Beatitudes

Cooking Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activities:

Instant pudding becomes a medium for talking about feelings and being happy.

For scripture and objectives - see above.

Leader Preparation:

• Read the scripture for this lesson.
• Read and reflect on the overview material provided for this lesson.
• Prepare an opening and/or closing prayer in case you need one.
• Gather the materials.

Supplies:

• Stuffed animal (cat or dog)
• Instant vanilla pudding (2 T. per child). Note a 5.9 oz (167 g) box contains about 15 T.
• Milk (1/4 c. per child)
• Quart-size zipper bags
• Liquid measuring cup
• Measuring spoon (1 T.)
• Plastic spoons; Paper cups
• Hand sanitizer (or a sink)
• Wet wipes for cleanup (or a sink)
• Paper towels
• Water pitcher
• Bible

Preparation Required Before Start of Class:

• Put 2 T. of pudding mix into each zip bag. (Prepare for however many children you think you may have).
• Fill up the pitcher with cold water.

Presentation

Opening-Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

Greet the children and introduce yourself.

Open with a prayer.

Dig-Main Content and Reflection:

Whenever it is appropriate (after music) gather children in a circle on the rug. Have the stuffed animal in your lap.

• Ask about their pets or pets they might like to have (allow everyone to respond).
• Ask: When you’ve played with a pet, has anyone ever told you, “be gentle”?
• What does it mean to “be gentle”?
• What about being gentle with people – how are we acting if we are gentle with someone? 

Say: When we are gentle we aren’t rough, we think about other people’s feelings, and we use words like please and thank you. We are learning a Bible story that teaches us to be gentle. We just learned about Jesus’ birth, but in our Bible story today, Jesus is now grown up and teaches instructions on how to act. These instructions are called “the Beatitudes”. Listen to this story from the Bible.

Read the story from one of the story Bibles or storybooks (see page 1). As the Rotation progresses, ask the students to tell you the story they’ve been hearing.

Say: Sometimes when you read the Beatitudes, instead of talking about being gentle, the words say, “Happy are the meek”. Meek is another word for gentle. When we follow God’s teaching – when we are gentle with others, we can be truly happy. Let’s talk some more about being happy as we do a project.

The project is a slight adaptation from page 53 of the book noted in Resources below. For copyright purposes I can not include the remainder of this lesson. The book is a good resource of games (this one I felt could be called “cooking) for preschoolers through upper elementary. Basically they made a small amount of pudding in a bag and used it as a “template” to draw about feelings.

Closing:
Say: When we remember to be gentle it makes God happy – and it makes us happy too.

Ask children if they have anything they would like to pray for. Include these requests in your prayer. Optional words: Dear God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for teaching us through the Bible. Be with us as we grow. Help us to remember to be gentle. Amen.

Resources

• The Humongous Book of games for Children’s Ministry. Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, 2002.

Part of a set of 5 workshops for preschoolers (ages 3-5) from:

First United Methodist
Ann Arbor, MI

If you use this lesson, please be humble and give the author credit - include the following two lines:
Hulbert, Carol. “The Beatitudes for Preschoolers.” 2004.
https://www.rotation.org/topic...---fumc-ann-arbor-mi

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.