How do you teach the meaning of Lent to a group of 3rd- 6th graders? How do you do so meaningfully, but while doing a craft? That is tough!! My role in our Sunday School rotation is to do an art project/crafty thing with the different groups so that they get an artistic bible-based lesson once a month.
It's a great idea. It's a little harder in practice. Unless I just want them to color a worksheet. Boring!!
So, today was my day for Maddie's group. Since she lives with me, I have a little bit of a knowledge base on what the kids know about the church year and all that. Basically, they've heard of Lent. They've heard of Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday and all those churchy things. But, when asked the why's of why we do something, things get lost in translation.
I truly didn't want my lesson to be yet another one of those times.
Did I succeed in teaching anything? I don't know. But here is what I did.
We made a variation of a Crown of Thorns.
It was a "40 Thorns of Kindness"
Take a look at Maddie's below. She didn't write on hers since it was a sample.
The basic idea is that while the kids might not be interested in giving up anything for Lent, acknowledging the sacrifice Jesus made for each of us, is the point of Lent. So, in their case, the sacrifice could be that of doing something for someone else. Hmmm... could this be harder than just giving up sweets?
Each person was given twenty cardboard rings. Yes, these are toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls. They are different sizes, some 1/2 inch, some probably 1 1/2 inches. Different sizes are nice. So, just cut away.
Then, each person hole punched the ring in opposite sides and strung them on purple string. I iinterjected a little about the color purple here and how it plays into the colors in church.
Some of the kids cut their rings in half and then strung them, but the crown looks better if the pieces don't just fit together. If they string the rings first, the "thorns" poke each other and remain separated.
Once all twenty rings are strung, cut the rings in half on the diagonal to makes pointy edges.
Once everything was cut, the kids decorated the thorns. Some colored the tips, some "splattered" them and so forth. Then the hard part. They had to think of 40 things they could do to help other people and write each one on a different thorn. Some of our suggestions were: "help with laundry," "10 minute back rub," "clean kitchen" and so forth. I did point out that they shouldn't write down things that they already had to do as that would not be a sacrifice. (Interesting, a good discussion of what is a sacrifice came from this.)
Below you can see one of the wearers. I like the "splatter" marker on his.
And there you have it. The goal for the kids is that when Easter arrives, all they have left is an empty string. Fitting?
So, if you are looking for an easy and SUPER cheap Easter/Lent activity to do with your tween, you might consider making a 40 Thorns of Kindness ring. However, be ready for some discussion about sacrifice and Easter and all those wonderful things we wish kids would talk to us about. For here is my 2 cents: if you want kids to talk, give them something to look at and do. THEN ask the question. But then be ATTENTIVE and LISTEN to their answers.
