Friday, March 7, 2014

Teaching Kids About Angels

I was asked to teach our little preschool playgroup about angels today and I thought I would share our mini lesson here!

Kids LOVE angels! They have wings, they are invisible, they are warriors... what more could a kid ask for?!? So, there are plenty of angles to approach teaching kids about them. Generally, I approach teaching young kids with a less is more mentality so I chose 2 attributes to focus on and added 2 activities as always!!!

Angels are mentioned in the bible HUNDREDS of times but the verse that I think of most when I think about them is this one from Exodus 23:20

"I am sending an angel before you to keep and guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I have made ready. "

1. Angels are messengers. The best way I could think of explaining a messenger to my daughter was the example of Mailman. The Mailman brings letters from someone else to you. You can also give letters to the mailman to bring to someone else. So, an angel is like God's mailman bringing messages (letters) to you from God and where you can send your messages to go through him. (Kids love to write letters so you could choose to have them write a letter to God that their angel can see and tell God what it says.)

2. Angels are our guides. For this one I used the image of a line leader. At J's school, they have a different child that gets to be the line leader everyday and lead the group. Our angel goes "before you to guide you". I blindfolded J and had her walk around and run into a couple of things to make my point (disclaimer: no children were hurt in the teaching of this lesson. Lol!) Then I had her ask her angel for help and I pretended to be her angel and guided her around the room. The kids all thought this was pretty funny to watch. The sillier the better!

After we finished blindfolding children and letting them run into things, we prayed the Guardian Angel prayer together and they colored a guardian angel worksheet which also had the prayer on it. While they were coloring I made the point that we all have our own special guardian angels with us always. I found the worksheet here. (I cut off the bottom of the page where it asks the child to name their angel. This is a somewhat controversial topic in the Church and is generally discouraged for a variety of reasons so I wouldn't suggest using that part.)

Hope this helps!

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