Lesson 16: 4th of July

I know it's a little late to be posting a lesson about 4th of July, but I got a little behind with my lessons!  We got back from our beach trip two days ago (which was wonderful, btw!!!) and came home to no internet (!) due to a really bad storm.  So, I wish I could have posted this yesterday, but instead here it is today!  It's a very brief lesson about 4th of July, which connects the holiday with God's blessings in our life.

1.  Verse - no new verse today, but try to work in reviewing previous verses in today's lesson.  We did it at the end while we were doing the stickers on the craft.

2.  Lesson -

•  4th of July is the day we celebrate our country's birthday.  It's the day it became a country.
• Our country is where we live and it's called the United States of America, or the U.S.A, or sometimes we call it America.
• At this point, I showed Jenna a world map in an atlas that we had.
• This is a wonderful country to live in because we are free to worship God.
• The men who made our country made it a place where everybody could worship however they want to.
• We are Christians because we worship God and Jesus.
• In some countries, Christians aren't allowed to go to church, read their Bibles, or talk about God.  If they do, they get in trouble with the police.
• But in our country, the U.S.A, we are allowed to go to church, read our Bibles, and talk about God.  
• So, when we celebrate the 4th of July, we do fun stuff like go to cookouts, where flag shirts, play with our friends, and watch fireworks, BUT we also praise God and thank Him for our country.
• We remember to thank Him for letting us live in a wonderful country where we are free to go to church, read our Bibles, and talk about God.
• Pray with your child:  "Dear God, Thank you for letting us live in a country where we are free to worship you.  It is a special blessing.  Amen."

3.  Craft -  Flag craft.
Start with a full piece of white construction paper, seven red strips the length of the page (for stripes), a blue rectangle cut from construction paper, star stickers, and a glue stick.  (All we had was gold stars, so we just used those!)

  Let your child do the gluing...starting with the stripes.

Then, glue the blue rectangle in place and put the star stickers on!  (I counted out fifty stars, but that's not necessary to get the idea!)  At the end, I wrote "Thank you, God, for our country!" on the bottom stripe so later she can remember the connection to the lesson.
Finished craft:

4. Song - "My Country Tis of Thee."  This isn't a Bible song, but Jenna had learned it in a previous Bible class, so we decided to sing it with this lesson!  We also followed it up with "Deep and Wide." just for fun!

5.  End by reviewing the previous Bible verses.