Helping kids learn that prayer is a conversation.

I don’t pray three times a day. I don’t pray five times a day. I don’t pray twenty times a day. I pray constantly…it is never ending. My life is one colossal conversation with God. Yes, even in my sleep we are conversing. My time with God is life giving and therefore it is vital to me that my kids know that prayer is a conversation, prayer is about listening, prayer is about asking for help, and lifting up others.

Recently, I noticed when we were doing our nightly prayer time and I would ask my son who he wanted to pray for he was listing the same handful of people. I wanted to encourage him to think outside of that box. I saw these cute people popsicle sticks at Michaels and I thought we can do something with these.

I dumped all the sticks out on our craft table and with a sharpie in hand I asked my son to tell me the names of his friends, the names of his teachers, grandparents, and even the names of people who aren’t nice to him. It was a special moment between us to be able to talk about what all these people meant in his life. I then let the kids paint the sticks. My four year old was very intentional about his painting. He picked specific colors for each person. My daughter’s sticks are mostly pink and purple…the favorite colors of most 2 year old little girls. 

Once the sticks were dry we placed my son’s people in a blue bucket and my daughter’s in a pink bucket. That night during our Bible reading and prayer time we grabbed our buckets. I asked the kids to randomly pick 5 sticks from their buckets and let them know we were going to pray for those people. To my surprise my son wanted to pray for all the people. There are 36 people represented between their buckets. So we did! He laid them all out and prayed for each little friend, teacher, grandparent, and more. It made our parent hearts so happy.

I love the conversation that this prayer pail created between our family and God!

Supplies:

1. People craft sticks or paper dolls

2. Black Permanent Marker

3. Paints or markers

4. Pail or bucket

Directions:

1. Write names on sticks

2. Decorate sticks

3. Place in the designated prayer pail

4. Pray with your kids over their friends and family