Sunday 20th September
Just for fun
Tell one child an object; without saying what the object is the child should tell their partner what to draw and the child who is drawing should follow the instructions. The resultant drawing might or might not be recognisable!
For instance, if the child is told “house”, he might give these instructions:
“Start near the bottom of the paper and draw a line going up. Stop. Now draw a line going along the paper. Stop. Now make the line go down. You should have three lines of a square. At the top corner draw a diagonal line going up. Now draw a diagonal line going down to the opposite corner.”
To make it harder, blindfold the child who is drawing.
Activity for family
Give your children a list of animals and ask them to draw a picture of each animal on the list and to cut it out.
Once the animals have been drawn, ask the children to put them in a line with the animal they think is largest/tallest at the top and the one they think is smallest at the bottom.
Now tell the children the real order.
Suggestions:
Blue whale – 30m long
Elephant 4m high (BUT biggest land mammal)
Giraffe 5.5m high
Grizzly bear 3m
Gorilla 1.8m
Badger 90cm Long
Dormouse 9cm Long (Excluding tail length)
(These sizes are the largest that the animal can grow to, or the average size in the case of the smaller animals.)
Ask your children if they know what pride is?
Give them an example from one of the animals – for instance,
“Imagine the dormouse saying, “I can carry two bananas at once,” or the grizzly bear saying, “I really think I'm taller than an elephant” That would be pride.”
Ask your children to think of more examples.
Explain that real humility is accepting who you are – not being proud and thinking that you are better than you are, but not asking for attention by pretending that you can't do things that you really can.
Can they think of examples of genuine humility from the animals they have drawn?
For instance, a mouse saying, “I know I'm tiny, but I can get into hiding places that bigger animals can't.”
Questions to talk through together
Have you ever been trying to do something to look clever and it went horribly wrong?
What happened?
How humiliated did you feel?
Did you try to do it again?
What is the difference between ‘humiliation’ and ‘humility’? (Humility is defined in dictionaries as being modest or respectful.)
Do you think that being ‘humble’ is seen as a bad thing these days? If so, why is this?
Prayer
Dear Jesus: Help us to remember to be like you, to be a servant for others. Help us to think of other people before ourselves, to let others go first. Help us to remember to say, "You first!" instead of "Me first!" Amen.
