Making cards for others...

"That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself

to the service of the entire human race."

Sadly, I didn't have my camera on me during class today so I'll just post images for a general idea of what I'm talking about. :(

Supplies:

Construction paper
colored pencils, crayons, or markers
glue sticks

Optional:
Stickers

Since service was the lesson of the day, we first ran through some flash cards and spoke about the importance of helping others.

As timing would have it, there's a Baha'i holiday coming up called Ayyam'i'Ha so we had the kids make greeting cards for their loved ones.

In summary, before the class, I prepared however-many blank cards we expected the kids would go through as well as wrote out the greeting or quote onto pieces of paper that could be easily glued into the card.
While in class, they glued the greetings into the cards then decorated them with markers, stickers, or even wrote additional messages. Sign the name of the artist, and you're done!

The kids' cards were adorable with things written like, "I Love Mom, from Jon" as well as additional drawings and stickers. They were super-excited to give their parents the cards after the class.

This is a LINK to the Gold Star Legion ( self-named junior youth group ) that got together to make cards and chocolate chip cookies for a retirement home as a way of spreading sweetness and celebrating Ayyam-i-Ha.

Service Flash Cards

"That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself
to the service of the entire human race"

To begin learning about what service is, I made some flash cards that illustrated examples that the kids could relate to in their everyday lives as well as asked them for ideas of their own.

For each service-oriented card, I made a complementary one that illustrated the effect of not assisting in some way.

For example: for helping to put toys away both in the classroom and bedroom there was an image of messy rooms. For holding the door open for someone, there was one of a guy walking into the door. For helping doing the dishes, there was a leaning tower of dishes in the sink.

In the end, we flipped through the cards and it was a bit of a game for them to identify the acts of service. Overall fun and the kids were super-sharp thus running through the game fairly quickly.

An idea for later would be to take pictures of the kids, themselves, helping out and making flash cards in their own image.

This idea was along the lines of 'Good Idea, Bad Idea' from the Animaniacs. Classic.