The Widow's Mite

Games Workshop #1

for 1st - 3rd graders

Summary of Lesson Activities:

Play a game using a life-size game board to explore ways in which the church uses our gifts to do God’s work.

For scripture, objectives, and background - see above.

Leader Preparation:

• Read the scripture for this lesson.
• Read and reflect on the overview material provided for this lesson.
• Gather the materials.

Supplies List:

• Bibles for 3rd grade
• Bible for younger students: The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories
• Bible: a King James Version
• Life-sized game board – canvas tarp with painted spaces (4 colors)
• Game wheel (with corresponding 4 colors)
• Game questions – see end of lesson
• Playdoh
• White board & marker
• Globe

Before Start of Class:

• Place the game wheel in location where it won’t distract the students during the telling of the story.
• Print out the game questions on the appropriate color paper - blue or green.

Presentation

Opening - Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

Greet your students warmly, welcoming them to the Games Workshop. Introduce yourself and any other adults.
[Note: The Shepherd will be quietly taking care of attendance, etc. while you are starting your lesson.]

Pass around the basket used to collect any monetary offering.
Ask: Every week when you come to Sunday’s Cool, at the beginning of each workshop, we pass around a basket. Why do we do this? (allow all answers)
Say: The basket is to collect your offering.
Ask: What is an offering? (a name we use for gifts given to the church)

Say: This month besides collecting any money you may bring, we are collecting canned and boxed food for the Canned Food Drive . Around Thanksgiving every year we collect food to give to people who are in need. There are people living in this town who go hungry because they don’t have enough money to buy food.

Say: We’ll be playing a game today but first let’s start with prayer.
Ask for any prayer requests. Ask if anyone would like to lead the group in prayer. Be prepared to say a prayer yourself, working in prayer requests. A suggestion: “Loving Jesus, Thank you for everyone who is here today. We welcome the chance to learn about you through the Bible. In the faces of our friends around us we see your love. Thank you for loving us. To respond to your love, help us to give lovingly to others. Amen.”

Dig - Main Content and Reflection:

For 1st and 2nd graders:
Say: Our story today is from the New Testament section of the Bible, where we find stories about Jesus. We find our story in the Gospel of Mark.
Read them the story on pages 332 and 333 in The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories.

For 3rd grade:

Ask:

• Where in the Bible would we read about Jesus teaching his disciples? (NT)
• What are the first four books of the New Testament?
• What do we call those first four books? (the Gospels)

Distribute Bibles. (Encourage everyone to bring his/her Bible each week.)
Have everyone find the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12, verse 41.
Remind them of the quick way to find the New Testament: dividing the Bible in half gets them near Psalms in the OT. Dividing the back half in half again gets them near the beginning of the New Testament.
At the beginning of the Rotation, have kids take turns reading verses 41-44. In the latter part of the Rotation, ask students if they can tell you the story. Have them fill in any details by looking up passages in their Bibles. [Please have everyone find the story even if they don’t need to refer to it – it’s good practice in Bible usage.]

For all students:
Ask: What gift did the widow give? (two small coins) The widow was giving her money to the temple, just as we give to the church today. Why do we need to give to the church?” (allow all answers)

Say: When we give money to our church we are giving money to do God’s work. Let’s play a game to learn about some of the ways our church does God’s work.

Play the Game:
Explain that students will work in teams to move across the game board by answering questions. Each correct answer (as determined by workshop leader) moves the team ahead one space. The object of the game is not to be first to reach the end, but for all teams to reach the end, or to get as far as time permits, and to have fun doing it.

Lay out the game board(s). Have everyone take off his/her shoes. Ask the Shepherd to help you divide the class into teams of 2 or 3 players each. [Preferably in 2’s but 3 is ok if needed]. Have the team with the person whose birthday is closest to today’s date go first. One member of the team spins the wheel. The color they spin determines what happens:

YELLOW – Slow down, stay where you are; your turn is over.
BLUE – Choose a blue question card.
GREEN – Choose a green question card
RED – Stop, go back one space.

When a BLUE or GREEN is spun, read the corresponding color question card out loud and follow the directions. (Remind the children that only the team in play should be talking.) All the people on a team should confer/work on an answer. Where applicable, 3rd grade and up may use their Bibles to check for answers!

The teammates move along the game board – squeezing onto spaces as needed.

IMPORTANT: Use questions as an opening to discussion! Especially after each blue question, talk about the correct answer – what the activity is and why it is an example of doing God’s work. The idea is to become more aware of our church’s activities. Be sure you don’t give the impression that any of the “wrong” answers are “wrong” things to do; they’re just not the correct answer to the question at hand.

Closing:

Say: In the game we learned about a lot of ways in which the church does God’s work. All of those things happen because people give their money, and their time, and use their talents. Everyone’s gift is important – from the smallest gift to the largest and from the oldest person to the youngest.

Attachment: Lesson Questions

To learn our story, and to learn about ways we as individuals and as the church do God’s work.

Green Lesson Questions: These questions involve creative thinking or activity.

Go to the whiteboard and draw a quick picture of someone doing God’s work during a church service. (Hints: singing in choir, acolyte, preaching, reading Bible)

We do God’s work when we treat each other nicely. Tell your team members you forgive them for squeezing against you on the tiny game board spot and maybe even stepping on your toes occasionally.

Use the Playdoh to create what you think the Temple collection box looked like.

Use the Playdoh to model someone doing God’s work during a church service.

Find our story in a King James Version of the Bible. Read Mark 12:42. What is the widow’s gift called?

Go to the whiteboard and draw a quick picture of someone doing God’s work outside of church. (Hint: at the hospital, the homeless center, etc.)

Act out someone doing God’s work during a church service.

Tell us about one way that God has provided for you (or your family).

Use the globe to point out a country where our church has done missionary work. (Africa is one possibility, UP of Michigan, Puerto Rico)

Name another story in the Bible about someone who gave up everything. (Jesus gave up his life, dying for us so that our sins our forgiven.)

Name another Bible story about a poor widow.
(Might need to remind them what a widow is; answer is Ruth.)

Act out a rich person putting their money into the Temple collection box. (Hint: Some people gave lots of money because they wanted people to notice them.)

Sing a few bars of your favorite church song.

Go to the whiteboard and draw a mite.

Use the map in the back of the Bible to point out the location of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Act out someone doing God’s work outside of church. (Hint: at the hospital, the homeless center, etc.)

Act out the collection of offering at our church.

Use the Playdoh to model you in your favorite Sunday’s Cool Disciples workshop.

Blue Lesson Questions: These questions are “factual” in nature.
Note: You can make some of these questions more challenging by not offering the multiple choices. Don’t read out loud the words in the parentheses. Use that to discuss the question with the students.

Our church helps to support an organization that builds affordable houses for people in need. This organization is called:
a. The Wolverines
b. Habitat For Humanity (Our church donates money, supplies & workers to help build a Habitat house every year.)
c. The Red Cross

Where can kids go to learn about the Bible?
a. Sunday’s Cool Disciples (Teaches kids about the Bible & what it means for our lives. Kids serve God by attending and learning; workshop leaders and shepherds serve God by giving lots of their time.)
b. Chuck E. Cheese
c. Disney World

What is the name for the kids who light the candles in the sanctuary?
a. Shepherds
b. Acolytes (Lighting candles helps everyone prepare for worship)
c. Ushers

When people visit our church for the first time, afterwards somebody from the church goes to their house and takes them a gift. What is it?
a. A flu shot
b. A plant (We share God’s love with visitors by making them feel welcome in the church)
c. A puppy

Where in the Bible would we find our story? (NT is good enough answer for younger students, try for Gospel of Mark (or Luke) from 3rd graders.)

What are the names of the four Gospels?

Name a kids choir at our church:
a. Carol Choir (Singing in church helps everyone worship.)
b. The Sopranos
c. The Usual Suspects

One reason why our church needs money is:
a. To buy U of M foot ball tickets.
b. To pay the bills for lights, heat, salaries and supplies. (These are important too!)
c. To buy advertising time during the Super Bowl.

Name a special group in our church that is just for college-aged kids?
a. Stephen Ministry
b. Meals on Wheels
c. Wesley Foundation (Chance for students away from home to get together for fun, service, & learning how to live as Christians.)

The youth of this church – kids in 7th through 12th grade – have just started an after-school tutoring program called Camp Amigo. This is a way for church members to help children who live nearby and need help with their
a. swimming
a. basketball
a. reading and math (They go to Ypsi Methodist Church one afternoon a week.)

True or false: The coins the widow gave were worth only a small amount.

True or false: In our story Jesus was standing in a boat while watching people at the Temple.

After the 9:30 church service there is something the adults do in the Social Hall:
a. Share snacks and talk to other people (Making people feel welcome and cared for.)
b. Dance
c. Play Hide and Seek

A special mission project the entire church got involved with this last summer used a large giraffe outside the Sanctuary.
a. The church’s mission trip to Kenya, Africa.
b. The Toledo Zoo
c. Habitat for Humanity

There’s a place in Ann Arbor where homeless families can stay. This place is called:
a. Briarwood Mall
b. The Farmers Market
c. Alpha House (Church members donate money, supplies and food. They help serve meals, play with children, and spend the night at the Shelter.)

Every summer the children at an Indian Reservation in the UP look forward to a Vacation Bible School put on by a group from our church. That group is:
a. Hooked on Phonics
b. Mario’s Adventure
c. 7th and 8th graders from the Youth group (Play games, make crafts, sing, & tell Bible stories for kids on Zeba Mission trip.)

True or False: An example of serving God is when someone goes to visit a person who can not come to church because they are sick.

True or False: Jesus said the Widow’s gift wasn’t big enough.

Resources

• Game questions modeled after a life-size board game written by Amy Crane for Rotation.org at
• Batchelor, Mary. The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories. Batavia, IL: Lion Publishing, 1985.
• “The Widow’s Mite - Antioch Arcade.” Faith Quest Lesson Sets at Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church. 2001. http://www.kirkofkildaire.org/...sons/WidowArcade.htm
• Scripture quoted is taken from the New International Reader's Version. Copyright © 1998 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Widow's Mite

Games Workshop #2

for 4th - 6th graders

Summary of Lesson Activities:

Play a modified form of “Wheel of Fortune” to explore ways in which the church uses our gifts to do God’s work.

No sense taking up space to repeat fine lessons that are here at this site. We put together our games lesson by cutting and pasting from the following resources:

• “The Widow’s Mite - Antioch Arcade.” Faith Quest Lesson Sets at Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church. 2001. http://www.kirkofkildaire.org/...sons/WidowArcade.htm

Note: You will want to modify the game phrases used so they are meaningful to your congregation.

If you really want my lesson, email me.

If you have found any of these workshops useful it would make my day if you let me know about it. Thanks.

Part of a Lesson Set written by Carol Hulbert from: First United Methodist Church
Ann Arbor, MI 

Copyright 2004 First United Methodist Church, Ann Arbor, MI.
Permission to copy materials granted for non-commercial use provided credit is given and all cited references remain with this material.

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.