Scripture: Psalm 3
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn about 32 of the Psalms were written by people crying out to God in bad times.
- Students will learn it is okay for us to tell God when we are sad and scared and ask him to help us.
- Students will learn God understands when we don’t understand why bad things are happening in our lives and wants to comfort us.
- Students will learn how adjectives can describe emotions.
Guiding Question: How can we express emotions in our writing?
Materials: None needed
Procedure: Review the message of asking for God’s help from the scripture above. Tell students that the best thing they can do when they are sad or scared is to reach out to God and pray for help. Explain that God is always there to comfort us when we are upset. Remind students that they may not always understand why bad things are happening but it is important to remember that God knows all things and will comfort them and bring good out of all bad situations. Ask students about how they would have liked to feel encouraged by others during times when they were sad or struggling with something.
Introduce the activity. Explain that adjectives can describe emotions. For example, miserable, shy, and excited. Pair the students up. Have one student express an emotion with their face and the other student must mirror the first student and name the emotion. Then students switch roles and can’t repeat any previous emotion.
Additional Questions: How can students recognize how body and facial language express emotion?
Supplemental Activity: Split students into two teams. Have one team draw a face or person representing an emotion on the board. The other team has to guess the correct emotion.