Why I'll Be Cleaning up Glitter Until Spring: God's Promise to Abraham, Advent Week 1

Today, day four of The Problem and The Promise week, we focused on God's promise to Abraham that he would become the father of a great nation that would outnumber the stars and that through him all nations would be blessed (meaning that the promised savior would be one of his descendants).

Once again, we read from the story from The Jesus Story Book Bible.  This one didn't have much action, so it didn't hold their attention as well.  The book did a great job of focusing on both aspects of God's promise to Abraham and tying this promise into Christ's coming.

After finishing the story, in a moment of insanity, I broke out the glitter and the glue.

I had the kids scribble all over a piece of black poster board with glue sticks.  If I have another bout of insanity and repeat this activity next year, I'll use liquid glue instead for better adherence.

After it was thoroughly sticky, I let the kids go crazy sprinkling glitter:

After we shook the glitter off, I challenged them to count the glitter stars on our poster board night sky--impossible of course.  We reviewed that God had promised Abraham that his family would be so big it would be too many to count, just like the stars.  Then I reminded them that there was a second part to the promise.  I had printed out a clip art picture of Jesus in the manger and glued it to a yellow construction paper star (traced from a cookie cutter).   As they glued it to the center of the board, I asked them again what the problem was (sin) and what God promised (some one to save us!).  

And, as you can imagine, this is why I'll be cleaning up glitter until spring time.