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Making Great Choices

Unit 14 / Lesson 5

Making Great Choices

Slides for the Lesson

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • The Zoom Out Game

      • Review these two videos which will be played during the lesson:

      • Note: a large screen TV or projector is ideal for this game. In the absence of a large screen that everyone can see, a laptop might do for a small group, or maybe you can use several smartphones in the case that there are lots of helpers present and they can all start the video at the same time.

    • Captain's Coming

    • Pretzel Spelling

      • The concept of this game to bite miniature pretzels into letters so the words, "IF GOD COMMANDS", can be spelled

      • Materials:

        • A bag of small pretzels (about one inch wide). Each child should receive about 20 pretzels

        • Bowls to hold the pretzels -- one bowl for approximately four children

        • Tables -- one table per group of four

        • Napkins -- one per child

        • Hand sanitizer

  • Main Activity (Boomwhackers Music Play-Along):

    • Materials:

      • For each group of eight: a set of eight tuned percussion tubes under the Boomwhackers label. One set costs approximately $30.

      • It is possible to DIY your own tuned percussion tubes, but if cost is an issue, it might be best to choose a completely different activity.


    Intro

    SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

    SLIDE 2

  • Intro Game: The Zoom Out Game

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with a game! It's a picture guessing game on the TV. We'll be looking at a whole bunch of things that are zoomed in, and then it will slowly zoom out. As a class, let's try to guess the right answer as quickly as we can. The catch is, for every picture you can only guess once. If you guess wrong, you'll have to wait for someone else to get the right answer.

      • Teacher: show these videos:

    SLIDE 3

    SLIDE 4

    • Debrief

    SLIDE 5

    • We played this game because it's a bit like life. In life, sometimes it's hard to figure things out. It can be super hard if you're thinking all by yourself. But, if there are other people thinking with you, they can help you find the right answers.

    • And, sometimes in life it’s really important that we get the right answers.

  • Relevance

    SLIDE 6

    • For example, we all have important choices to make. We need to choose things like:

      • Who will be our friends?

      • How hard will we try to get along with people in our family? And,

      • Will we do what God wants even when we don't feel like it?

    • These are big choices that we all need to make, and we need to make those choices whether we’re ready or not. And the choices don't stop.

    • When we get into Junior High and High School, we need to make choices like:

    • What should we do when we get older? 

    • And, should we start a dating relationship, or stay single?

    • If you find the right answers and choose well, you can set yourself up for an amazing life.

  • Big Question

    • Our big question today is: How can we make great choices?

    SLIDE 7

  • Big Idea

    • Our big idea today is: we can make great choices with ADVICE. 

    • Our points today are, 

      • 1. We need to LISTEN to advice, and 

      • 2. We need to CHECK the advice.

    • That's what we'll learn in our Bible story.

  • Bible Reference

    • Now let's watch our Bible story, and then we'll read our verses today.

    SLIDE 8

    SLIDE 9

    • Now let's read from the Bible:

    • Exodus 18:17-18 (ICB). 

      • Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “You are not doing this right. You and the people who come to you will get too tired. This is too much work for you. You can’t do it by yourself.

    • Exodus 18:23 (ICB). 

      • 23 Do this if it is what God commands. Then you will be able to do your job. And all the people will go home with their disagreements solved.”


    Point 1

  • Our first point is:

    • We need to LISTEN to advice.

    SLIDE 10

  • Game: Captain's Coming

    • Instructions

      • Let's start this point with a game of Captain's Coming!

      • Sample Phrases

        • BOW: shipmates race to the front of the room

        • STERN: shipmates run to the back of the room

        • STARBOARD: shipmates run to the right of the room

        • PORT: shipmates run to the left of the room

        • CAPTAIN'S COMING: shipmates stand at attention, salute, and say, "Aye aye, Captain!"

        • SCRUB THE DECK: shipmates mime scrubbing on hands and knees or with a mop

        • CLIMB THE RIGGING: shipmates pretend to climb a rope ladder

        • MAN THE LIFEBOAT: shipmates find a partner and hold both hands together

        • SHARK ATTACK: shipmates lie on their backs with their feet up

        • FREEZE: shipmates stop all actions and can't continue until the captain says, "Unfreeze"

    • Debrief

      • We played this game because it’s about listening to someone else. And that's what Moses had to do in our Bible story.

  • Explanation and Bible Reference

    SLIDE 11

    • Moses was a really busy guy. Everyone went to him with their problems.

    SLIDE 12

    • They'd say, "this person took my spot. That person stole my stuff. Someone in my family is being really mean to me." People would line up to see Moses every day, because he was their leader and he could tell people what to do. He spent the whole day listening to people's problems, and it was no fun for anyone.

    • Well, Moses had a father-in-law. His father-in-law was his wife’s dad. Moses’ wife’s dad went to visit him one day, and he watched Moses work. He figured out the problem that was causing Moses so much trouble. Let's read his advice again from the Bible.

    SLIDE 13

    • Exodus 18:17-18 (International Children's Bible)

      • Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “You are not doing this right. You and the people who come to you will get too tired. This is too much work for you. You can’t do it by yourself.

    • Now think for a moment: how do you feel when someone says, "you're not doing this right?" Sometimes it feels annoying, right? And, Moses could have argued back.

    • Moses could have said, "nobody knows God like me, and nobody knows these people like me." That would have been true. Moses was the expert, and he was really good at everything he did. But Moses was willing to listen to someone who knew less than himself, and as a result he got some great advice.

  • Application

    SLIDE 14

    • This story is in the Bible to encourage us to be good listeners like Moses. We should listen to people even when we don't feel like it. We should even listen to people who don't agree with us, and we should listen to people who know less than us. You don't always have to do what they say, and you don’t have to agree with them in the end. But, if you listen, you’ll notice that other people can see things that you don’t see, and you can respect them for talking to you because they are doing their best for you. Often they can really help you if you take the time to listen.

  • Discussion Question

    SLIDE 15

    • Now let's form groups of 3 or 4 and discuss for a moment.

    • The question is:

      • Do you have a favorite piece of advice that you keep remembering? Perhaps it’s something your parents said, or maybe a teacher or a coach or an older sibling?

    • Teacher: you may want to use this time to set up for the pretzel spelling game below, which requires tables and bowls of pretzels, and ideally some napkins and hand sanitizer.


    Point 2

  • Our second point is, We need to CHECK the advice.

    SLIDE 16

  • Game: Pretzel Spelling

    • Instructions

      • Let's start this point with a game. We will be spelling with pretzels!

      • In a moment, you'll all get a bunch of pretzels and some space on a table, and you'll get a chance to chew your pretzels into letters!

      • We want to use your letters to spell some words, and the words are: IF GOD COMMANDS.

      • Teacher: to help kids who have trouble spelling: write "IF GOD COMMANDS" on a whiteboard, or perhaps on a sheet of paper.

    • Debrief

    SLIDE 17

    • We played this game because it makes us slow down to get a few words right. And, that’s what we need to do when people give us advice. We need to slow down before we do what people tell us to do. People’s advice can change your life, but there's a lot of bad advice out there. There's usually time to check if God commands it. When people give you advice, you can check if that's the kind of thing that God wants you to do.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 18

    • In our Bible story, Moses' father-in-law told Moses to check his advice with God. Let’s read what the father in law said:

      • Exodus 18:23 (ICB)

        • 23 Do this if it is what God commands. Then you will be able to do your job. And all the people will go home with their disagreements solved.”

  • Explanation

    • The father-in-law was saying Moses needed to follow the advice IF that was what God wanted. IF God commands.

  • Application

    • The question is, how do we know what God commands? After all, the Bible is so big. Do we need to read the whole Bible before we know what God wants?

    • Fortunately we don't need to know the whole Bible right away. That’s because the Bible has patterns in it.

    • The Bible tells us over and over again what is important, and it tells us lots of stories to help us learn a few really important lessons.

    SLIDE 19

    • If you’ve been to church for more than a couple of years, you've all already heard of what God wants:

      • God wants us to love Him and love the people around us.

      • God wants us to try to get the kind of happiness that lasts forever.

      • God wants us to work with Him to do things that make a difference forever.

    • Most of you already know the big ideas, and you already know enough to check if God commands the kinds of things that people are telling you to do.

    • So, for now, just use the parts of the Bible you know already, and keep learning more, and you’ll be able to check if God likes the advice that people are giving you.

    SLIDE 20

  • Discussion Question

    • Let's pause for a discussion question:

      • How would you know if someone gave you the wrong advice?


    SLIDE 21

    Conclusion

  • Now to conclude let's go over our big ideas again.

  • Our big question today was:

    • How can we make great choices?

  • Our Bible story shows us two things to remember:

    • 1. We need to LISTEN to advice, and 

    • 2. We need to CHECK the advice.

    SLIDE 22

  • We learned that we need to listen even when we don't feel like it. But, we also need to check the advice to see if it's really a good idea. And, if we do that, we can make great choices, and we can get places and help a lot of people.


    SLIDE 23

    Main Activity (Boomwhackers Music Play-Along)

  • Today we will be playing musical tubes! Let's watch a video of people playing those tubes:

  • Teacher: play the first minute of this YouTube video:

  • Today we're going to do a bit of that. We're all going to get one tube, and we'll follow some directions on the screen. It will almost be like a video game.

  • Before I pass you the tubes, I want to point out, this activity reminds us a bit about our lesson.

  • Our lesson is about listening well. We all need to listen to the people around us and listen to the instructions on the screen. But as we play we can also check if the music actually sounds right. In other words, we can check the advice that people give us.

  • Now we'll pass everyone a tube.

  • Every tube is different. The point is, when we play a song, we're going to look for our letter and our color on the TV screen, and we only play when it's our letter and our color, and if we can all do that, we'll make great music together.

  • Teacher: pass out tubes. Note: the red tubes (for "C") are the easiest, so you can give them to the youngest ones.

  • Teacher: lead the children through some of these songs below:

 

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