Teaching how to use kind words to a preschooler has proven to require a bit of repetition and creativity in our home. Our 4 year old is just beginning to learn the power of his words. Like most children his age, words spill out of his mouth in an effort to get what he wants.
Our most recent learning unit was about the Fruit of the Spirit. Over the course of two weeks we learned about each character trait in the verse. We memorized the verse using a Bible Verse Memory Sheet that we keep in our morning menu, as well as daily activities.
One of the traits we learned about was kindness. Kindness to others and to ourselves. If you haven’t spent time working through Galatians 5:22-23 with your children yet, I highly recommend you do. Not only was it a great lesson and opportunity for my little one, it was an incredible opportunity for myself.
Teaching the Fruit of the Spirit to Kids
We learned about the fruit of the spirit described in Galatians 5:22-23 over two weeks, focusing on one “fruit” each day.
I love the book collection by Yira Bernard Jones of Fruity Friends. Each book has a fruit character that is teaching about a specific fruit from Galatians 5:22-23. For this lesson we read about Gabriel Grape: The Fruit of Kindness.
Kind Words Object Lesson for Kids
For my preschooler, I have found that teaching him through physical examples or object lessons seems to be beneficial. An object lesson is simply a hands on lesson that we do together to dive in to a specific lesson. For this particular lesson, teaching about kind words to my 4 year old, we used honey and an art project. You can download these directions and the free printable craft here:
For this lesson, you will need only a couple things:
– A squeeze bottle of honey with a narrow hole in the top
– A dish to squeeze the honey in to
How to Teach a Child About Kind Words
Begin by setting up your supplies for your child to use. Explain to your child that you are going to learn about the power of our words. I personally used this opportunity to revisit what some kind words had recently been in our home. My son’s use of “thank you” or “please” that morning.
Have your child squeeze the honey in to the dish. Explain that the honey represents our words. We envision the lid like our mouth. Out of our mouth comes the words. They spill out of our mouth easily with little effort. Take a moment to pause and reflect on the honey that has been put squeezed in to the dish.
After squeezing “words”/honey in to the dish, now try to put the honey back in the bottle. You can use a spoon or dump the honey back in. You can also get creative and ask your child to use toothpicks to put the honey back in to the bottle.
Does the honey go back in to the bottle? Perhaps a little bit of honey may run back inside the bottle, but the reality is the words just kind of flow back down the bottle.
Once the words have come out of our mouth, we cannot take them back. We want our words to be kind, helpful, and healing (Proverbs 12:18).
This is a beautiful opportunity to talk about Proverbs 16:24, “Kind words are like honey— sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” I have created a free printable for you to download with this Bible Verse. The activity requires very little prep. All you will need is glue and glitter or yarn.
Continuing with the Lesson
I am sure you are looking at this activity and thinking “that’s great, but what do you have to show for a counter full of sticky honey?” You might be surprised to learn that this activity has really helped us over the course of a couple weeks. At four, my little one doesn’t exactly have a filter, but he does have an excellent memory recall. When unkind words begin to flow out of his mouth, I remind him of this lesson. That may sound something like,
“hey, that doesn’t sound like honey words!”
“Do you remember about kind words? What did the honey represent? Remember you couldn’t put it back in your mouth.”
I try to have him recall the object of this lesson and the Bible verse, Kind words are like honey.
I hope you find this lesson and printable valuable for you and your family! Don’t forget to pin this blog post!
