11. Goodness

Materials Needed

• one sheet of green construction paper
• one sheet of red construction paper
• eight small bowls (nontransparent)
• tea towels
• pieces of paper
• pen
• scissors
• three good-tasting things to eat (small candies, cut up fruit, dried cereal)
• three not-so-good-tasting things to eat (coffee grounds, salt, chopped onions)

Setting The Stage

It’s important for the whole family to learn to identify what goodness is so we can do it for others. Doing “goodness” means you do a good act that is not naturally easy to do but needs to be done with God’s help.

Project

Ahead Of Time:

Fill the six bowls, three of the bowls with good-tasting food and three of the bowls with not-so- good-tasting food. Then cut six circles, three out of the green sheet and three out of the red sheet.

Now:

Place the bowls in a row on the table. Give the children the red and green circles and have them place the circles in the appropriate places. A green circle means the food is good-tasting and a red circle means the food is not-so-good-tasting. Let them take a little taste of the food if they want to confirm their choices.

Next:

Have them close their eyes. Switch the order of the bowls and cover them with a tea towel. Have the children open their eyes and again try to place the circles in the appropriate spots, but this time it is a guessing game. See how many they get right. Let them play this game several times.

Lesson:

Point out to the children that it is much easier to identify what is good when the tea towel is off than when the tea towel is covering the dishes. Use this to illustrate that sometimes it is easy to see what is the good thing to do and sometimes it is hard.

Ahead Of Time:

Take the plain sheet of paper and cut the paper into strips. On each strip of paper write out the following good and not-so-good actions leaving out the word in the brackets.

• You have a bag of candies and your sister would like to try one so you let her have a few. (green)
• Your friend yells at you while you are playing so you tell him that it is time to go home. (red)
• You are playing with a bunch of kids; one gets hurt and starts to cry. Everyone is looking at him cry. You go and get your favorite stuffed animal letting him hug it until he stops crying. (green)
• You have been told to clean up your room. You go to your room and clean it up as fast as you can by pushing all the toys under your bed. (red)
• You know of someone who is sick. You make a card for him or her and give it to the person to help them feel better. (green)

Bring out the two empty bowls and the strips of paper with the situations written on them. Place one of the green circles in front of one of the bowls and one of the red circles in front of the other empty bowl.

Now:

Explain to them that you are about to read a situation and they are to place the slip of paper in the green bowl if it is a good act and in the red bowl if it is a not-so-good act. As you read each slip, let the children take turns deciding into which bowl the paper should go. Some of the situations are harder to decide and may need to be discussed.

Lesson:

During the discussion remind them of the previous activity where when the tea towel covered the bowls it was harder to determine what was good and how this is also true in real life.

Song

“God Is So Good”

(original tune or chanting with a catchy beat)

God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me.

Prayer

Ask God to help each of us find the opportunities to show goodness to other people.