Time
10 minutes
Description
This object lesson helps kids to understand that unfair things happen to all of us. We can’t always change that, but we can change how we respond to what happens to us. If we look for the positive aspects, we might find that God has really blessed us through what originally looked unfair.
Materials
· “Magic Coloring Book & Crayons” from www.stevespanglerscience.com (about $15)
Preparation
· Practice the trick. You’ll need to be very smooth with your hand movements in order to fool the kids.
· Practice the script.
Procedure
Use the following script (or modify to suit your needs):
· “I have a magic trick to show you today, and I’m going to need a volunteer.” (Select volunteer to join you up front.)
· “I went to the store the other day and bought a new coloring book, but when I got home, I found that all the pages were blank!” (Help child flip through the pages while you hold the bottom corner of the spine. Make sure that the child stands to the side so that the audience can see the blank pages.)
· “That’s so unfair! I used my whole allowance on this!”
· “But then I realized that I had the coolest coloring book in the world!”
· “I mean, other kids have coloring books with pictures already in them.”
· “All they can do is color them. I had page after page of blank paper, and I could draw anything I wanted.”
· “So I drew pictures on every page.” (Help child flip through the pages while you hold the top corner of the spine. Black and white illustrations will appear.)
· “When I got done, I was really tired. So I put my cool coloring book under my pillow and I went to bed.”
· “In the morning, I got up, pulled out my cool coloring book, and flipped through the pictures.”
· “I was very surprised to see that I had colored in all the pages in my dreams!” (Help child flip through the pages while you hold the middle part of the spine. Colored pages will appear.)
· “At first, I thought this was really, really cool! But then I realized that there was nothing left to do with the book.”
· “I decided that I would try to un-color the book in my dreams.”
· “So I put it back under my pillow that night before I went to bed.”
· “When I got up the next morning, I was surprised to see that I had gone too far.”
· “Not only did I un-color the pages, but I un-drew them, too!” (Help child flip through the pages while you hold the bottom corner of the spine again.)
· “That may sound bad to you, but I thought it was really cool, because other kids have coloring books with pictures already in them. But I have a coloring book in which I can draw anything I want!” (Thank child and dismiss.)
· “Sometimes unfair things happen to us.”
· “We don’t get what we deserve. Someone gets more than us, or we get something bad that we didn’t deserve.”
· “Those things happen, but if we keep trusting God, He will bring good things out of bad. (Romans 8:28)”
· “We might even be surprised to find out that something that looked unfair at first really turned out to be a blessing in disguise!”
Teach Them 