Awana Science Experiment - Spreading Outward

This Experiment can be found in the second Science and the Bible book - I highly recommend them all!


Theme: Run from Sin

Bible Verses: But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness (1 Tim 6:11)

Materials Used: bowl, water, pepper or glitter, liquid dish soap;
Hiker Class

Lesson: There is a time to stay and fight, but there is also a time to flee. As Christians, we are told to flee from sin. We need to stay as far away from temptation as possible. As it says in our verse, there are also things we should pursue like righteousness, godliness and faith.

Illustration: We filled the bowl with water. Once the water was still, we sprinkled glitter over the surface. The glitter is to represent a believer. Next we touched the dish soap and then placed our finger in the middle of the bowl. The soap represents an evil influence. The glitter immediately flees from the soap just like a believer should flee from sin.

This is one experiment that my kids have always had a blast doing! They love the glitter and its fun since they can do all of it themselves.

We finished the missionary story we've been covering for the last month. We've been doing parts of a story about a girl named Star. Amy Carmicael actually was the missionary that told her about Christ. Though my kids do like the story, they have trouble sitting still. So, the last couple weeks, I've allowed them to get comfortable anyway they want on the chairs before the story. As you can see in the pictures, their favorite possition is sitting backwards on their chairs!

We also finished taking our books of the Old Testament pictures. Now I've got to start cropping them and changing them into the picture I'll print for the kids. I need to crop the background out of the picture, add words and add the other pictures to them to illustrate what they're acting out.

Cool Mornings and Faith

The weather has finally turned to fall. The mornings have been cool which is great for walking! I'm trying to get back into reviewing memlok verses while I walk, and this morning Esther 4:14 made me think about the passage in a different way.

Esther 4:12 When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 "Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish."

Esther had previously told Morecai that she could not go before the king because she would probably be killed if she went without an invitation. Mordecai's response to her is interesting. He says "And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"

That doesn't sound like a very certain or faith filled response. God didn't appear to Mordecai and tell him that Esther should go before the king and would be safe. Or, if God did tell Mordecai, he seems to not have been sure of the outcome. Esther made her decision to do as Mordecai asked. However she too had doubts and said "If I perish, I perish." She made her decision and also prayed and had others pray for her safety.

It's interesting to see how God used their decisions as steps of faith (however shakey) to save the Jewish people. We know how that story turned out. God protected Esther and used her risk in a good way.

We don't know how our small uncertain steps will turn out. I know I often make a decision without being certain it's something that "God wills." There are so many examples of God appearing to individuals in the Bible and telling them exactly what they are to do. Sometimes I get discouraged since that is not how I've found God to direct me. This example of Esther is an encouragement that God can use and does direct us even when we're not sure.

Learn the Books of the Old Testament with Memlok!

Say the Books! is the best way I’ve found to teach the books of the Old Testament to my first grade AWANA Sparks class. It’s a fun story created by Memlok Bible Memory System. Check it out here! The book can be purchased online and then downloaded immediately in pdf form. In previous years, I’ve made the copies into coloring books for each child. This year, I’m making a handout each week that includes a few of the pictures from Say the Books! as well as our science experiment and a little about that week’s missionary story.
But back to Say the Books. In addition to the story line and coloring pages, each book of the Bible includes a fun action that the children learn. Each year I’ve taken pictures of the children acting out the books of the Old Testament. I have enjoyed doing a variation of the above picture each year using the children in my class. I don’t really know who has more fun in AWANA – is it the children I teach or me!

Busy Week Update

Work: This is one of the three most busy and draining weeks of work each year. It's our fall training so I switch from sitting and working primarily on my computer each day to standing and interacting with people I don't know for three days. The three days of training actually mean that we spend the entire week on the class because we set up on Monday and will tear down some on Friday. This first day of class went well today - only two more days to go and it will be over again! I don't know if it's the teaching and interacting with people or the standing or the mental and physical preparation that makes this week tiring. But it does pass and it actually usually goes pretty well.

Car: My car seems to enjoy being repaired on Tuesday. Dad graciously replaced my car's cooling fan tonight. It decided to quit working yesterday as I drove to their house for Dad's birthday. I'm sure fixing a car wasn't exactly the birthday present Dad wanted! I hope that this Tuesday trend doesn't continue

AWANA: Tomorrow is my first full night of teaching AWANA. Each evening I have the 1st grade sparks class for one hour. The hour is the "counsel" and "sections" time. Churches do AWANA many different ways. In my church, section time is done by listeners pulling the children out of the class rooms to a hallway where chairs are set up. There the children say the verses to the listeners. Usually we have about 3 listeners and about 18 children in Sparks. So, for most of the hour, each teacher has the majority of their children in class. Last week I had 8 sparks in my class, so I will probably have a minimum of 5 children at all times. I like to have 3 or 4 activities that fill the hour I have in the classroom. We begin sparks with pledges and songs and soon break into our grade level classes. This year I am again using science experiments to illustrate Bible concepts. I am also once again using memlok's Say the Books during the hour to teach the books of the old testament. Say the Books has a running story line that we read, actions to learn, and coloring sheets as well. In past years, I've used the Sparks flannel graph stories, but this year plan to use other missions related stories. Ivory asked about the science experiment we did last week. Since I'm making a handout with a slightly shorter version of the experiment each week, I'm going to post the experiments here for reference for others. I've really enjoyed doing experiments in the past with the children. Experiments seem to be something they really remember and look forward to.

Church: We had a board meeting tonight (between work and picking up my car). Tomorrow after AWANA I need to see what was causing the wireless mike to make some noise on Sunday. I also need to get some more batteries since the rechargeable once I bought last year have more than once failed before the end of a sermon.

So those are the things on my mind this week. It will be over before I know it - busy weeks always go by quickly.

Woke up Laughing!

Last night I was very tired when I went to sleep. It's been a busy last couple weeks and as I went to sleep, I set my alam with misgivings wondering if sleeping in might be better for me than getting up to run in the morning. Well, I woke up about midnight and decided that I was too tired to get up early so I turned the alarm clock off. Sleeping in was what I needed, who cares about running!

Whenever I wake up, the first thing I do is to look at the time. I think I look at the time before I'm really even awake. This morning I looked at the clock at 6 AM and immediately started laughing. I think it's the first time that I woke myself up laughing. I didn't even realize why I was laughing until I was more awake and remembered that the alam I turned off was set for 6 AM as well. I guess it's good when little things like waking up without an alarm can make you laugh!

Well, I did run my route (2.8 miles that I'm trying to drop from 27.5 minutes when I started it May 30th down to 24 minutes hopefully sometime this month). The picture is from this morning after I finished cooling down by walking another .75 miles while reviewing memlok. I've run the same route 13 times now and have run it at 24.5 minutes once, but today it took me 25.5 minutes. It's still hard for me to run without breaks to walk. I decided to learn to run instead of just walking and half-heartedly jogging a couple months ago when I found the "Couch to 5k" 9 week schedule on a website (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml). I started that plan on March 20th and by following it, I went from struggling to run 1/2 mile to running to a friends house 4.5 miles away in the middle of May. After finishing that 9 week schedule, I chose to keep the distance that I had worked up to running and to work on improving speed. So that's what I'm working on now every other day when I run. By the way, I did some reading on running versus jogging and found that though some people say that jogging is slow running there really no technical or measurable difference between the two. So a person can call it whatever they want.