The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
‘Take only ONE . God is watching.’
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note,
‘Take all you want. God is watching the apples..’
A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, ‘Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.’ ‘Yes,’ the class said. ‘Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn’t run into my feet?’ A little fellow shouted,
’Cause your feet ain’t empty.’
The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.
‘Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, ‘There’s Jennifer, she’s a lawyer,’ or ‘That’s Michael, He’s a doctor.’
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, ‘And there’s the teacher, she’s dead.’
One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head. She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, ‘Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?’
Her mother replied, ‘Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.’ The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, ‘Momma, how come ALL of grandma’s hairs are white?’
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s work.
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied, ‘I’m drawing God. The teacher paused and said, ‘But no one knows what God looks like.’
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing,
The girl replied, ‘They will in a minute.’
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human
because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, ‘When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah’. The teacher asked, ‘What if Jonah went to hell?’
The little girl replied, ‘Then you ask him’.
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened;
Everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger. “God, how could you do this to me!” he cried. Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. “How did you know I was here?” asked the weary man of his rescuers. “We saw your smoke signal,” they replied. It is easy to get discouraged when things are going bad. But we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground it just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God.
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A fun bible game that helps put the word of God into our hearts. |
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| Materials: White board, chalk board or poster board. Piece of cloth or newspaper. |
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Topics: Memory Challenge |
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| Preparation: Write the Bible verse you would like to review on the board. Draw a maze under the verse. At the finishing point of the maze, draw a heart. Cover the maze with the cloth (old sheet, towel, newspaper) until your ready to begin the activity.What you will do: Have the children recite the verse together several times. Once the children are comfortable reciting the verse, remove several words from it and draw a line as a placeholder for each word removed. Let the quest begin! Remove the covering from the maze. Ask the children to raise their hands if they know one of the missing words. If they give the correct answer, they get to choose which direction to go in the maze. You can make this game as easy or as hard as you like depending on the difficulty of the maze and the length of the verse. When the class finally makes it to the end, tell them that the heart represents them working to put the word of God into their hearts. |
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Name as many animals as possible that occur in the Bible: snake, horse, donkey, goat, sheep, eagle, fox, dog, lion, sparrow, camel, deer and so on. Think of the list of animals that should not be eaten to find some more animals like swine and hare, and many birds like owl, raven, hawk, cuckoo, swan and heron (Leviticus 11).
Discuss what animal imagery can teach us. For example: a sparrow is but a small and inconspicuous bird, but still God feeds it and takes care of it. God also feeds us and takes care of us.
Discuss in general what it means that God made the earth (that He is in control, that we can trust Him, that He expects us to be good to animals and to creation in general).
