Monday, August 25, 2008

A soft answer turns away wrath activity

I was a middle school math teacher.

Teaching preschool/kindergarten does not come naturally. I live on goo.gle, Enchanted Learning, blogs, and a variety of other online sources to come up with ideas.

But occasionally, I don't find a thing. Which happened this week.

Our bible memory verse was from Proverbs 15:1, "A soft answer turns away wrath." There is a devotion that goes along with it in our book, but I wanted an activity to drive the point home.

After searching goo.gle, blogs, and all sorts of sources, I gave up. Then suddenly, in a moment of inspiration I designed my own activity and it worked so well. So for all you goo.gle searchers out there seeking an activity for Proverbs 15:1, I have one for you to consider. And sadly, it is the only one you might find for now...

Materials: sandpaper, glue, cotton balls

1. Cut a piece of sandpaper for each student. Have them rub the paper on their arm and talk about how it feels. Clearly, it doesn't feel good. Do they want people to come up and rub their arm with that? No!

2. Explain how our wrath is like that sandpaper. When we speak in an angry tone and use angry words, they feel like that sandpaper. No one wants to be treated that way.

3. Then rub their arms with a cottonball. Talk about how it feels. It feels much nicer. (In fact, my girls loved it!)

4. Explain how the soft cottonball is like our soft words. When we are gentle and kind to someone it feels good to them.

5. Explain that this verse tells us that when someone "rubs our arm with sandpaper" we can "rub their arm with cottonballs", meaning that we can use soft words to turn away their wrath.

6. End by gluing the cotton balls on to the sand paper, which takes a "soft word" and "turns away wrath".

The final product was carried around by my daughters that day. The kept rubbing each others arms with their "soft words".

Our soft words:

6 comments:

Johanna said...

What a great visual!! Love it! Gonna have to do it, and hang it on the fridge as a reminder for myself!!
Ok, about the 100 chart. We simply write a number in each day. When we get to 100, we have a party!!
I have a bigger 100 chart in my school room that I use to show patterns, skip counting, etc. But, the one in their morning folders is for them to fill out themselves(like I do on the BB as a model) except for my nonwriters, which I will have a big sis/bro help or just have them go over dotted lines or color in the box. THey still get to see the progression of numbers and catch on to the patterns! Hope I clarified for ya!

weavermom said...

What a fantastic idea!!!

mary said...

We have used Susan Hunt's book in our family for two years now, and my 5-year-old and 3.5 year-old have all of the verses memorized. (Well, the 5-year-old, at least!) The "A" verse is one that comes up FREQUENTLY in our daily discussions of how to talk to your sibling appropriately, and I thought this was SUCH a great illustration of this verse that we copied your craft idea today! Thanks very much for sharing, and please pass along ideas that you have for the other verses as you progress! I love making their memorized verses come to life through illustration.

Jolanthe said...

Great idea, Mary!! :) I just ordered the hymn book that you talked about, since my kids love, love, love music and pick it up so quickly, so we're going to be using that one soon too!

Jolanthe

Andrea said...

Fabulous!! I LOVE this idea! It's perfect for my tactile learner - Rae and really DOES make the point! Thanks!
Andrea

Bethany said...

Love it and going to use it tomorrow....thanks a ton!