1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. - Matthew 4:1-2 NIV
Time is a pretty abstract concept to children, and the younger they are the more foggy it is. A week is a l-o-n-g time, so 40 days is a mushy piece of forever!
For our lesson about Jesus being in the desert for 40 days, Google and I made a blank two-month calendar on a piece of card stock. (Use “Image” search to find a blank calendar. Place in MSWord. Crop and resize. Or create a calendar using the Tables tool in MSWord.) I highlighted the days we would be marking off and outlined Day 40 in red. Counting back from the Sunday designated Day 40, we needed to include a few days ahead of our lesson day to reach the total.
A beautiful, golden dinner roll displayed on the table at the front of our class enhanced our reading of the text. We were already hungry enough to want to eat the roll, and we had had breakfast a few hours before! By tomorrow this time, could we say no to turning stones into bread if we had the power to do it? How long would it be to wait 40 days to eat again?
The 40-day calendar was introduced, and we talked about what we were going to do with it. We marked off the four extra days we needed plus that Sunday. The next Sunday we marked off the week that had passed plus the current day and briefly reviewed what our calendar was about. All those X’s were days and days Jesus would have had nothing to eat and had no friends or family with him out in the desert.
Our interest never waned, because we also had a treasure box with “Something” inside we would all get on Day 40! Each week we marked our calendar at the beginning of class and remembered Jesus going without food all that time. And we wondered what might be in our box…?
On Day 40, all the children knew it was The Day as we gathered in our room. We remembered again what the rows of X’s were and why we were counting 40 days. The anticipated moment arrived, and the contents of the treasure box were poured into a large clear container so everybody could easily see what the “Something” was they had been waiting for. Small colorful spiky balls tumbled out to a happy welcome – but waited for distribution until the end of class!
The catch here is “colorful.” There are no packages of party favor spiky balls that are all red or all blue or all purple, and it’s too expensive to buy enough packages for everyone to choose their favorite color. Into the Feely Box went the prizes. (Directions for the “Feely Box” follow.) Not everybody got the color they LOVE, but they could see that the process was fair, and they made their own choice. We went home happy!
It was a long wait for preschoolers, and not all of them will carry forward a clear idea of “40 days,” but some of them will, and they all enjoyed the experience.
How to Make a “Feely Box”
This idea was in the kindergarten guide we used twenty-five years ago. The unit on the five senses included directions for making a “Feely Box” as part of a sense of touch activity. The resulting item has been great for all kinds of “secret drawing” uses over the years.
To make a “Feely Box” –
· Wash an empty 2-liter bottle. You’ll need the kind with an opaque plastic cover on the bottom part. (The totally clear ones don’t work as well.) I don’t buy anything in 2-liter bottles these days, but I’d be willing to count it a teaching materials expense to buy a cheap knock-off cola and pour the contents down the drain to get the bottle! But that’s me.
· Cut off the top, leaving about half an inch of the curved part above the body of the bottle. Now you can dry the inside really well.
· Cut the foot off a dark-colored knee sock. (A tube sock might be okay.)
· Work the sock down over the bottle so the stretchy opening is at the top and the clear part of the bottle is covered by the sock.
· Reach your hand in to check the opening. If the cut edge is scratchy, smooth with sandpaper, steel wool, emery board…whatever. Cut off a little more of the top if the opening is too small.
To use as a “Feely Box,” place tactile items inside. Reach in, and attempt to identify them by touch. Or use the finished project to draw names, Bible verses, song titles, numbers, choose party favors…you name it!
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