Last week, we started our brand new
unit on prayer and my preschoolers are LOVING it! When I was planning out activities for this unit, I struggled because I couldn't come up with anything super creative and hands on and fun that was developmentally appropriate for 3, 4 and 5 year olds. I mean, when you are learning about prayer, the best activity is practicing praying, right??
So I went with two boring activities and thought, "I'll give it a shot and see!" And guess what ya'll?? I put on my best actress face, gave it 110% and my kids are in absolute Heaven with these "plain Jane" activities! Here's a look at these two simple, meaningful prayer
activities that anyone can do!
Can We Pray About It?
I joked with my husband when I planned this prayer
activity that it was so plain, that I didn't even have a cute name for this activity! Each card has a kid with a particular emotion on it. It also has two sentences: "I am _____. Can I pray about it?"
So, of course, I named this activity, "Can I pray about it?" LOL!
But seriously...
To prep, I cut out the cards and laminated them.
At the end of our first
lesson on why we pray, I got the stack of cards and held one up at a time. This is where I really played it up.
When I held up the "grumpy" card, I said in my grumpiest voice, "My mom had to wake me up for church this morning and I didn't want to get out of bed. I'm GRUMPY!" I crossed my arms and sold it as best I could!
Then, in my normal voice, I asked, "Can I pray about it?"
Quickly the kids catch on and yell, "Yes!!"
I add, "Yes! I can pray, "God, help me get rid of my grumpies so that I can feel your joy!"
Then, we literally repeat this for each of the 11 cards! So many giggles and excitement during this activity! The sillier I am, the more they laugh...and more importantly, are engaged!
Yes, it's a silly
activity...but it is important concept for kids of ALL ages to learn: God wants us to talk to him about EVERYTHING from our grumpies to our happiness!
Prayer Requests Board
I've always wanted to have a place to keep track of our answered prayers, but it just didn't ever seem doable with preschoolers. I mean, most of them can't read, so what was the point?
To make it Pre-K friendly, I used body part cards. I made several copies of the cards so I would have enough for all those boo-boos!! :)
After our Bible lesson, we always have prayer time...no matter what unit we are working on!! :) We transition from our lesson to prayer time with this chant. (This video is from several years ago...with my baby faced boy...cue the tears!)
After our chant, I typically name each person in our circle and ask them if they have a praise or prayer to share. But during this
unit, we are going over our chart first!
This was our second week. I started by going over last week's prayer requests (in red). I asked each person about their prayer request. For example, "Colton, how is your thumb? Did God answer our prayer?" He said, "Yes!" so we moved his card from the "Prayer Needs" side to the "Answered Prayers" side.
As we moved it, I had the kids say with me, "Praise the Lord! Our prayers are POWERFUL!" and we showed our muscles on the word powerful.
We continued this for all 5 of the prayer requests from last week...which were all answered! Then, I continued with our normal routine of asking each kid, one at a time for a praise or prayer. Some of our kids didn't have any thing to pray about so we said, "Praise the Lord!"
For each prayer request, I chose the appropriate body part card and put a colored dot on their boo-boo. Then I wrote their name below so I'd remember who it belonged to...because we all know they'd claim them all if I didn't remember!! :)
As I added each new prayer request, we all said together, "We will pray for you!"
So far, my preschoolers are loving keeping track of our prayer requests! And I have a feeling by the end of the unit, our answered prayers page will be OVERFLOWING!
You can find these plain Jane, but meaningful, activities
in this prayer unit along with all of the Bible lessons, booklets, verse activities and more!