Lesson 12: I Am Grateful Animals

For each lesson I always have a few ideas that are terrible but I still think would be really really funny to do. Here are some of my nixed ideas for I Am Grateful for Animals lesson:

1. Bring in my cat, Battle, and let the kids pet him and chase him around. But I suspect once cornered by 12-14 two year olds, Battle would opt for fight instead of flight. And one kid out of the bunch is probably terribly allergic.

2. Pick up that road killed possum and bring it in to church so the kids could get a close look at a real wild animal.

3. Call up a friend of mine and asked to borrow his mounted deer head or his deer hunting X-box game.

There are a few more, but obviously they're all going in a pretty bad direction.

Really though, I love animals so this could be a fun lesson. I plan to open like I always do: reminding the kids about the earth's creation. Then tell them that Heavenly Father and Jesus created animals. I'm going to ask them about animals: Do they like animals? Do they have any animals? I'm going to tell them about the garden of Eden, that Heavenly Father put the animals in the garden and told Adam to watch over them. I'm going to talk about how Heavenly Father wants us to watch over and be kind to our animals. I'll ask them if they are kind to animals.

Tell the story of Noah's Ark. I plan to check out Peter Spier's Noah's Ark to help me tell the story. Great book! or maybe attempt to use this finger poem from the lesson book, maybe.... It's really really long so I think using the story book would be a lot easier.

Noah built an ark so big (outstretch arms);
He knew just what to do (place finger on side of forehead).
He hammered, sawed, and measured (make motions as indicated)
As he’d been commanded to (nod head).
And Noah called his family (beckon with arm)
To march onto the boat (march quietly in place)—
And, two by two, the animals (hold up two fingers)
Came aboard to float (make floating motion with hands).
The heavy dark clouds gathered (place hands above head),
The rain began to fall (wiggle fingers imitating rain)—
And all the earth was covered (make a sweeping motion with hand and arm);
There was no land at all (turn head from side to side).
The ark just floated safely (make a floating motion with hands)
Many a day and night (put hands together on one side of face),
Until the sun came out again (place arms in a circle above head)
And shone so warm and bright.
And all the water dried right up (cross arms across chest);
Dry land did appear (open arms and extend hands).
Noah’s family gave their thanks (bow head and fold arms)
That God was always near.
(Adapted from a verse by Beverly Spencer.)

I'm going to ask the kids why they think Heavenly Father wanted Noah to save the animals. Tell them that Heavenly Father loves the animals and Heavenly Father knows that animals do a lot to help people.

Brown bag 1: I'm going to tell the kids that animals do soo much for us. Here are a few items that I'm thinking off: some llama yarn from my knitting (let each child touch it), some cheese (I'll make it in small cubes so each kid can eat one), a picture of Mary riding the donkey, a toy bat (they eat lots of bugs so we don't get bit). Anyone have any other ideas? This is kind of tricky because I'm a vegetarian so I'd feel a little weird pulling out a bunch of meat or leather.

Brown Bag2: I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of knit finger puppet animals. I'm going to let each kid come pick one out of a bag and whichever animal they pick we are all going to talk about then pretend to be. After each child has picked an animal we are going to play a small game where I hold up a finger puppet and they have to pretend to be whichever animal I hold up. I'm sure this would work just as well with picture cut outs.

Some other ideas that I might do:
1. Play pin the tail on the donkey during play time.
2. Play little brown bear during play time.
3. Make three scenes: Farm, forest, house and let kids pick an animal off the wall and put it in the correct scene.
4. Sing Old McDonald. Or the What Use Are You? song.

For the craft I think we're going to make animals puppets out of brown bags. I need to go buy googlie eyes at the store today. Anyone have any other animal craft ideas?