Mozi Esmé: Mission Sunday: House on a Rock

Sometimes I just love how crafts turn out. This photo actually shows a combo of two weeks’ of crafts.

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The first week’s lesson was on the topic of rocks: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2).

I brought in a bunch of rocks that Esmé and I had collected as part of our rock studies – and threw in a little science about sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous – how rocks are formed and changed. As usual, the favorite was the obsidian piece – “born of fire.”

The previous night, we DH had spray-painted a bunch of rocks white on top and sides – rocks we had scavenged from our rock pile about 5-10 inches wide, flat tops preferred.

In class, each child got a painted rock, and I had various colored Sharpies available. I had the kids write a word that described their “Rock” – they came up with various ideas like praise, love, ha-ha, happy, joy, etc. They could also draw a picture on their rock if they wanted.

In the photo above, Esmé drew a sunny scene on the side, with a cloud on top around the word “Love.”

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The next time, our topic was The House Built on a Rock, which went nicely with the VeggieTales’ The Little House That Stood DVD.

We made paper houses from the Enchanted Learning paper house template. I had printed them on cardstock and precut them. We put out markers and tiny stickers - I was thinking they could use the the little flower stickers, but Miss Esmé went after the peace symbol stickers against my wishes…

I also cut out little rock shapes with Psalm 18:12 printed on them to glue to the front of the house

After the kiddos colored them with markers, it took a bunch of us adults (and a couple older kids – we had ages 4-9 in that class) to fold and put them together with glue dots.

I had sand in a tray – which was the primary source of entertainment for some of the littles – running it through their hands and pushing it around. In the middle was the rock from the previous class.

So – put a paper house on the rock, and a paper house on a pile of sand, and now comes the science part!

I tried this with water at home and had little success, just soggy sand. So we came up with the hair dryer concept. Turn on a (very carefully controlled) blow dryer, and blow out the sand from under the one house, and it falls over. The blow dryer has no effect at all on the rock.

(You do need to be careful not to aim the air at the houses themselves, or they’ll blow over, bringing up a whole other conversation about construction. And don’t ask for volunteers to run the blow dryer. Just saying.)

A cool printable I discovered this week is based on a Gandhi quote: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mr. Gandhi is a bit of a hero of mine, in part due to this quote. Sharing it here for your reference (click on the graphic below to get to the download page):

Also wanted to share a story that is viewing this week at Samaritan’s Purse – a favorite of mine for their Operation Christmas Child shoebox program.

A Gift of Forgiveness in Rwanda

Orphaned at just 5-years-old, Alex Nsengimana questioned whether God existed after he witnessed the brutal murder of his grandmother and uncle. But then God used a simple, gift-filled shoebox to show him that he was loved and not forgotten.

Click on the graphic below to sign up to watch Alex’ story on Oct 7.