This touching Bible craft of making friendship bracelets also shares a little message about how each piece of yarn represents a person — each equal and worthy of love in God’s eyes.
Materials:
• Scissors
• Brightly colored yarn, enough for each child to have a color and a piece about a foot long.
• White yarn of the same texture
• Little charms or standard plastic craft-store beads are optional
Introduction:
Christianity has many symbols of love and friendship. A bracelet is a circle, and it is a symbol of a family — the Christian family. A braid is long, sleek and organized, symbolic of unity without struggle. Each strand of yarn on the bracelets you make (and each charm) is going to be a symbol of one of you. The person who wears each bracelet will see that color whenever they wear it and remember that you are part of their unity circle of love, from loving Jesus here in our class. Let’s get started!
Instructions:
1. Pass out colors of yarn to each child.
2. Have children cut enough strands so that each child has one for the all the children in the class including herself.
3. To make the bracelet:
4. Lay all strands out side-by-side to make sure they are close to the same length — about a foot long.
5. Separate the strands into sets of three to make your braid. If you have six children, each set will have two strands. If you have nine students, each set will have three strands. If you have a number of students not divisible by three, fill in with white strands, which can represent God and Jesus.
7. Gather the strands together and tie a knot in one end, leaving a tail of about one inch.
8. Take your three sets and begin to braid a standard braid…OR…
9. If you or your children want to learn a fun new braiding technique, there is a great video on YouTube for braiding six strands. The best explanation comes with watching Rivka Malka Perlman complete a six-strand braid on multi-colored challah-dough strands. Listen to her helpful instructions and try it yourself! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dSaIPHGrfg
10. Stop every once in a while to add a charm or bead until all yours are used up.
11. When you finish about seven inches of braid, or enough to fit around your wrist, tie off the bottom like you did the top. If you did a three-strand standard braid, you should have a fairly long tail. If you did a six-strand braiding technique, you should have only a short tail.
12. Tie the ends together either by creating box knots using the same colored strands or just by tying them together. Leave just enough room for the bracelet to slip off if desired.
Conclusion:
Braiding is like creating friendships. It’s a little difficult at first. Just like strands can get tangled up in a braid, friendships can become a little messy, so that you have to backtrack and “straighten out” any hurts. But if you stick with it, your friendships can run neat and orderly, like these braids!
Next Question: Who qualifies as a friend? Who qualifies to receive your love on Valentine’s Day? To answer a similar question among some rabbis, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. In it, stranger came to the aid of a man who had been robbed and beaten. He gave first aid, then brought the man to an inn and gave money for the innkeeper to take care of him. The Good Samaritan made the stranger his friend simply because the stranger needed help. That’s God’s type of friendship.
In other words, a person qualifies for your love on Valentine’s Day if he or she is loved by God. That means everyone — the people you love naturally and the people you’re not “feelin’ it” for.
The bracelet is representative of all your “loves” in this class. Wear it and remember that you are sisters and brothers in Christ. Start “feelin’ it” for all these people, because you will be in heaven together for a very long time!
You might also be interested in these other Bible craft activities!
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