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Solomon: Making God Happy Until He Didn't

Unit 11 / Lesson 4

Solomon: Making God Happy Until He Didn't

Slides for the Lesson

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • Blind Man's Bluff with a Pool Noodle

      • Materials:

        • A pool noodle

        • Blindfolds (disposable COVID masks make great blindfolds when they are worn over the eyes)

    • Noodle Pickup

      • Watch this YouTube video for the concept of the game:

      • Materials:

        • Spaghetti

        • Penne

        • Trays for the penne

        • Bowls -- one bowl per group of four.

      • Note: Use gluten free pasta if there are some in the class with a gluten allergy/intolerance

    • Simon Says

      • There is a script for the game provided in the lesson. If desired, practice some of the actions for a smooth presentation.

  • Main Activity: Piñata Breaking and Making

    • In this lesson plan, the children will be breaking a piñata and then helping to make a different piñata. If you don’t want to make a piñata for the second half of the main activity, you may prefer to teach some memory verses in exchange for candy.

    • Breaking the Piñata:

      • Buy one or two piñatas, filling each one with some treats

        • Alternatively, you can make your own piñata. See further in this lesson plan for the video, "How to make the easiest piñata, by DIY with Tina"

      • Kids Hitting Piñata at Birthday Party (HD), by DaDiscoveries

      • The children will take turns hitting the piñata with a stick until it breaks, where the candy that is inside will spill out.

      • You will need a way to elevate the piñata. You can tie it to a fixture on the ceiling, or you can suspend it off a long pole or a rope.

    • Making a Piñata

      • Watch this video for the concept:

      • For the concept of this craft:

        • The teacher will prepare the structure of the piñata. This will involve obtaining a cardboard box, removing the flaps, taping the sides, and preparing a loop of string so that the piñata can be suspended. Preparation will also involve putting candy or treats into the box.

        • The children will decorate the box by cutting streamers into frills and putting them onto the box.

        • Once the second piñata is completed, they will break it just as they broke the first piñata.

      • Materials:

        • Wrapped candies to stuff two or more piñatas

        • At least one store-bought piñata or a ready-made piñata

        • At least one cardboard box in addition to the ready-made piñata

        • Tape for the cardboard box

        • Tape to attach decorations to the box

        • Streamers

        • Scissors

        • String to hang up the piñata

        • A stick or bat


    Intro 

    SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

    SLIDE 2

  • Intro Game: Blind Man's Bluff with a Pool Noodle

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with a game of Blind Man's Bluff! It's a bit like “tag,” but the person who is "it" is blindfolded, and they get a pool noodle to tag everyone with.

      • If you're "it" we'll blindfold you, and you can try to tag someone with the pool noodle. Once you tag someone, they will be “it” and will be blindfolded, and they will try to tag someone else.

      • Teacher: play for a while until several children have had a chance to be “it.”

    • Debrief

      • Teacher: gather all the children back to the teaching area

      • In the game of Blind Man's Bluff, we all have to guess what to do next. Whether you're the blind man or the person running away, you don't really know what is the best way to do things.

      • The game would be so much easier if you just knew what to do all the time!

  • Relevance

    • Sometimes that's what the Christian life feels like. We are supposed to love God, but we can’t see Him. Sometimes it feels like all we can do is guess what He wants us to do. At times we might wonder, is God happy with us?

    • The Bible tells us a lot about God and about what makes Him happy. If we follow His instructions in the Bible, we can know that God is happy with us. If we know that God is happy with us, we’ll have an easier time staying on track and living the greatest life that He wants us to live.

    SLIDE 3

  • Big Question

    • Our big question today is, how can we make God happy?

  • Big Idea

    • Our big idea for this lesson is, we can make God happy with SKILL and WILL.

      • SKILL means getting good at things, so that we can help people.

      • WILL means we need to decide to obey God and do things His way.

  • Bible Reference

    • We will see these ideas in the life of King Solomon.

    • We are studying the kings of Israel. A few lessons back, we had a lesson about a time when God was king.

    SLIDE 4

    • Then we learned about the first human king whose name was Saul. Then we learned about David, and now we are going to learn about David’s son Solomon.

    • Let's watch a cartoon about a time when Solomon was just starting off as a king and he didn't know how to do his job properly.

    SLIDE 5


    Point 1

  • Our first point is, we can make God happy with SKILL

    SLIDE 6

  • Game: Penne Noodle Pickup

    • Instructions

      • Teacher: set up trays of penne noodles and some bowls. Provide one tray for every four people, and one bowl for every two people. 

      • We'll start our time with a game! It's called the Penne Noodle Pickup. Let's watch how it works.

      • Teacher: Watch this YouTube video together:

      • Here are the rules: you'll all have a spaghetti noodle to put in your mouth, and your goal is to use it to pick up the other pasta and put it into a bowl. You'll do this as a team, so everyone around your bowl is one team. We'll do this for three minutes.

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it's hard and it takes skill. It's normal to be slow and to make a lot of mistakes, but we want to do our best because our whole team depends on us to do our job.

      • That’s how Solomon felt at the beginning of our story. Let’s read our Bible story.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 7

    • 1 Kings 3:5-11 (CEV)

      • 5 One night while Solomon was in Gibeon, the Lord God appeared to him in a dream and said, “Solomon, ask for anything you want, and I will give it to you.”

    SLIDE 8

    • 6 Solomon answered: My father David, your servant, was honest and did what you commanded. You were always loyal to him, and you gave him a son who is now king.

    SLIDE 9

    • 7 Lord God, I'm your servant, and you've made me king in my father's place. But I'm very young and know so little about being a leader. 8 And now I must rule your chosen people, even though there are too many of them to count.

    SLIDE 10

    • 9 Please make me wise and teach me the difference between right and wrong. Then I will know how to rule your people. If you don't, there is no way I could rule this great nation of yours.

    SLIDE 11

    • 10-11 God said: Solomon, I'm pleased that you asked for this. You could have asked to live a long time or to be rich. Or you could have asked for your enemies to be destroyed. Instead, you asked for wisdom to make right decisions. 

  • Explanation

    SLIDE 12

    • In our story, Solomon was a young man, and he had just started his job as the king of God's people. He wasn't very good at his job, but his entire country depended on him. That must have been stressful! God visited Solomon and promised to give him whatever he asked for. 

    SLIDE 13

    • What would you ask for, if God promised to give you whatever you asked for?

      • Teacher: pause to collect answers.

    SLIDE 14

    • Well, Solomon asked for wisdom. He wanted a very special kind of wisdom. He wanted the ability to understand things and make good decisions so that he would be able to do his job well, to help all of his people. He was asking for a skill, which is the ability to do good work.

    • God was happy that Solomon asked for skill, because he could have asked for a lot of selfish things. Solomon was asking for something that would help all of God's people. Not only did God give Solomon the skill that he asked for, He blessed Solomon with all the other things too. 

  • Application

    • Did you know, all of us are a bit like Solomon? All of us have a big job to do. The Bible tells us that God has prepared work for us to do. If we do our job well, we can help more people than we can count, and we will make a difference that lasts forever. But, we are all young, and we don't have a lot of skill yet.

    SLIDE 15

    • It's good to ask God for skill. That's one way to make Him happy. We can ask God for skills, and He will give us all kinds of chances to learn skills. This is why we go to school, where we learn all kinds of things and get better at them. It makes God happy when we get better at helping people.

    SLIDE 16

  • Discussion Question

    • What is something you'd really like to be able to do that would help other people?


    Point 2

  • Our second point is, we can make God happy with WILL. By WILL, we mean deciding to obey God and do things His way.

    SLIDE 17

  • Game: Simon Says

    • Instructions

      • We'll start our point with a game of Simon Says!

      • The rules are pretty simple-you just have to do whatever Simon says. If I don't say “Simon Says” before telling you to do an action, don’t do what I say. If you end up doing the action, you need to go to the side and sit out until the next round.

      • Teacher: you'll want to do all the actions along with them even if they are the wrong actions, to help fool them. If most of the children get eliminated, you can start again. Play as long as time and interest allow; you don't need to finish all the items, but you can skip to the end to save time.

      • Script:

        • Simon says point to your ears

        • **Now stomp your feet

        • If you stomped your feet, you would be out, because I didn't say Simon says! I'll be doing all the actions even if they're wrong, so this game is really tricky.

        • NOW FOR REAL

        • Simon says peel the potatoes

        • Simon says chop the onions

        • **Now put the onions in a sandwich

        • Simon says look angry

        • Simon says look happy

        • Simon says draw a star in the air

        • Simon says close your eyes and make a wish

        • Simon says put on some earrings

        • **Now vacuum the floor

        • Simon says hide behind someone else

        • Simon says go back to where you were before

        • Simon says crouch down really low

        • **Now let's all jump as high as we can!

        • Simon says jump as high as you can

        • Simon says hammer a nail into the ground

        • Simon says turn around 3 times

        • Simon says wash your hair in the shower

        • **Alright, let's all brush our hair.

        • Simon says look left and look right

        • Simon says swim in ocean

        • Simon says throw your fishing line in the lake

        • Simon says pretend to read a book

        • Simon says bite into your apple

        • **Let's all rub our tummy

        • Simon says play a tune on the piano

        • Simon says lick your ice-cream cone

        • Simon says sweep the floors

        • Simon says put your hands behind your back

        • Simon says flap your wings and fly like a butterfly

        • **Now reach for the sky!

        • Simon says pick apples from a tree

        • Simon says make a sandwich

        • Simon says pull your ears

        • **Now give yourself a big hug

        • Simon says give yourself a pat on the back

        • Simon says it's game over and good job everyone.

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it's about following instructions. We might have all kinds of skills and creative ideas, but sometimes we just need to follow the instructions. That's what Solomon had to do. Let's watch a cartoon about the end of Solomon's story. It's about what Solomon did after he got really good at everything.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 18

    SLIDE 19

    • 1 Kings 11:7-11 (CEV)

      • 7 Solomon built shrines on a hill east of Jerusalem to worship Chemosh the disgusting god of Moab, and Molech the disgusting god of Ammon. 8 In fact, he built a shrine for each of his foreign wives, so all of them could burn incense and offer sacrifices to their own gods. 9-10 The Lord God of Israel had appeared to Solomon two times and warned him not to worship foreign gods. But Solomon disobeyed and did it anyway. This made the Lord very angry, 11 and he said to Solomon: You did what you wanted and not what I told you to do. Now I'm going to take your kingdom from you and give it to one of your officials.

  • Explanation

    • The Bible tells us that Solomon got really good at everything, (continue)

    SLIDE 20

    • he became really rich and famous, and he even helped a lot of people. However, he stopped obeying God. He broke all kinds of rules that God had given to him, and ...

    SLIDE 21

    • he even made places to worship other gods. 

    • Those gods weren’t real, but some people said they were real. Two of those fake gods were really gross. Their names were Molech and Chemosh. Those gods wanted human sacrifices, so the people who worshiped Molech and Chemosh would kill other people for their worship services. The real God hated it when people worshiped those fake gods.

    SLIDE 22

    • God was very angry that Solomon had built places to worship those fake gods.

    • It didn't matter how smart Solomon was, or how good he was at everything. In the end, God was angry with Solomon, and God took Solomon's kingdom away.

  • Application

    • That's how it works with us. It's right to get good at what we do, and God is happy when we become skilled at helping people. But we need to obey God, or else our skill won’t count for anything. On the other hand, the best way to make God happy is to obey Him from our hearts.

    SLIDE 23

    • Let's read what God said later on in the Bible:

    • Jeremiah 29:23-24

      • If you feel you must brag, then have enough sense to brag about worshiping me, the Lord. What I like best is showing kindness, justice, and mercy to everyone on earth.

    • This verse tells us that God likes it when we show kindness and justice and mercy to everyone. That’s what it means to obey God, and that's how all of us can do better than Solomon, even though he was the smartest person in the world.

    SLIDE 24

  • Discussion Question

    • Let's pause for few discussion questions:

    • Teacher: define these terms as necessary

      • Do you have any ideas for how to show KINDNESS to people?

      • Do you have any ideas for how to show JUSTICE to people?

      • Do you have any ideas for how to show MERCY to people?


    Conclusion

  • Let’s wrap up our lesson by going over the big ideas again.

  • Our big question today was: How can we make God happy?

  • Our big idea for this lesson is, we can make God happy with SKILL and WILL.

  • SLIDE 25

  • We need skill, because God has given us a lot of important things to do. If we do our work well, we will be able to help a lot of people. Let's ask God for skill, and let's take every chance that He gives us to get better at everything we do.

  • SLIDE 26

  • We also need the WILL to obey God. That means staying away from things that He tells us not to do, and showing kindness, justice, and mercy to everyone.

  • If we can keep getting skills, and if we can keep using our will to obey God, we can always know that He is happy with us.

  • Even on our bad days when things are not going well, we can know that God is happy with us. Knowing that will help us to stay on track and live the greatest life.


    SLIDE 27

    Main Activity: Piñata Breaking and Making

  • Introduction to the Main Activity

    • Now it’s time for our main activity! Today we will break a piñata! Afterwards, we will make a different piñata! Then we will break the piñata that we make. Inside the piñatas we might even find some candy for us to share.

    • Now let's watch a video for a moment to see how a piñata works.

    • Teacher: play the first minute of this video:

  • Tie to the Lesson

    • Breaking a piñata actually helps us to understand our lesson a bit more, because it takes SKILL to break a piñata. Even more important than skill is the WILL to break the piñata. We need to try our best to break the piñata so that we can get the candy inside.

    • In the same way, if we want to make God happy, we should try to get SKILL, so that we can be good at helping people and WILL to do whatever God tells us to do.

  • Breaking a Piñata

    • Now let's break a piñata together!

    • Teacher: suspend a piñata, and have the students line up. Each one can hit the piñata twice before passing the stick on. Eventually, with enough hits, the piñata will fall to the ground, where it may need further hits to completely break apart so that the candy inside can be harvested. Once they are finished with the piñata, distribute the candy inside for them to enjoy. 

  • Making a Piñata

    • Now it's time to make our own piñata!

    • Let's watch a quick video on what we will do:

    • Teacher: show this YouTube video:

    • That is what we will make today! We already have the cardboard box with candy inside.

    • Teacher: show the children the basic piñata you have prepared, which is a cardboard box with flaps removed, a string attached, and candy inside.

    • Now we need to decorate it. Everyone is going to get a bunch of streamers, and we are going to cut them so that we can make little frills which we will attach to our piñata.

    • Once our piñata is finished we can break it, and maybe we can have a bit more candy.

    • Teacher: pass out scissors and streamers, and provide tape so that frills can be attached to the box. Once the box is fully decorated, hang it up and have them break it just like they broke the first piñata.


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