In preschool missions on January 13, we learned about ways that we can help others. The activities and story in the lesson were geared specifically to learning about homeless people and helping them. We played a matching game with pictures of items that are used by homeless people and in homeless shelters...sleeping bags, tents, cots, warm soup, spaghetti, and vans.
We also read a story that included those items and information about a few members of Fredricksburg Baptist Church who volunteer to pick up homeless people in their church van and take them to the homeless shelter for a warm meal and place to sleep. To help the kids understand what it might be like to be homeless, we stepped outside in the cold for a few minutes and talked about what it would feel like to have to sleep out there! As you can imagine, that did not sound like much fun to them.
On this particular night, Harris was the only one that felt like praying and he asked God to "help homeless people have a warm bed and maybe some soup." The prayers of these preschoolers are always so sweet, and there's nothing like hearing these kids talk to God.
After watching a short
Boz video on helping others (more on him later), our task was to build a homeless shelter using blocks for the building, and felt pieces for beds. Check out the individual creations of Ally, Truman, and Harris below. They took this activity seriously and worked hard on their shelters to make a safe place for people without a home to sleep. I have to say that I am always amazed by the level of understanding and compassion that these preschoolers show.
Truman, Harris, Ally
Truman working on his shelter.
Harris's shelter before he put the roof on.
Harris and his finished product.
Ally and her shelter.
I also have to add that this month of lessons on helping others in both preschool and elementary missions has been well-timed and has allowed us to talk about helping the people of Haiti. Our preschoolers even knew what happened without us having explain the earthquake!
