Lesson from the manual
Doing two lessons in a row with service as an underlying theme made it a little more difficult to come up with some ideas.
I had made up a wooden spoon attached to a long piece of wood (a yard stick would work great) and asked them each if they could feed themselves with this spoon. They each took a turn to try. I then told them this story:
One day a man said to God, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.
God showed the man two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, "You have seen Hell."
Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful stew that made the man's mouth water. The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The man said, "I don't understand."
God smiled. “It is simple,” He said, “Love only requires one skill. These people learned early to feed one another. Those who are hungry are greedy people, and they think only of themselves.
They then tried to feed each other and saw that it worked much better.
In the lesson it says to hum songs, well I'm not a great singer or hummer so I brought a CD player and we kind of played name that tune with the songs.
For the Good Samaritan story I found this great idea to help the kids remember it. First I told this story that I found
HERE using the banana's, apple, and orange. I actually did smash the banana and the kids LOVED it. I then asked them to tell me the story of the Good Samaritan and how it related to the story I just told them. They did great!
In this lesson it also tells you to find info on your bishop, I actually ran out of time in this lesson to tell about our bishop but we did discuss who serves in our ward and all the work that they do including the bishop. I had made up little thank you cards for them to write him a note of thanks then we placed them in a white paper bag in which I had bought a
Buntlet and attached a tag to the top. We then closed up the bag and put a paper tie on the front and one of the kids delivered it to him.
On the bottom of the newsletter I made a service check for each of them to fill out and give to a family member.
For the hand out I made service "CANS"
I filled small fruit cans with candy and on the front of the can I put this poem
Do all the GOOD you can
By all the MEANS you can
In all the WAYS you can
To all the PEOPLE you can
At all the TIMES you can
For as LONG as you can
Helping comes in CANS not in CAN’TS
You can find instructions on how to make the cans HERE
And you can download my printables for this lesson HERE