This is a simple lesson plan I’ve written for our kids church on Mother’s Day. My target length is about 20 minutes during the children’s church service. It can also be used for a Mother’s Day Sunday school lesson. I’ll list additional resources at the end of the lesson plan.
Learning Objectives / Indicators: After this lesson, children will . . .
- Demonstrate an understanding of what it means to honor their mother, by choosing from potential responses the ones that will most honor their mother.
- Demonstrate an attitude of appreciation toward their mother by writing a “what I like about you” letter.
Key Points:
- Parents are gifts from God to help kids.
- God expects us to have right attitudes and actions toward our parents.
- We should be thankful for our parents.
- Even parents need Jesus to forgive them, we must love parents even when they are not perfect.
Target Age Group: 5 – 10 years old {U.S. Kindergarten – 3rd Grade}
Bible Story: Ephesians 6:1-3 ESV Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. (2) “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), (3) “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”
Teaching Setting: This lesson was first taught in our children’s church on Sunday morning to about 25 children. Before the lesson, the children participated in several songs and group Bible memory exercises. Target length of this lesson is 20 minutes.
Items Needed:
- Print out this lesson plan.
Print - Special parchment or premium paper cut in half sheets. (Regular paper will do in a pinch.) Pencils, crayons or markers
- Optional: Polaroid film and camera, or digital camera with the ability to print immediately.
- Display of Ephesians 6:1-3, this can be on a poster, marker board, or PowerPoint. If possible, have it on a format where you can underline the action verbs while discussing the passage. See “Review Action Words” below.
New! We just posted some original Mother’s Day Coloring Pages in an easy to print format. These are perfect for kids to color in for their moms this weekend. They include a simple prayer, “God, I am thankful for Mommy!”
Explanation: This lesson is designed to be used in Children’s Church or Sunday School on mother’s day. It has two learning objectives. First, I wanted the kids to understand what it really means to honor their mothers. Second, I wanted to help them develop an attitude of appreciation for their mothers.
Special care should be taken for children who do not have mothers in their life. In such cases, be sure to emphasize these truth apply to any parent or guardian that God has put in the child’s life.
Related Resource Links: Here are links to other websites that feature free lessons plans and learning activities realated to Mother’s Day: Bible Verses About Mothers | Craft Projects fror Mother’s Day | Preschool Mother’s Day Songs| Mother’s Day on MSS Crafts| Kid’s Sunday School Place | DLTK Mother’s Day | Mother’s Day events | Sunday School Ideas for Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day Sunday School Lesson
Teaching Plan: Honor Your Mother
(a special children’s church lesson for mother’s day)
Introduction / Hook: Ask the children to close their eyes and try to picture the person you describe. Say, “Think of a woman in your life that has spent more time helping you than any other person.” Allow several volunteers to answer. If needed, ask follow up questions to help them see that their mom is a very important person in their life.
Say, “Today, we are going to learn what kind of attitude God wants us to have toward our parents. This is true for moms and dads, or foster parents, or grandparents who take care of you. But we are going to talk a lot about moms today because it is mother’s day.”
Active Listening: Say, “In just a minute we are going to read a Bible verse that teaches us how God wants us to treat our parents. While we read it, I want you to listen for any action words (verbs) that you hear. Then we’ll review to see how many you could find.”
Bible Passage: Display Ephesians 6:1-3 or have the children look it up in their Bibles. Read the Bible verses to the class; be sure to emphasize the action words discussed below. Then read it a second time to give the children a “second chance” to hear the action words.
Say It: Ask the children to repeat the Bible verse after you several times.
Review Action Words: Ask volunteers to explain which action words they heard in the passage. For each response, ask the children to explain what the word means. They may need help from the class. After each word, clarify what the word means. Here are the words they should have heard, with meaning in italics.
- Obey – Doing what a person wants you to do
- Honor – Heart attitude about a person’s importance
- Go well – Living a good life
- Live (NIV says “enjoy long life”) – Staying alive a long time
{Objective #1} Is This Honoring Your Mother? Say, “Honoring means having a right attitude about someone and showing their importance in how you act.” Read the following statements, and have the children agree or disagree. If the statement is something that honors your mother, the children should stand up. If the statement is not honoring, the children should sit with arms crossed.
- Doing what mom says right away {True}
- Throwing a fit if you don’t get what you want {False}
- Eating your dinner with thankfulness {True}
- Complaining about what mom cooked for dinner {False}
- Telling your mom that you love her {True}
- Praying for your mom {True}
- Telling other people your mom is not nice {False}
{Objective #2} What I like about you . . . Have the children write and decorate a letter to their mother (or caretaker) that answers this question. If you have many younger children present, they will need help writing. Encourage them to draw a picture that goes along with what they like. It may be helpful to write common words or phrases on a marker board to help the children write their letters. Some possible examples:
- I like the way you read to me
- I like the way you help me when I’m hurt
- I like it when you pray for me at bedtime
- I like it when you hug me
- I like it when you take me shopping
Share It: Ask for several volunteers to share what they wrote to their mother.
Optional: You can add a picture of the child to the card using a Polaroid camera or digital camera.
Optional: Show the Ruth Story video clip from Jelly Telly and talk about how it relates to mothers.
Closing: Lead the children in prayer …
Improve This Lesson: If you notice any typing errors, or think of a way to improve this lesson plan – please leave a comment below. Your help is important and makes this website more useful for everyone.
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Thank you for those useful ideas. If Sunday School is held at the same time as Church, the children could also give their Mom’s a white flower to wear.
Used this lesson yesterday and it worked well. I teach 5th grade girls. One thing we changed, at the girls suggestion was, in Objective I instead of the suggested motion the girls remained seated and gave a thumbs up or thumbs down. Small suggestion but it worked better. We also added more situations to the listed ones. We made Mother’s Day bookmarks, a craft from Oriental Trading. We were going to use color sheet but ran out of time. We were going to color the sheet, glue it on construction paper and write the things they like about their Mother on the back.
I appreciate your ministry so much.
thanks for this lesson i really think the children will enjoy this i teach kids K-6th grade
This is a great lesson for me to use. I have such a small class, and it combines well with making something for Mother’s Day. I am going to use this one this year, and we are making flowers for our Moms and Grandmoms to give as a token this year. We made the flowers last year and they were a big hit with the kids.
Thanks for all the great ideas and colouring pages, my kids in class love them and we have used them to add some colour to our church basement where we all gather after services.
Thank you very much! Your website is my go-to resource for our small sunday school (no more than 10 kids Gr 1-5). Thanks again for sharing. God bless you!
I’m going to use bits and pieces of this lesson plan in conjunction with other things and ideas, but I just wanted to say that I thought the “What I like about you..” letter is brilliant, its not just a craft where the kids stick a few things on and say aren’t “I wonderful for making this” when they hand it over but its meaningful!
Perfect for this Sunday – thank you. I wish for God’s blessings to you in return for sharing your ministry with us other Sunday School teachers. Happy Mother’s Day to you!
Thank you for allowing the Lord to use you as a vessel we all can learn from. You do it with love and glory to God. As a Sunday school teacher without much experience, I thank God everyday for you. Please continue to be used by the Holy Spirit and giving to others what you have received. God Bless you and your family.
Thank you very much. I enjoyed this. I will use the color page.
I am looking forward to presenting this lesson next Sunday for Mothers Day, with my class of 9/10 year old children. They are so eager to learn and having specific scriptures to use with “doing words” will add so much. Thank you for sharing your wonderful ideas.
wow, this is so great, i was trying to get some lessons about belonging to a family, but some how, this has given me some great ideas.
Thank you for this lesson. I am filling in as substitute for a Bible Class teacher this week and wanted to do something with the children ages 7-10 and this lesson is just what I was looking for.
This is a blessings to me. Thank you very much for your help in preparing these lesson. My group is age 7–10. It is a mixture in this group, I have kids that are fostered, adopted grand-mothers, the lesson fits in all areas. The quiet ones are now asking questions, those that normally misbehave are quiet. m glad they are having the experience of listening to the words more intently. God bless your ministry, may you continue to help those that need help and guidance in the words.
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