Lesson 2 : Have a pure, kind and radiant heart

What a beautiful day we had to learn about purity of heart. So much sunshine, in and outside the classroom 🙂 After prayers, we started our lesson with learning a new quote by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

“He is God!  O God, my God!  Bestow upon me a pure heart, like unto a pearl.”

The beautifully illustrated version of it, was our colouring in activity at the end of class too. (See today’s lesson in pdf format for a copy of it.)

The story we read today, was from a new book, called ‘Daily Reflections and Stories for Children‘. It is compiled by Munirih Hodge and Margo Styan – and the short stories are beautiful – 19 different ones, all arranged by virtues and spiritual qualities. The one we read today, was about two visitors who came to see ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. They didn’t like each other at all, but ‘Abdu’l-Bahá showed them how to be friends and told them ‘My home is the home of joy and delight. My home is the home of laughter … Whoever enters through the portals of this home must go out with a gladsome heart.” They left the house the best of friends. 🙂

To visualise how precious our hearts are and how practicing kindness and radiance can help us to keep them pure, just like a pearl – our craft was inspired by shells and pearls. See the pics for details…

 

After playing musical statues with Stefan Brown’s ‘Kindness’ song, we settled down for some calming colouring in. Well done everyone! What a lovely class!

Next week we’re having a special class as it’s ‘Ayyam-i-Há – the time of hospitality, celebrating unity and gifts… We’ll keep you posted on what’s planned, as soon as we have all details sorted 🙂

Lesson 17 : Pure, kind & radiant heart

This must be one of my favourite lessons 🙂 it is based on lesson 2 in Ruhi Book 3, and we’ve gone through it before. The children needed very little prompting to remember the quote for today’s lesson:

“O Son of Spirit! My first counsel is this: possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart.”

We changed the craft slightly too – painting beautiful hearts – pure, kind and radiant ones – but then stringing them up, instead of using them as magnets. We loved the way they look, when we wrote the words first with oil crayons, and then painted over with a water based paint – the brightly colourful results are gorgeous!

 (the lovely ‘heart-mobiles’ and their makers 🙂 )

For today’s story, we used an ‘old’ book I had from my parents, called ‘The Scottish Visitors’ – a story about ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to London. It’s beautifully illustrated, and the story suits age groups from 5 to 12 alike!

We finished the class by playing the game ‘Burning thirst’ (Ruhi book 3, page 18). Sticks are tied to childrens’ arms – to prevent them bending their elbows – and they pretend to have walked in the desert and are very thirsty. A glass of water is given to them and they have to try and drink it (only works if they work together and hold it for each other). 🙂

And then sang Stefan Brown’s song on ‘kindness’. Always a favourite of everyone in class. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday everyone and see you next week, which will be the last class of this term (19th September).

Lesson 11 : Kindness

Welcome back everyone! It’s been a fabulous first lesson after the school holidays 🙂

We talked about kindness, and what it means to be kind to each other, to animals, the planet, ourselves – to EVERYONE… Memorising the quote for today’s lesson was a breeze. Our children are learning them so quickly, it’s becoming second nature. Well done everyone!

After singing Stefan Brown’s song ‘Kindness‘, we made some peaceful and happy kindness-birds. A fabulous craft idea from the Australian Peace Pack material. It’s the little kindnesses we show each other that give us wings and lift our hearts and spirits!

It was great to see all the beautiful birds take flight…

We finished the class with the ‘Hidden Virtue’ game. Have a look at the lesson pdf for a description of how it is played – we had good fun with it and did at least 4 rounds 😉

Thanks all for  great class and see you next Sunday – when we’ll learn about Generosity (some cookie baking/decorating might be involved….) – yum!

Lesson 1 : Unity

The theme of the first lesson today was… UNITY! I will try and make sure I post details about the lesson after each class, for those who missed it to see what we did, and for others to use as resource material in their own classes. If you have suggestions for improvements, comments or your own experience you’d like to share, leave us a comment!

1_Unity (pdf of lesson, including colouring in page)

We even had muffins for the first class today, enrollment forms and all was set 🙂

The unity candle holders and ‘unity in diversity’ people chains we made today:

Busy craft bees:

The book we used for the story

It was a great first class – the community centre is such a gorgeous place to have them and we look forward to many more! ’til next week 🙂