Mothers Day/ Mothering Sunday (Abram and Sari)

For Mothering Sunday we chose to do the story of Sarah becoming a mother. I did not use these actual words but a similar version.


A long time ago lived a man named Abram.  One day the Lord came to talk to Abram, and Abram asked, "Who will have all my things when I die". 

God promised Abram and his wife Sarai that one day they would be parents, even though they were old and had no children.

God even showed Abram, one night he said "Do you see the stars in the sky, this is how many children you will have" there were so many! God also said Abram would have as many children as there were a grains of sand.

Quite a few years later when Abram was ninety-nine years old (older than even your grandparents)  the Lord decided to change Abram's name to Abraham, which means "father of many."  He also changed Sarai's name to Sarah. 

God told them again that they would be parents and that they would have a boy. This time Abraham laughed so hard he fell on his face!  It was hard to believe that he and Sarah would have a child in their old age.

One day three visitors came to Abraham's house.  He hurried to meet them.  "May I get you something to eat and drink?"  Abraham asked.  "Please come in and join us."

While the visitors were eating, they asked Abraham, "Where is your wife Sarah?"  Abraham thought this was a little  strange, but he replied, "She's in the other room".

Then one of the men spoke and said, "I will come back to see you at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son."

Now Sarah was listening behind the living room door.  She started to laugh, but covered her mouth and laughed to herself because she didn't want to be heard.  Then she said to herself, "How can I have a child, I'm almost one hundred years old?"

Later when the visitors had left,  Abraham and Sarah realized that the man who had told them this was indeed God.

A year later Sarah did have a son.  She and Abraham named him Isaac, which means "he laughs."  

They were very excited, and remembered to thank God for Isaac

Play Resources

Stars resources to remind us God said Abram would have as many children as stars in the sky.

 Hooking stars onto cup hook 

  Stacking stars

Posting stars

Joining felt button stars

Old woman who lived in a shoe game (Mother's link)

Children had opportunity to make cards with all the craft resources, including star tissue paper, large star stickers, and star decorated cup cake cases. I didn't get a photo of any, but here's one similar to one of the designs children came up with.

With it being mothers day our session was adorned with pretty flowers for all the "mums" in church.

Parable of the Rich Farmer

We used Mick Inkpen's Parable of the Rich Farmer/ fool for the story, obviously we usually use props but this is such a lovely version and actually worked well on a large projector screen Via powerpoint. Although I did feel much like a teacher and even commented on this and said come on gather in so I don't feel so teachery to which a group of the older children and adults parroted "Good morning Miss.. good morning everyone" Oh how I laughed.

Building Barns

There were several response activities to explore the idea of building barns for the crops.

The AMAZING box barn!

The brilliant marshmallow and spaghetti barn for the greedy kids to store marshmallow's. No joke we did have to discuss sharing, when one group stored up too many marshmallows. One could question they didn't listen to the story, on other hand it was a real life teaching opportunity which was brilliant.

A favourite game in junior church "make and break challenge" where you race to copy the card building with blocks using tongs.

Jenga building

Duplo building, particularly suitable for little ones.

Building farm building with the Haba farm, and ikea farm across the field.

Planting

Digging around in paper shredding to find pesky bugs (came in one of the boxes for the box barn building seemed a shame to waste)

Digging in the desert

Pretend planting (vegetable label cards, pots, shovels etc.)

Painted tree from fits of the spirit with some invaders. 

 

Story tent

Creative Opportunities

Clay bugs and plants.

Boxes for decorating and storing more important things than riches (we had hearts to represent love and stimulate discussion)

Hama hearts (unused, I loved these as a child maybe not displayed nice enough or too much else)

Icing bugs

Fruit/ veg printing

There were some profound elements to todays session responses including the mention that maybe this barn was built so pointy to point to God. Concluded by this picture below, some decided that the "death" picture actually had a cross to remind us of Jesus and point to God. WOW! Can't argue with that, adults have a lot to learn from kids and Jesus told us that why don't we listen.