Prayer is one of the most valuable gifts we have been given from our Heavenly Father. It is how we communicate with Him. It is also one of the first things we should learn as disciples of Jesus Christ. Prayer is something that can be taught at any age. This prayer object lesson and activity focuses on teaching children of all ages. “Recipe for a prayer” is a fun and interactive way for kids to learn what prayer is and why it’s important. Keep reading to learn how to teach this prayer object lesson for your nursery class, at home for FHE, as a primary activity or church youth activity, or in your homeschool curriculum.
While teaching nursery at church, one of the lessons is about prayer. Nursery is the first class our children go to as soon as they turn 18 months old. It is where we start introducing basic gospel topics to the children so they can start learning how to become like Jesus Christ. The lesson focuses on teaching children that they can pray to Heavenly Father and how to pray. There are 4 specific steps on how to pray:
The best way to learn, especially as a child, is through something that is visual or interactive. So with every lesson, we try to turn it into an object lesson or activity. Seeing the steps made us think of a recipe with the different ingredients. When put together, in order, it creates something delicious. And that’s how “Recipe for a Prayer” was created.
It’s quite simple, think of a recipe that has 4 ingredients and doesn’t include cooking. A favorite in our household is dirt cups and that’s what we’ve done for nursery, as well as a primary activity, and at home as an FHE (family home evening) lesson. A few other great recipe suggestions could be:
You can pretty much pick anything that requires 4 ingredients. Each ingredient will be labeled with each step of prayer.
Once you have everything ready, you begin the lesson discussing prayer and all the steps, in order. If you want the full “Recipe for a Prayer” object lesson plan with a detailed list of supplies needed, step by step instructions, including questions to ask, and extra subjects to discuss about prayer; you can purchase the Prayer Object Lesson from our Etsy shop. It includes 14 pdf pages with the lesson plan, labels for each step and an extra prayer pillowcase activity that the kids really enjoy.
The prayer object lesson was the perfect amount of time for our nursery aged kids (18 months to 3 years old). Even our youngest one at 18 months loved helping stir the mixture. It was so cute. When we did this activity with the primary kids (ages 7-11) as a primary youth activity, we needed to fill a little more time so we added the next activity: prayer pillowcases.
The kids loved that we had heat iron on transfers in different logos and prints with the word “PRAY.” You can do the activity with just some fabric markers and white pillowcases but I will say that the heat transfers were a huge hit. We used the Avery Printable Heat Transfer Paper because of how well it washes. There are 13 different “PRAY” transfers we created (available in the Prayer Object Lesson):
All in all, this was such a great lesson about prayer that not only did the kids learn a lot, but they enjoyed every minute of it.
Hope this is helpful to you in planning ideas for your homeschool curriculum, FHE, primary activities, youth activities or even Sunday school lessons.
Much aloha,
Niki + Stacey
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