What is Love?
Love is a special feeling that fills your heart. You show love in a smile, a pleasant way of speaking, a thoughtful act or a hug. Love is treating people and things with special care and kindness because they mean so much to you. Love is treating other people just as you would like them to treat you—with care and respect.
Why Practice It?
Without love, people feel alone. When they don’t feel they matter to anyone, they become unhappy. Sometimes they act angry and don’t let others get close. Everyone wants to be liked. Everyone likes to be loved. When you are being loving, you help others to feel important. They become gentler and kinder. Love is contagious. It keeps spreading.
You are Practicing LOVE when you…
- Treat others as you want them to treat you
- Say kind and loving things
- Share your things and yourself
- Love people just as they are
- Take good care of the things you love
- Do what you love and love what you do
I am a loving person. I show my love with thoughtful acts, kind words and affection. I treat others the way I want to be treated.
Some activities to use in your classroom with students:
- Love, List & Listen Game - Using a timer have each child tell the group as many things as they can that they love in 15-20 seconds. After everyone has had a turn to share their loves go around and ask how many things the group can remember about what each one said. Don't tell the children ahead of time that you'll be going back to ask them what they remember from their friends lists. This is a great way for the kids to learn more about each other.
- A world made of love posters - Cut out a large pile of various colored little hearts. Have the kids use all the little hearts to make collage pictures.
- Growing Hearts - Have the kids paint or draw pictures of hearts growing like flowers in a garden.
- Valentine's Cards - If you're doing this lesson around Valentine's Day have the children make make home-made Valentine cards and decorations.
- The Golden Rule - Following the Golden Rule is one way your child shows love to others. Adapt the rule by having your child consider how a sibling, classmate or stranger wants to be treated. Also consider ways not to annoy others as an extension of the Golden Rule. Present scenarios, such as a homeless man on the street, a child without toys or friends in a room full of toys and a sibling who doesn’t feel well. Help your child brainstorm ways to respond or role-play what he might do.
- Loving Stories - Read books with your child that emphasize love through friendship. For example, for kids ages 4 and older, the book "You: A Story of Love and Friendship," by Stephen Michael King, uses simple prose to inspire children to show love toward each other. If you want to instill the message of loving each other from a biblical point of view, check out, "Loving One Another: Beginner's Stories About Being a Good Friend," by Neta Jackson, also for ages 4 and older.
- Crafting with Love - Encourage your child to show love to a friend by making a craft for her. One idea is to make a beaded friendship bracelet. Have your child use beads that are in her friend's favorite colors. She can also make a matching bracelet for her friend. Another idea is to make a friendship blossom flower to representing a new, blossoming friendship. Help your child to cut out flower petal shapes out of colored card stock. Poke a hole in the center and stick a small lollipop into the center. Your child can write a note on the petals for her friend as well.
- Love Games - Engage your child and her friend in interactive games that also reinforce the importance of friendship and love. For one game, have the kids sit in a circle and give each child a pencil and a piece of paper. They must write down 10 kind things about the person to their right as fast as they can. The person who finishes first gets to go first, but they all get to read their list and give their paper to that person. For another game, take the kids outside in a large space. Two kids are the "friendship stealers," and the others are on one side of a field and must run to the other side to safety without getting tagged by the friendship stealers. If any child gets tagged, they must remain frozen until a teammate tags them. The kids cannot get on safety without everyone, reminding them to never leave a friend or someone you love behind.