Praying beads are a great way to end a lesson on prayer! A perfect Prayer Craft with kids. With their many colors, it’s also a great way to end a lesson on Joseph and the coat of many colors or Noah’s Ark (rainbow)! 🙂 If you are not using this in a church-related way, it’s a great craft for a Rainbow Party…
My husband and I teach Sunday School twice a month. We have a class of about twenty rambunctious girls and boys! I love this age. They really connect with everything and are so highly opinionated. The boys think they are hysterical, and the girls love to exercise their maternal instincts on the loud table of boys! Of course, my husband adds his own energy to the mix. Just when I get them settled in, he cracks a joke! And, they start all over again. Oh my goodness, it’s amazing we ever get through the lesson! I always reward all of us for getting through the lesson, with a craft to connect to the lesson. Their crafts hopefully also remind them through the week of the key points. Trust me, fourth-graders STILL LOVE TO CRAFT! They love it all – Stickers, glue, glitter, coloring, and beading!
This week was about Joseph and his naughty brothers. I was trying to connect with the fact that Joseph’s siblings, even though they were completely horrible to him, were still forgiven. That’s hard. They did some pretty nasty stuff! We talked about praying for all sorts of things. We especially talked about praying for our enemies. Again, that’s hard. What kid wants to pray for his brother that just pummeled him? So to help us remember Joseph and his forgiveness, we made prayer beads.
Here’s what we did for our Prayer Craft
Some kids made necklaces, some made bracelets, some made long strings of beads to put in their Bible! We started off with a bag of beads. We listed the colors, in a column on the dry-erase board. Then, we connected emotion to the colors in a separate column. For some of the colors, we connected an action that makes us feel that emotion.
Here are some of the ideas for symbolizing that we came up with:
- Black – Sin – Someone has done something wrong to us, or we have wronged someone
- White – Forgiveness
- Yellow – (reminded us of the sun ) – the start of a new day – A day of hope
- Purple/Orange – (reminded us of Sunset) – Bedtime – Praying Time
- Gold – Heaven
- Green – (Reminded the kids of grass and trees growing) – Growing in Faith – One way to do that is to pray
- Pink – (Reminded the kids of flowers, springtime, etc..) – We talked about starting prayers with a thankful heart!
I asked the kids to wear these or place these on their beds as a remembrance of our lesson. I told them they could use them during prayers to remind them of the things we should pray for. They loved this craft. I overheard them all coming up with new ideas for each color. My kids are still reminding me of what each color stands for. The praying beads were fun, and meaningful to all!
** Helpful tips on beading with kids –
- Tie a knot around the first and last bead. Otherwise, you’ll be picking up beads for years!
- You can also use a little tape to stiffen the end. It makes it a little easier to push the string through the bead
- Also, supply little cups for the kids – they can keep their own supply of beads in the cups.
~Melissa – KidFriendlyThingsToDo.com – Recipes, crafts, fun foods, party ideas, and fun things to do with your family
