The Great Commandment

Cooking Workshop

Summary of Lesson Activities:
Children will be making a recipe without all the ingredients, which leads to a discussion about loving God with ALL your heart, soul, and mind.

Outcome Objectives:

1. Children will learn that the Great Commandment requires us to love God with all our being.
2. Children will discuss what it might be to love God only in part.
3. Children will increase their retention and understanding of this rotation’s memory verse.

Supplies Needed:

• Ingredients for a recipe, such as chocolate chip cookies. One ingredient, such as chocolate chips, should be put away in a cabinet to make the point of the story.
• Also bring milk for eating in class and bags for children to take baked cookies home with them.
• Bowls, spoons, baking sheets, measuring cups & spoons, etc.

Advance Preparation:

• Assemble the ingredients. You may want to pre-measure some ingredients and have them set in bowls to leave you more time for the lesson and baking.
• Make out recipe cards.
• Hide chocolate chips (or other ingredient)
• Paper easel – you may want to write cookie ingredients on one page and the words “heart soul strength mind” on another page.

Presentation

Opening-Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

Explain that you will be making chocolate chip cookies. Have children read down the recipe, taking turns mixing in ingredients. When it comes time for the chocolate chips, wait for the children to ask you for the chips.

Ask: Do you think we really need the chips to make the cookies? What would happen if we left out the chips – would we still have chocolate chip cookies?

Form one or two cookies without chips, then “find” the ingredient and add them to the mixture. Bake as directed. Clean up.

Dig-Main Content and Reflection:

While the cookies are baking discuss:

Let’s think what different ingredients do for cookies (you could write these on the easel). Encourage children to imagine what cookies without each ingredient would be like.
Salt, baking soda, baking powder – leavening, causes cookies to rise a little.
Flour – “meat” of the cookie, holds it together.
Egg – “glues” cookie together – otherwise it would be crumbly like a pie crust.
Sugar – taste, color
Butter or margarine – separates the gluten of the flour; fat makes it crisp & adds flavor
Chocolate chips / vanilla – taste

Say: Actually, the chocolate chips and vanilla are the only things you could leave out and have anything that looked like a cookie. Even if we cut some of our ingredients in half, it would make them taste or look weird.

Flip the chart to a page and label it with the four words from our memory verse: heart, soul, mind, strength in four sections of the page. Ask: What would it look like if we only loved God with half of our heart? What would happen if other things got a bigger part of our heart than God? (write answers below the word; repeat the questions for the other three words.)

Life Application:

Take out cookies.
Say: We have all these delicious cookies. What are some things we could do with these cookies to show God our love? (we could say a thanks prayer, share with others, sell them and use the money for charity, etc.) Let the children decide what to do next.
Say: What other things could you say and do this week to show your love for God?

Closing:
Close with a prayer blessing the food and/or a general prayer of parting.

A lesson posted by Lisa Martin from: Trinity Church of Christ

Pottstown, PA

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