Date: June 4, 2023
Elementary Essential: God is Relational: He invites us to talk to him through prayer and worship him in spirit and truth.
Unit Overview:
4th and 5th graders will spend their summer in the Psalms. Each week, kids will explore one Psalm, be invited to dig deeper into what the Psalm teaches about God and learn how they can use the Psalm to respond to God in their everyday lives. They’ll learn that the Psalms are ancient Hebrew poems (translated into English) in the Old Testament. These poems were written for God’s people to read aloud to him in prayer and sing to him in worship.
The book of Psalms gives us many of the Bible’s so called greatest hits. Words of praise, words of lament, words of thanksgiving, words of doubt, words of repentance, and words of rejoicing. Psalms is the longest book of the Bible and captures every emotion and part of the human experience, ultimately showing us how God’s people can and should relate to him through it all. We will take a closer look at this important book for 13 weeks.
Kids will:
- Gain a deeper understanding of who God is.
- Understand what a Psalm is and how to read the genre of poetry in the Bible.
- Know how to respond to God through worship and prayer during both good times and bad.
Lesson Title: What is a Psalm?
Lesson Overview:
Students will be introduced to various types of Psalms.
Kids will learn that:
1. We can pray the Psalms to express a range of emotions to God.
2. God is always listening.
3. We use the Psalms to worship him with our hearts.
Lesson Scripture: Psalm 102:1-11
Activity: In the movie, “Inside Out” by Pixar, there are five cartoon characters representing five emotions. Students will look at photos of the characters and compare them to a Grief Word List for a charade guessing game.