Thankful Heart is a lovely newer award for Eager Beavers. It’s so new, that if you find all of your award information from your manual, or clubministries.org, you may not have even heard of it yet! You can find the requirements at AdventSource and in the Adventurer Strong app. (Do you have the app? It’s in both the Apple and Android app stores, it’s fabulous, and it’s one of my very favorite planning tools!) This optional award will likely only take your club one meeting. It’s an ideal award to teach right before Thanksgiving, and since being thankful is in style year round, it will fit nicely anywhere you find a space for it on your calendar.
Worship: One out of 10
Fulfills Requirement # 3
Our Sunbeam class gave our worship as part of their requirements for the Friend of Jesus Award. They acted out a skit from The Humongous Book of Bible Skits from Group Publishing about the ten lepers. If you have a Sunbeam class this year, I highly recommend this option! If you don’t have a group of Sunbeams standing around waiting to be to given the task of teaching your Eager Beavers, I’d recommend reading the story Ten Lepers from The Beginner’s Bible or any other Bible story book.
Story: The Sabbath Was Made For Me
Fulfills Requirement # 2
The Sabbath Was Made for Me by Jamie and John Domm is a sweet book talking about the wonders of the Sabbath. As my club welcomes both Adventists and non-Adventists, I want a book that will support and encourage our Adventist kids while not alienating our non-Adventist families. I think this book did a fairly good job of this (Skip reading the days of the week on page 14 if this is a concern in your club.) In addition to also being available in Spanish, it is available in a variety of cover designs so your child feels represented.
Craft: Thank You Card
Fulfills Requirement # 5
I made simple create-a-card packs just like the ones we use for community service – a cute picture for the outside, a simple message on the inside, and a half piece of cardstock to glue the front and inner cards to. I printed a ridiculous number of cards because I thought the kitten card might be very popular. Considering how few cards were left at the end of the evening, I think the entire craft was very well-liked! The card printable is at the end of this post and is available in both English and Spanish. (Cutting machine users: There are Silhouette cut files for you as well.)
Activity: Memory Verse Puzzles
Fulfills Requirement # 1
One of the requirements for Thankful Heart is to read three Bible verses (one is four verses, so it’s actually a total of six verses). This is the first time I’ve seen this on an Eager Beaver-level award, and I was surprised and concerned at first. I like to wait until Busy Bees and first grade to teach the Adventurers how to look up Bible verses. So, how do we make it hands-on and active for the pre-reader?
Puzzles! I printed the verses on a full sheet of colored cardstock(see award printables below), laminated them (optional), and cut them into pieces with my paper trimmer. Easy! Eager Beavers work together to put the puzzles together, and the teacher reads them aloud. Have lots of time and wiggles to work out? Hide them around the classroom first.
I did some things right and some things wrong in creating my version. I’m going to be honest, so you can learn from my mistakes.
What I did right
We have a larger Eager Beaver class, so I printed two sets of the puzzles. I printed everything on colored cardstock so it was easy to match pieces to the correct puzzle. Since I was doing two full sets, I printed the matching verse on a similar, but different color of paper. (Light blue and dark blue, etc.) If we only had two kids show up, the teacher could easy see which puzzles were duplicates. (If you don’t have a library of colored cardstock at your fingertips, you could number the the puzzles and write the number on each piece.)
Where I went wrong
In concern of making the puzzles too easy, I overcompensated. I heard both that the puzzles were fine and the parents enjoyed them, and that the puzzles were way too hard, and the parents hated them! (Okay, love the parent-involvement, but if the parents are doing the puzzles, then they are too hard!) I cut one set in triangles – these were the hard ones. The other set I cut in rectangles – these were considered to be fine. (I think the number of triangle puzzles in the group affected the opinion of the difficulty level.) I cut my puzzles into 12-14 pieces. Next time, I’ll cut them in a maximum of nine pieces.
Game: Thankful Catch
This simple game does not fulfill any requirements and is completely optional, but if you have time to fit it in, it will give the kids some movement and will help prepare them for the I’m Thankful Craft. Grab a beach ball, Koosh ball, nerf ball – whatever you have that you can throw around inside. Say something you are thankful for and toss the ball to someone else to share what they are thankful for. Find the big things, but also the little things to be thankful for.
Craft: I’m Thankful For..
Fulfills Requirement # 4
Draw ten people and/or things you are thankful for. There is a page in the free printable pack below for this craft. There are ten small hexagons to add a simple small doodle to. Some of the things our kids are thankful for will be big things – like their family, but if they get stuck on their way to ten, encourage them to the think about the “little things” too. Are you thankful the sun rose this morning? Yeah, me too.
Story: Thankful
Thankful by Elaine Vickers is the perfect book for this award! The main character lists things she is thankful for – big things, little things, big things we often overlook, so so many things to be thankful for. Although this book is a delightful way to end your meeting, it would also be ideally placed right before the I’m Thankful For.. craft. This will help get kids thinking about all the things they are thankful for. The art style of Samantha Cotterill is a little different and delightful. This is a newer book that might be at your local library.
More Book Ideas
The Thankful Book by Todd Parr is a very brightly colored book full of all sorts of things kids (and the rest of us) are thankful for. The text-to-picture ratio and length of book make it ideal for the Eager Beaver audience. The Thankful Book will fit nicely with the Thankful Heart Award.
The World is Awake by Linsey Davis is a beautiful book. We get to walk through a beautiful day with our main characters, a girl and a boy, as they see all the blessings God has given them. It’s a lovely book perfect for the Eager Beaver age, and it would be a lovely addition to your meeting – especially if you do this award in the spring! However, it does not fit the award nearly as well as Thankful or The Thankful Book. I would consider this book a religious book and wouldn’t expect to find it in a public library, however, it was in my library. So, check your library!
Printables and Cut Files
What are you thankful for today? Please share with me in the comments!