First Pres Kids met in person this week. We opened our theme of RESILIENCE with a bounce demonstration. We learned that there are 2 factors that affect a ball's bounce - force and elasticity. We then took a look at objects with and without elasticity. We discovered that objects with elasticity easily return to their original shape when force against them is removed while items without elasticity risk being damaged, sometimes beyond repair. We learned that God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us be resilient in life. We will all inevitably hit hard spots in life but we were made to bounce back too! We made flying verse helicopters and learned that the Holy Spirit is sort of like the invisible force keeping the helicopter in the air. We can't see it but it's there giving us strength. We drew pictures of places we went this week and talked about who we were with. We noticed that there wasn't one person who was with us in every single place we went. In fact, there may also have been times when we felt alone but the truth is we have the Holy Spirit. God is always with us everywhere we go! 

In Sunday School, we continued our theme of RESILIENCE with Peter and John's story. Peter and John faced a huge problem - they were arrested for spreading the word of Jesus. They could have given up but they kept going. Because of them, a man was healed. Because of people like them, we know about Jesus today. We talked about how we all face our own challenging situations in life - school, family, sports, friendships, etc. Sometimes we go through things we just don't understand and it's hard to trust God. We were reminded that the most important thing is to keep going even when it gets tough. We can start each day choosing to be resilient. We listened to a positive morning song by Dwayne Reed. We also examined an important lesson in one of my favorite children's books - Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes. Pete starts out on his journey singing about his new white shoes but steps in a whole bunch of messes along the way. When faced with these apparent disasters, Pete keeps singing but shifting his song. The end of the story reads, "The moral of Pete's story is no matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song because it's all good." We finished by celebrating Mother's Day with a special poem prompt.

In Sunday School, we focused on the importance of choosing joy even when life throws us curveballs. We started with a game. Several emoji jars were set up and the object of the game was to try to bounce the ball into the jar with the joy emoji. Landing in joy was a combination of strategy and luck in this game but we learned that in life joy is always a choice. Next, we painted with bouncy balls and learned that our masterpieces were all unique because of the color and movement choices we made. Finally, we worked on rubber band balls. The children were encouraged to continue them at home. Each time they add a rubber band, they could think about how when we add joy to our lives, we increase our ability to bounce back just as adding rubber bands increases the ball's ability to bounce.