Sin and Snow ~ Psalm 51:7

I've been meaning to teach Lauren Psalm 51:7 for a while now but I was just waiting for it to snow! Well, it finally did snow and then the day I was going to teach her the verse we all got the stomach flu. Bad. Needless to say, anything other than getting ourselves healthy again was put on the back burner.

So, this week (with absolutely no snow on the ground and perfect early Spring-like weather, ha) we got back to our original plan.

The first thing I always try to do when introducing a new Bible verse to Lauren is to show it to her in the  Bible. My mom got Lauren her very own big girl Bible for Christmas and it has been really sweet to watch her "read" it to herself. (If you are looking for a fun older Bible, I would recommend The Adventure Bible. The format is NIrV so the reading level is right on for elementary kids and the comprehension level is perfect for kids much younger than that!)

I gave Lauren her own highlighter and let her highlight the verse. (I made a small mark before the beginning of the verse and at the end so that she knew where to start and end her highlighting.)

After we read the verse we talked about what it meant. I asked Lauren if she remembered the snow we had the week before. I asked her what color the snow was and if it was clean or dirty (side note, she totally said dirty because she is a girl and there were small pieces of grass sticking up through it....also I know those of you who live in feet of snow are laughing at our pitiful snowfall right about now ;))

We talked about how just like we can get dirty playing outside or jumping in a mud puddle, that sin can also make us dirty inside. I explained that only God can clean up the sin inside of us and that His Word tells us that if we ask Him, He will wash us and make us as clean and white as snow! This was a great opportunity for me to talk to Lauren about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. I briefly discussed with her how Jesus' death made it possible for God to make us as white as snow. I realize that this is a bit over her head still, but I want to impress the truth of the Gospel on her tender heart at an early age. Plus, I know that all I have to do is share this Truth with her...God will do the rest!

To help get my point across we used our dry erase board to draw a picture of a little girl. We talked about all the ways that we can sin. Being unkind, lying, disobeying, and hitting were all sins we discussed. After each sin we talked about we drew a little dirty mark on the board. I asked her how we would get the little girl clean and again we talked about how God's Word tells us to ask Him and He will clean up our sin filled lives. This was a great opportunity to model a prayer asking God for forgiveness and to talk again about how Jesus' death on the cross made it possible for us to be made clean. I even snuck in how once God forgives us from a sin it is no longer there...just like the marking on the board was erased completely, so is the sin in our lives. I think it was a little over her head, but it sure did this mama's heart good to hear that truth again.

Then, I tried something that didn't work, ha! I thought that if I colored a heart with white crayon on a piece of white paper and had Lauren paint over the whole page that the crayon would resist the paint....it didn't. In fact, while I was trying to teach that God can make any heart as white as snow in a sin-filled world it actually made the heart look kind of dirty and dingy...so plan B! I had some left over contact paper from my teaching days and I just cut a heart out of it and placed it in the middle of the paper. Lauren could totally see the heart before she started painting, but the end result was much better. :) She asked me to paint with her and since Easton was asleep it was the perfect time for us to talk about the verse, sing the verse song, and really connect with each other. We talked about how a heart that believes in God and asks for his forgiveness for our sins will always be white as snow in His sight and we thanked Jesus for dying on the cross to make that possible.

After we made our heart painting, we made snow flakes! I was a little ambitious on this one. Since my plan was to write out the verse on the snowflakes I needed nine snowflakes. Lauren lasted for the making of about three of them and then she just cut strips of paper while I made intricate very simple designs. When we had them all done, we wrote one word of the verse on each snowflake and then hung them up on a wall in our playroom.

Here is a video with Lauren sharing the verse and us singing the verse song. I used the tune from Songs for Saplings, but changed a few words to help it fit with the NIrV version. :)



This was one of those activities that really took very little planning and was completed (surprisingly!) in one morning. We usually try to spread things out over the course of several days, but since Easton was sleeping and Lauren was interested we pressed through the activities. We will keep the verse visible for a while, sing the verse song often, and talk about what the verse means in our normal conversations over the next few days and weeks. :)

As a side note, is anything cuter than a little child reciting scripture? It totally melts my heart!!!



Other Resources:

Totally Tots has an EXCELLENT resource page of printables for the Songs for Saplings CD I love so much!!! Go here to view the poster and printables for Psalm 51:7


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