Fruit of the Spirit Program

This program is based around the verse from Galatians 5:16,17. It can be done over 9, 10 or 11 weeks, depending on your needs (using, none, one or two of the optional weeks). Each week the children cooked a very simple fruity recipe which was linked to the Fruit of the Spirit being studied. The children just loved it and were begging to come back! I don't think I've had such a positive reaction to any of my programs. ("The two best things in the world are reading and your cooking" - from the mouth of babes, definitely does the ego a little good!)

I made my own cookbook/workbook which re-enforced the link between the day's cooking and the Fruit of the Spirit being learned. It had the recipe and a simple drawing activity (I was doing it with children 4-8 YO) to explain the link and help with the practical application of the Fruit of the Spirit. Check out a sample of one of the weeks: Love Cookbook sample page.bmp

At the end of each term we like to have the kids do a little item in church. This time we decided against our normal singing/dancing/memory verse recital routine. Instead each week the kids drew a picture about what they learned in the lesson, then we stapled all the kids work to an art shirt - one art shirt for each week (we have a small class and it fitted on really well). The leader made a bold title stating the topic. Our item for the church was a fashion parade in which our younger children modelled the shirts and I interviewed the older children asking them simple questions about each week like, "Why do you think love is important?" "How can we show kindness to someone else?" "Why did we bring a rabbit to church this term?" (Yes, you'll see about the rabbit in the gentleness week). It worked really well and every child was involved. Just make sure you have enough shirts, hats, signs etc for each child to have something to model and show.

Another things I did throughout the term just to add that special touch for the kids was take photos (after getting permission!) of the kids cooking for a couple of the different weeks. I stuck them into the cookbook so the kids will be able to keep their own cookbook and look back at them later and see all the fun they had learning about the Fruit of the Spirit!

Click on the links below to find out the recipes used and how they were connected to the Fruit of the Spirit

Optional start week

Week 1 - love

Week 2 - joy

Week 3 - peace

Week 4 - patience

Week 5 - kindness

Week 6 - goodness

Week 7 - faithfulness

Week 8 - gentleness

Week 9 - self control

Optional breakup week

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