Sibling Love
“A milestone in this development of brother-sister love is the realization that you must give as well as receive.” -SMM A lesson celebrating Valentines day through friendship & sibling love and introducing the 4 Realms of Heart.
“Sibling Love” Unit: 4 Realms of Heart
LESSON PURPOSE: Understanding the sibling/friend realm of heart & celebrate Valentines!
MATERIALS:
BOOKS: God Gave Us Love / Sibling Books / Valentines Books / Friendship Books
SONG IDEAS: Looking At My Heart / We Are Family / Put a Little Love In Your Heart / What a Wonderful World
AS CHILDREN ARRIVE: Choose 1 Sensory Activity:
Valentine’s Sensory bin: pink, red & white- hearts, ribbon, pom poms...
Dolls: Have children play & take care of dolls dressing them & feeding them.
Stacking cups: have children stack towers with red or pink cups.
Water Beads: Moving pink water beads into a heart cookie cutter.
SCRIPTURE: Display the weekly scripture reading, have an older child read it or use it in the lesson as you like.
“A milestone in this development of brother-sister love is the realization that you must give as well as receive.” -Rev. Sun Myung Moon
“Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. -Romans 12:10
“The family is the school of love and the ideal place where the love of God is seen expressed in human relationships. In the family, one is to grow to experience and learn the widening realms of love: initially children's love towards one's parents, then love among one's brothers and sisters, then conjugal love with one's spouse, and, finally, parental love towards one's own children. When we learn and practice this four realms of heart we can graduate from this school of love.” -Rev. Sun Myung Moon
INTRODUCE the Lesson:
WELCOME: SONG, PRAYER, TP Greeting
SONG IDEAS: Looking At My Heart / We Are Family / Put a Little Love In Your Heart / What a Wonderful World
REVIEW & TRANSITION:
Let’s review what we learned last week. “What is love?” Have children answer. ;) We learned that True Love comes from God our Heavenly Parent. In addition to that warm fuzzy feeling inside- love is ACTION. (1 Corinthians 13:4)
ATTENTION GRABBER:
Sibling: Does anyone know what a sibling is? Show photos or have siblings in your class stand up together. Siblings are brothers & sisters.
Touch your ears if you have an older brother or sister.
Touch your nose if you have a younger brother or sister.
Hands on your head if you have cousins, friends or classmates.
All of these help us to experience the Sibling (Friendship) Realm of Heart!
INTRO:
When you were a little baby you simply received a lot of love and attention from everyone around you. What changed when you got a little brother or sister? Or when you became a toddler and started to interact with your big brother, sister or friend? You realized that not everything is about you! You realized that there are other people- you’re not the only one! There are others to share with. Once you entered the sibling realm of heart, you learned that life is not only about receiving but also about giving.
CHOOSE 1 OR 2: READ A STORY, SING A SONG OR POEM, WATCH A VIDEO:
VIDEOS: click on the link for educational, sing along or dance videos
Family Finger Song Fingerplay sing along
Giving Is Better Sweet story animation
Cute Kids Answer- What is Love? Love explained by kids
READ ALOUD STORY:
SONG OR POEM:
Love, Love, Love Sung to: "3 blind mice" Love, Love, Love. Love, Love, Love. See how it grows, See how it grows. I love my friends and they me, We love others and then, you see, There's more than enough for a big family. Love, love, love. Love, love, love.
H-E-A-R-T Sung to: "B-I-N-G-O" To show you like your special friends, Just give them each a heart. H-E-A-R-T, H-E-A-R-T, H-E-A-R-T Each heart says I like you!
Show your love Sung to: "London Bridges" If you want to show your love, Show your love, for your friends, If you want to show your love, Share a smile.
*TEACH the Lesson:
TEACHING POINT 1: Sibling (& Friendship) Love
TEACHING WITH DISCUSSION:
As we celebrate Valentines Day- we celebrate friendships! Brothers, Sisters & Friends are the people God gave us to learn how to love. How special is that?!
DISCUSSION: Idea: sit in a circle and pass around a special heart- whoever is holding the heart gets a turn to speak.
What is your favorite thing to do with your brother or sister or friend? (Play, car rides, family outings, holidays, hide & seek...)
Why are you grateful for them? (it’s more fun to have someone else to play with! They can share with me, we can teach each other new things.)
What is hard about having a brother or sister? (When we want the same toy, when little brother cries and gets all the attention, when I can’t do what big sister can do, when we say hurtful things to each other, when I want some alone time...)
What can you do to be a good brother or sister to your siblings and friends? (Share- take turns, speak kindly- say please & thank you. Older siblings- be an example & a special helper, show patience, love & forgiveness. Younger siblings- look up to older ones, learn from them, trust them, ask them for help & show respect...)
TEACHING POINT 2: FOUR Realms of Heart *OPTIONAL EXTENSION
Ideal: draw or cut out 4 hearts labeled: child’s love, sibling love, conjugal love, parental love. Show them as you introduce each Realm of Heart.
Did you know that “Sibling Love” is only 1 of 4 types of love you get to experience in life? Wow! True Parents teach us that Family is the School of Love! We learn to love within the family and there are “4 Realms of Heart!” How many? “4!”
4 Realms of Heart:
There is the special love your mommy & daddy have for each other, like the ones you see in Fairy tales! (Conjugal love) We learned about true love last week and you’ll learn about this more as you get older.
When a husband and wife have been blessed in love- what do they create? Children! That’s right and then they develop a Parental heart of love for you.
As a little child- you have a child’s heart of love.
And when a little baby brother or sister is born- you develop a Sibling’s Realm of love! Friendship Love!
Sibling Relationships help us prepare for all kinds of relationships and people we will meet in our lives! Such as school friends, sports team mates, co-workers. It also helps us to learn to empathize with (understand) all kinds of people, cultures, races and all of God’s children. We learn how to love and get along with all kinds of different people! God uses this time to help us to prepare our hearts before we enter conjugal love & marriage. Learning to love others- will help us to love our spouse and children in the future.
CONCLUSION:
When you were a little baby, you only had to receive love. But once you entered the sibling realm of heart, you realized there are people other than yourself! You began to learn to give and share! In this realm of heart- we learn to live for the sake of others! Not just for ourselves. We learn to give- not only receive. Siblings & friends teach us to become: Bighearted, generous & caring! On this Valentine’s Day, let’s show our friends and family how grateful we are for them and share our love with them by bringing them joy and making them Valentines!
TITHING & PRAYER:
Thank you Heavenly Parent for giving us siblings & friendships. Even though sometimes it’s hard to be a good brother or sister, we are grateful for our siblings & friends. Thank you for giving them to us so we can learn to grow our hearts! Help us to love our siblings and friends as we celebrate love.
APPLY the Lesson:
GROUP ACTIVITIES: choose 1 :
Thumbs UP or DOWN- have children give a “thumbs up!” for good & “thumbs down” for bad choices with statements such as these:
Sharing your new toy with your brother. :)
Taking your sister’s doll without permission. :( (Ask if you can use it)
Taking a toy out of your friend’s hand. :( (Ask for a turn)
Help your brother clean up his toys. :)
Cheering on your sister saying “great job!” :)
Not playing what your friend wants to play. :( (Take turns choosing what to play)
Being kind when your brother is sad. :)
Using gentle hands with the new baby. :)
Valentine Games- Play some Valentine’s themed minute to win it type of games together! Practice taking turns, cheering each other on and helping each other!
Love Charades: Act & guess different Love Actions: Pray for a friend, sweep the floor, hug someone, read the Bible, hold the door open, wrap a gift...
CRAFTS: choose 1
Valentines: Have children decorate precut hearts or Valentine cards for all of their friends! And have them pass them out in to their mailboxes!
Friendship Bracelets: Create a friendship bracelet to give to a friend using fruit loops & string, toilet paper rolls & gems, pipe cleaners & beads or string & hearts.
Love Bugs: Create love bug headbands! Construction paper strip with pipe cleaner curlies & heart stickers. Tell children to be “love bugs” this week! And spread love to their brothers/sisters & friends!
Friendship Rocks: Collect and paint rocks for your friends, siblings. The rocks should remind you of being a good brother, sister, friend.
SPECIAL: optional
VIDEO: Fun idea! Take video clips of the children saying “Love is…..” and share it at Sunday Service in February! ;) Or submit to lgavin@unification.org by Feb 11- to be featured in a National video compilation. ;)
PERFORMANCE: Fun idea! Sing “I Can, I Can”, “Open the Eyes of My Heart” or other Valentine songs as a little performance on your upcoming holy day celebration! Older children can also memorize & recite some of the scripture readings.
DECORATE: Decorate the room or a bulletin board for February- with lots of hearts!
SNACK IDEAS:
Valentine themed healthy snacks!
Enjoy the lesson! Feel free to submit photos to lgavin@unification.org Love seeing lessons come to life and each community