways you can make teaching the lesson about prayer fun for children.

Age: From 2.5 years old

Objective(s): To teach the child how to pray in a fun way

Materials:
1. Empty cleaned jam, nut butter or baby food jars with lid
2. Clipart with a child prayer printed with the words “I Can Pray”
3. Fun stickers such as stars, etc.
4. Pictures of prayer items or 4 small pieces of paper for the child to draw
5. Crayons/pencils
6. A ribbon

Directions:
1. Give each child a jar and tie the ribbon around the neck of the jar.

2. Help him put one of the provided “I Can Pray” clipart labels on it. They can also use other stickers to decorate their jar.

3. Print out pictures as prayer items such as mommy, daddy, grannny, granddad, your church, your country, people who are sick, the poor, a good sleep, etc.

4. Let your child choose approx. 3 pictures of the prayer items he would like to pray for and ask him to put them into the jar.

5. Each morning or evening during bed time prayer, take out each of the picture from the jar and pray together with your child.

6. Suggest that your child to try and pray by telling him that praying is like talking to God.

* If your child is old enough to draw, give him pieces of paper for him to draw the things he would like to pray for and ask him to put his drawings into the prayer jar.

You can also let your child put out the labels and glue it onto the jar.

Tips:
If you print two sets of prayer item pictures, you can use it for a matching game. Turn all the picture face down, and ask the children to each take turn to turn two pictures randomly. If the two pictures match, he gets to keep the pictures. The child with the most set of pictures win.