Learning about our Love Lights

This week at our line time, we have started to talk about our "Love Lights".  I am using some of the activities from the book Honoring the Light of the Child by Sonnie McFarland.  I wrote about the book in this post and have a link to it on the Amazon sidebar of the blog if you'd like to check it out.

The first activity, which we have been doing this week, is intended to introduce the children to the idea that every person on earth has a love light inside them that they can feel when they are happy or excited or proud.  Since we are a Christian preschool, I talked to them about God putting the love inside them.  We took turns sharing things that make us feel happy.  I told them that I can see their love light shining when their eyes twinkle when they are happy or when they are proud of themselves for accomplishing something.  The book suggests making a "peaceful person" template to illustrate this concept.  Additionally, the book suggests having a special bag that the teacher brings out whenever she is teaching about peace so the children can view those lessons as special and sacred.  So, I stitched up a special bag and placed my "peaceful person" inside it along with a flashlight.

To sew the bag I used a pattern I found online here.  It stitched up pretty quickly.  My only regret is that I probably should have made it a little bigger, but it's working okay.  In the second photo you can see the "peaceful person", flashlight, and the "shadow" template.  More on that below.

To present this activity, I placed a plate holder on a low display table in front of me.  I then placed the "peaceful person" on the holder so it was propped up.  I told the children this person was like people all over the planet earth.  We talked about how our physical bodies are different and that makes us special.  Then I told them that inside every person is something very, very special.  We turned the lights off and I placed the flashlight right behind the person template.  I told them that inside their heart is a "love light" that God placed in them.  (You can see this in the first photo.  I had to turn the flash off to get a good photo; otherwise there was too much glare from the flash.)  When we are happy we can feel our love light shining strong and sometimes others can see it in the twinkle in our eyes or the smile on our faces.  Then I asked them to close their eyes.  I slipped the shadow template behind the peaceful person.  When they opened their eyes, I asked them if the light looked different (this is shown in the second photo).  I told them that sometimes when we feel mad or sad or afraid, we can't feel our love light very much.  However, it is still there.  And we agreed we could still see the love light on the person even though it wasn't as bright.  We didn't spend a lot of time talking about this during this first presentation.  Later we will talk more about what we can do when our love lights feel "dim".  We will have lessons on how to get along peacefully and how to help each other and be kind to one another and our earth.  And, of course, I will post more about those lessons here on the blog as we do them.

Comments

[Arpita]

just loved it. wonderful. am surly going to apply. hmmm the shadow template is made out of black paper? pls advice

[Lindart]

Where did you buy the book? I could find it on Amazon.com, but it's $92.00! Can't get it in Canada. Is it religion based? Could it be used is a non-religious setting? Love the flashlight idea!

[Rebecca]

Very neat idea. Reminds me of the Neil Diamond song "Turn on your heartlight. Let it shine wherever you go. Let it make a happy glow for all the world to see."

[ines]

Love it, love it...stealing it,stealing it..:) I did want to ask what the shadow template was??? I'm sure I can figure it out. I always love giving peace or peaceful lessons.