I taught Sunday School

The teen who was leading this age group - grades 2-4- was going to be away that weekend.

I said OK. Then I thought- right - what to teach- what has she been doing?

Well, I know the children from our Vacation Bible School program this summer, so there are
no real surprises there.

So, since they talked about Jonah and the Whale the week before, I decided to do the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors.

I had fun preparing all the possible variations on the themes. Be sure to have a "coloring" activity. This group is mostly girls(it turned out to be mostly 4th graders too). Good grief!

I DO REMEMBER 4th grade! AND 3rd grade!

I had about 3 days worth of activities planned for this hour!( but I knew it). I just wanted to be ready to "go with the flow" since I had not worked in the Sunday School venue for years.

So there we go, I have made paper cut-outs for pencil puppets. (ask me what that means)
I have multi-colored terry cloth squares to "possibly" make a large coat of many colors.
I have a bright yellow t-shirt as a base. And I have read every imaginable variation of the story.
AND selected which one to use for a reading from the Bible.

I think "this is good for me- I am really studying this story and how it connects with everything... in history... in scripture... in this time... and with these children and with me". cool.

I wonder how they will respond. YES. I remember MY 4th grade class.

I asked them "What did you learn last week?' to a collection of blank stares.

I adapted: "What story did miss r. teach you last sunday?"

OH. Now comes some recognition. It was something about the dude with the whale.
Yeah, the guy the whale ate but didn't eat. What was his name? Oh yeah, Jonah. Jonah and the whale.

I think. Great. The best retention we MIGHT see from this lesson will be 'the dude with the coat that had lots of colors'.

And I had such great hopes. Not realistic, mind you, but great, nonetheless.

We got as far as coloring the picture, telling the story with the paper puppets and reading the memory verse once. Long before we got THAT far, the third grade girl was restless and on her trip to the bathroom she discovered that the other classes were done, so we should be too.

Ah. Sunday morning is a LOT different than summer VBS.
The only 2nd grader was a boy, who told his mother, the girls were rude, and he already knew the story. The restless third grader told her grandmother... (in response to: what did you learn today?)don't dump your brother in a pit or he will be sold to slaves.
Grandma adapted... What story was that? child replied... the dude with the coat of many colors.

And I went home with my multi-colored cloths and t-shirt and unfinished fun activities wondering which would have been better for them.

Maybe I did not really remember REAL 4th grade. I only remembered MY 4th grade.

Lesson learned. I hope miss r. does not go away again for a while.

Oh, I almost forgot. The lesson was all about brothers and only one of them had any brothers, so at first they did not see how it fit them.

Oh Yes. Two girls were swapping shoes but only one was doing it by consent. hm?
So we had a talk about personal property, sitting in one's own space and being jealous of someone else's shoes... how close is that to being jealous of your brother's coat? Would you sell each other into slavery because they had nicer shoes than you?

How we make our decisions everyday... this really can make a difference in our world.
Think peace.
Be peace.