Christianity Cove is a company that provides a wide variety of resources for Sunday School lessons, crafts, games and activities, as well as teaching tips. If you would like, you can read their Statement of Faith in the About section.
I was given the opportunity to review the Fruits of the Spirit Activity Kit. I am not a Sunday School teacher, rather a homeschool mom using many fun resources to build on my children's faith and understanding of God's Word.
About Fruits of the Spirit Activity Kit:
This comes in the form of a 26 page pdf download for a purchase price of $19.00. Christianity Cove provides a 60 day money-back guarantee on all of their products if you are not satisfied. This kit is recommended for ages 4-12.
The pdf includes:
2 object lessons- Raisins and Grapes, Weeds and Seeds
3 games- Juicy jump rope, Find the missing fruit, and Guess which fruit
2 crafts- Play dough fruit baskets, Fruit trees (3 versions)
1 gift- decorated jar of candy fruits
1 song- to the tune of The Farmer and the Dell
2 snacks- fruity popsicles, Octi the Octopus made out of fruit
1 science experiment- "What makes apples turn brown?"
3 worksheets- word search, word scramble, coloring page
There is a list of supplies included with each activity so you can see ahead of time what you will need to complete them. Most of them are things that you probably already have around the house. Some things like fresh grapes and fruit shaped stickers and candy may need to be purchased (or improvised).
The lessons in the kit are all scripted and can be read word for word or used as a guide to aid in you in teaching.
How we used it and my thoughts:
After downloading the pdf and reading through it, I opted not to print it all out. It was easily used right from the computer for me. I did not need the word for word scripting since it is only me and the two kids. On many of the topics we did a lot more talking and not as much doing (for a couple of reasons discussed below).
We started off with the Raisin and Grapes lesson. We could only discuss the lesson versus actually creating the snack that went along with it due to some food allergies, grapes and nuts. They still did fine with the concept. They did the coloring page as we discussed the lesson.
The Weeds and Seeds lesson was a bit the same, but not because of allergies this time. I chose to discuss this lesson while out weeding the garden. Believe it or not, Luke loves to weed. Love that boy! He also has an apple tree growing, that he planted last fall, from a seed of the apple he was eating.
See what I mean about us homeschoolers and scripted lessons. Not a good fit here. Not a problem though because in some situations they might be perfect. I think it is much easier to find a scenario to teach at home as we live life than in a structured setting like a Sunday School class where time and space are limited.
My kids that I used this with are five and six. They have already learned the Fruits of the Spirit and I was hoping this was a bit more in-depth about the fruits themselves. Many of the activities were geared toward the kids memorizing the Fruits or learning about them for the first time. The song is cute and I love watching my 5 year old memorize things at lightening speed. Oh to have that kind of memory again? (Is that jealousy? Ahh!)
One game was having the kids choose which fruit/quality was being applied in the example situation given. I liked this one the best. It made the kids think about the "fruits" in life situations and gave us further discussion starters on the meaning of and application of the fruit in our lives.
I feel that for us at home this was a bit more busy work than actual learning. I think it is structured well for a Sunday School setting, which it was intended for. The kit does provide options to choose from for the whole age range it is intended for. My kids are not the greatest jump ropers or word unscramblers yet, but they would be good for the older kids. Building "Octi" the octopus out of fresh fruit and making popsicles was fun for my littles, but I bet the older ones would not mind this either. Who does not like to eat!
The Schoolhouse Crew was offered many different products for review from Christianity Cove. Click on the banner below and go see what the rest of the crew families though about the products.
