We learned about shepherds--how they dressed in Biblical times and what their job entails. The children knew that the shepherd protects the sheep from wild animals, but they thought it was funny that the shepherd can tell all of his sheep apart and that the sheep recognize the shepherd's voice. We talked about the Parable of the Lost Sheep. Several of the children knew this one already and were happy to share the details of the story. Then we went looking for all the lost sheep scattered around the classroom. Most of them had been found already, but the last few were well-hidden, and the very last one was really tricky! The children were excited and happy when they had found all the sheep. We compared this to how the shepherd felt when he found the one missing sheep.
We learned that Jesus is the Good Shepherd: he knows and loves each one of us, and we know that when we follow him we are safe. It was funny to think of ourselves as sheep! We also learned that Jesus wants us to help him feed his sheep and talked about how we can do that: we can show love and do kind things for each other. We had a lamb coloring page for each member of the class with his name on it. It was fun to guess whose sheep would be next in the pile, and nobody predicted that there would be two Sister Combs sheep! Everyone agreed, though, that even grown-ups need love and help.