DAY 5, GELLY CRYSTALS

Today's Thought:
Jesus gives us the power to tell others about God! Aha!
Story: Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost
Verse: Go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone

Today we made a cool bottle filled with different colors of super-absorbent hydrogel crystals. This is the stuff you can buy at the gardening store, but we put food coloring in it to make it more fun. The hydrogel crystals are non-toxic and considered safe for kids. (In fact ... this is similar to the stuff you would find if you split open a clean baby diaper.) We did warn the children repeatedly to NOT eat it the gelly crystals of course. And just to be on the safe side, we super-glued the bottle caps onto the project so hopefully they can't get their hands back in there. But just to reassure everyone, these really are non-toxic, and even considered environmentally beneficial. Still -- parents --- if you still have safety concerns please CLICK HERE.

For the craft, we layered 4 colors of the gelly crystals into a water bottle, and then tied on a little "reminder" card to help them remember what the colors stand for. See below for the text on the card:

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Sin separates us from God. Sin means to do something wrong. We all sin, that’s why God sent Jesus to the earth – to help us with our sin problem. Jesus was the only one who never sinned because He was God's son.

RED = BLOOD: Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins.

WHITE = CLEAN: If we ask him to, Jesus will forgive our sins and wash our hearts clean -- white as snow!

GREEN = GROW: We grow in our friendship with Jesus by reading the Bible, talking to God (prayer), and going to a church where the Bible is taught.

BLUE = HEAVEN: (think of blue skies...blue ....) If we follow Jesus on earth, we will follow Him all the way to Heaven! We all live eternally somewhere. In this short life on earth, God gives us a chance to choose.

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If you would like to order some of the DRY hydrogel crystals, you can CLICK HERE to order. We mixed them in portions of about 1 tsp. of dry crystals to a big 10 oz. cup of water with food coloring in it. These crystals are amazing! -- they will absorb 150-300 times their weight in water -- one pound of the dry crystals can absorb up to 35 gallons of water!

Most of the kids loved the gelly crystals (especially the BOYZZZZ) because they felt cold and squishy. This was a fun craft! It is our prayer they will use this water bottle as a witnessing tool, to tell their friends about Jesus.