Have your kids make the Thanksgiving Instructional Video:

"Goofus and Grateful"

A Thanksgiving Instruction Video

Have your church kids record a series of "Goofus and Grateful" video moments around a set of thanksgiving or gratitude topics.

"Goofus and Gallant" was the famous "wrong way/right way" cartoon that appeared in the once popular Highlights for Children magazine. In this "instructional video," your kids come up with and rehearse a series of "right/wrong" attitudes and actions related to thanksgiving and gratitude, and then make a video recording acting out the Goofus then Grateful one-liners in front of the camera as a fellow student or teacher narrates.

Use your cellphone, video recorder, or a tablet/iPad to record these quick skits. Then watch them in series on the big screen for great effect!  You can also share them with families and the church.

You can split your group into pairs and assign each an idea about gratitude, such as, "how do you show gratitude to your parents," and give them several minutes to decide who's going to be Goofus and Grateful in their video and how each will act. (Work with them.)  Then, the very simple three or four sentence "script" they need to write should be given to an adult or another student to read aloud next to the camera/tablet/phone during recording so the actors only have to focus on their appearance and movements.

Some Goofus (wrong) and Grateful (right) Ideas to Act Out

• A right and a wrong way to show your parents that you appreciate them tonight after dinner.
• A right and a wrong way to show God you are grateful for Creation.
• A right and a wrong way to help someone who isn't feeling very thankful right now.
• A right and a wrong way to show a stranger that you are a grateful, unselfish person.
• A right and a wrong way to act in worship during the prayer of thanksgiving.
• A right and a wrong way to tell someone you appreciate them.
• A right and a wrong way to talk to God about your possessions (or what you might be grateful for).

Create a "Goofus and Grateful" version of the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30

• What Goofus did with the treasure he was given, and what Grateful did with it.
• How Goofus' ignore God's gifts today. How Grateful treats and responds to God's gifts.
• What gifts do Goofus and Grateful both have and how might they use them differently for better or worse?  For example, the gift of leadership, the gift of money, the gift of making music, the gift of being able to make money, the gift of having people in your life who love you, etc.