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Unit 14 / Lesson 8
Entertainment
Teacher's Prep
Games
Speed Eraser
For the concept of the game, watch this video:
Minute to Win It: Speed Eraser (Head-to-Head)
We will modify the game for our lesson:
Instead of having single cups in a line, we will have a 3 x 3 grid of cups, so that pencils have more places to land.
And, instead of having one person bounce pencils into the cups at a time, we will have three people per team bouncing pencils into the cups at a time. So, you can imagine three children on different sides of a table, and between them, the goal is to bounce a pencil into all nine cups in the 3 x 3 grid that you make.
Materials:
About 40 pencils (20 per team) with rubber erasers on one end, ideally unsharpened.
18 drinking cups (9 per team). Cups should ideally have some weight to them, e.g. ceramic cups, so that the cups will be harder to knock over.
Teacher: before the lesson, please prepare two tables for the game. Each table should have a 3 x 3 grid of 9 cups, and about twenty pencils on it.
Not In My Backyard
Materials:
Four sheets of paper per child. So, a class of 25 children should have about 100 pieces of paper in total.
Split the paper into two even piles, one per team. These will be made into paper snowballs to be thrown back and forth.
You will need several chairs to form a fence to divide the room. The chairs do not need to form a tight wall; they just need to divide the room clearly.
Stacking Cereal
Materials:
One table per group of four
Hand sanitizer (to use before touching food)
One bowl per group of four
A box of Cheerios, Froot Loops, Shreddies, or other cereal that is easily stacked (if you play this game often, you may want to switch up the cereal type to keep the game fresh)
A friendly reminder: please be aware of any dietary restrictions among your children.
Movie Night (Main Activity):
Materials (optional): snacks, such as popcorn and drinks
Note: it is normally illegal to play a regular movie in a classroom setting. However, there are legal alternatives:
You can search Youtube for the "VeggieTales Official" channel, and select a full-length VeggieTales film.
You can make a trial account on Rightnow Media and search the selection of Christian videos for children. You may be interested in The Adventures of Ryan Defrates, season 1, episode 1.
There are other shows, such as 3-2-1 Penguins and Superbook, which can be watched for free on YouTube.
Intro
SLIDE 1
Gathering
How was your week?
Intro Game: Speed Eraser
Instructions
Let's start our lesson with a game! It's called Speed Eraser!
Let's watch a video to see what it's like.
SLIDE 2
Teacher: play this video:
Minute to Win It: Speed Eraser (Head-to-Head)
SLIDE 3
The point of the game is for your team to bounce a pencil into every cup!
So, now we will split into two teams.
And to make it easier, each team will send THREE people at a time to bounce the pencils.
We'll all start at the same time, and when all your cups have a pencil, you win the round! And then, after your round, your team can send out another three people and we'll play again until everyone has had a turn.
Debrief
Teacher: praise the children for their efforts.
We played this game because it's fun! And, it gets us thinking about the things we do for fun.
Relevance
There's a big word that describes the things we do for fun. The word is, “entertainment.” Entertainment is stuff we do for fun, like playing games or playing sports or watching TV.
SLIDE 4
We all like to have fun, but there's a right way to have fun and a wrong way. If we use entertainment the wrong way, we can waste a lot of time and get into trouble because we don't have time for the more important things. But, if we have fun the right way, our entertainment can be a really good thing for everyone.
SLIDE 5
Big Question
Our big question today is: what is the best way to use entertainment?
Big Idea
Our big idea today is that entertainment is a good TOOL, but a bad GOAL.
It's a good tool when we use it to get something better, but it's a bad goal when all we want is more entertainment.
Bible Reference
Let's read our Bible verses today.
SLIDE 6
Mark 6:31 (ICB)
Crowds of people were coming and going. Jesus and his followers did not even have time to eat. He said to them, “Come with me. We will go to a quiet place to be alone. There we will get some rest.”
SLIDE 7
Matthew 6:19 (ICB)
19 “Don’t store treasures for yourselves here on earth. Moths and rust will destroy treasures here on earth. And thieves can break into your house and steal the things you have.
Point 1
The first thing we learn from these Bible verses is that:
Entertainment is a good TOOL
SLIDE 8
Game: Not In My Backyard
Instructions
Teacher: make a "fence" out of chairs to cut the room in half. On each side of the room, make a pile of paper which teams can use to make into paper snowballs.
We'll start this point with a game! We'll call it, "Not in My Backyard." We're going to form two teams, and each team will stay on one side of the room. We'll split this room into two halves, divided by a fence made of chairs.
Each team will have a stack of paper, which you can scrunch into balls to throw.
Your goal will be to get as much paper as you can on the other side of the fence by throwing it over the fence. And, you want as little paper as possible on your side of the fence. You can't cross the fence, but you can throw the paper over the fence.
After two minutes, we'll see which team has less paper on their side!
But first, let’s take a minute to scrunch all those sheets of paper into a ball. The tighter the ball, the farther it will fly!
Teacher: give the children a minute to make balls of paper.
Now it’s time to play the game. On the count of three, everyone will throw as much paper as you can to the other side! And we’ll see which side has less paper after two minutes!
Teacher: count down to start the game. Give them about two minutes to throw paper back and forth. After you are finished with the game, put the fence away, and gather the children together for the next bit of teaching.
Debrief
We played this game because it gets us excited, and it recharges our energy so we can keep learning. So, we used the game as a tool to get something better.
The Bible teaches us that sometimes it's important to recharge.
Bible Reference
Let's read our first Bible verse again.
SLIDE 9
Mark 6:31 (ICB)
Crowds of people were coming and going. Jesus and his followers did not even have time to eat. He said to them, “Come with me. We will go to a quiet place to be alone. There we will get some rest.”
Explanation
SLIDE 10
Jesus told His disciples that they needed to stop working. They were doing amazing work, but they were way too busy! They didn’t even have time to eat! The disciples needed to rest so they could keep helping people later on. So it was important for them to take care of themselves.
From this story, we learn that recharging is important. Sometimes recharging is more important than work, even if it's very important work.
Application
Recharging is very important for students. When you are learning, your brain is working hard. After you learn a bunch of things, your brain gets tired and it doesn't work very well anymore. This means you should take a break and do something fun for a little while. You can ask your parents to set a timer so that you will know when to stop playing. So you can have some fun, and then when you go back to work, your brain will be ready to learn again.
SLIDE 11
If you have a bunch of schoolwork to do, you can break it into little goals. For example, you can set a goal to write five sentences, or do one page of math problems, then take a break and do something fun. When you return to work, you will be ready for your next little goal. If you keep up this routine, your learning will be better, easier, and more fun.
So, entertainment can be a tool for better learning. And, entertainment is not just for learning. It’s good for a lot of things! You can use entertainment as a tool to make friends or learn skills. Some people even use it to make money. But we should always use entertainment as a tool to get something better.
SLIDE 12
Discussion Question
Now let's pause for a discussion question:
What's your best idea for having a lot of fun in a short amount of time?
Point 2
Our second point is:
Entertainment is a bad goal
SLIDE 13
Game: Stacking Cereal
Instructions
We'll start our point with the cereal stacking game!
We'll make teams of two people each, and each team will have their own table. Your team will be making a tower of cereal.
We are going to try to stack the pieces of cereal as high as we can. The higher your tower, the better. Maybe you can make two or three stacks that lean against each other, and that might help you to build higher.
We'll see which team can make the tallest tower in five minutes!
Teacher: count down to start the contest. Set a timer for five minutes. At the end of the game, have the children share what they made, and praise them for their efforts.
Debrief
We played this game because it's a bit like spending time on entertainment. Our entertainment could be sports, or a TV show, or computer games, or a hobby like making crafts. Whatever kind of entertainment we choose, we can get better at it. If we’re playing a game, we can get more skilled. And, even if we’re watching TV, we can learn more about the people in the show, and that will help us to enjoy the show more. So, all of the time you spend having fun helps you get better at having fun.
It's like building a tower out of cereal -- the more time you spend on it, the better you'll get.
But you'll also find that there's a limit to how high you can stack.
SLIDE 14
Sooner or later, if you keep trying to build up, it will fall down. We don't know exactly when it will fall down, but any tower made out of cereal will fall down if you keep trying to stack it higher.
All of our entertainment is like that.
Bible Reference
So, Jesus taught us not to waste too much time on things like entertainment. Let's read what Jesus taught His followers:
SLIDE 15
Matthew 6:19 (ICB)
19 “Don’t store treasures for yourselves here on earth. Moths and rust will destroy treasures here on earth. And thieves can break into your house and steal the things you have.
Explanation
The point was, anything you try to build on earth will disappoint you if it’s your biggest goal and it’s all you want. We can get high scores in video games. We can make beautiful crafts. We can get really good at a sport. We could be the most knowledgeable person about a TV show. But, sooner or later, we won't be able to keep building on it. Eventually it will come tumbling down just like a tower made of cereal.
SLIDE 16
That is why Jesus told us to store up a treasure in heaven. If we live God's way, we will build something that will last forever.
Application
So, we need to make sure that our entertainment stays in second place in our hearts. Having fun needs to stay as a tool for getting something better. We can use entertainment to make friends who can share heaven with us. And, we can use entertainment to do things that make God happy, so we can feel His happiness someday.
If you're chasing after the things that last forever, then your entertainment can stay as a tool and not your biggest goal.
Discussion Question
SLIDE 17
Time for a discussion question!
What could be better than a really good game?
Conclusion
To wrap up our lesson, let’s go over the big ideas again.
Our big question today was: what is the best way to use entertainment?
Our big idea was that entertainment is a good tool, but a bad goal.
It's a good tool if you're using it to get something better. We can use entertainment to recharge ourselves when we are studying. And, we can use entertainment to make friends, and gain skills.
SLIDE 18
Entertainment is really useful, but it's a bad goal. If you make it your biggest goal to have fun, then sooner or later those fun things will come tumbling down like a tower made of cereal. We need a better goal, and we need to keep working on something that lasts forever.
Main Activity: Movie Night
Now it's time for our main activity. It's movie day! So, in a moment, we'll pick a movie, and we'll watch it together. But before we watch, we should remember what we learned.
A movie is a good TOOL. It can give you a chance to hang out and make friends, and you might even get some good ideas from the movie. On the other hand, it's easy to waste time on movies. If we watch too many movies we won’t have time for more important things.
Now let’s pick a movie!
Teacher: you may want to decide on a movie with the children. Note: the next lesson will also have a movie as the main activity, so you can break a long movie into two parts. For your feature film, you may want to pick a show from the official VeggieTales channel:
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