Valentines Day

Instead of using the same old tongue depressor choosing sticks to pick helpers, I threw this together last night in the spirit of Valentine's Day.  I got a Cricut Machine for my birthday, so I used it to cut hearts out of valentine scrapbook paper.  Then I hot-glued a sucker stick on it, and wrote the kids' names on the back.
I cut out some white hearts to decorate the 35-cent bucket and added ribbons for a little flair. 

It worked out great!  I drew the names from the bucket, then hung them on the tree.  That way I wouldn't choose the same kids over and over.  The names from Senior and Junior Primaries were separated by placing them in zip-lock bags. 

I figure I can change these out for all different seasons.

By the way, teaching "He Sent His Son" using the outline I posted last, was very effective.  I used a lot of kids to help me pull stuff out of the bag, and hold the objects up when we sang about them.  I like to use the kids as much as possible, as they pay more attention and seem to have more fun that way. 

One little guy raised his hand and asked if we could learn sign language for this new song, too!  CUTE!