I Am Special!

Focus Concept: God made you unique. He loves you!

Resources:

Lots of leaves, stamp pads, paper, texta/s, some pictures of bugs, beetles, butterflies and flowers if you can get them.

Method:

• Game: Give each child a leaf. Tell them to look at their leaf and make sure they know it really well. Throw all the leaves into a pile and mix them up. Now tell the children to find their leaf. If you don't have many children you might like to add in some decoy leaves. At the end of the round ask a child to tell you how they knew it was their leaf. What made it different from all the others? Play several rounds. Swap leaves after every round.
• All the leaves were different, weren't they? How were they different? (Colour, size, shape, markings, holes/tears) Do you know that you are different too? God made you special. He made you unique. What does unique mean? (There is no-one exactly like you.) Maybe you have different colour hair or eyes, you're tall or short, you can run fast or jump high, you might be good at maths or art. That's how God made you and he made you special.
• Game - Bug Run. Just like God made leaves unique and he made you unique (what does unique mean?) God made bugs and butterflies and beetles and flowers unique. They are all different. Let's play a game to see how they are different. Set up chairs in a circle with one less than the amount of children you have. Stick a simple picture (eg - children's clipart) of a bug, butterfly, beetle etc on each chair. If you have enough left, bluetac one of each picture to a piece of paper for the person in the middle to look at. The child in the middle says something like "If you have two antennae stand up. The children who have a picture of a creature that has two antennae must stand up and find a different seat. The person in the middle must try to sit on a seat. Keep playing rounds until everyone has had a chance in the middle.
• Art centre - fingerprint pictures. We're going to make some pictures about bugs and beetles. But we're going to use something very special to make these pictures. We're going to use your finger prints. No-one has the same finger print as you. (It might be good to stamp two children and have a look at why they are different - size, colour, shape, texture) Talk the children through how to make each picture.
• Game - Unique you. Play the same as Bug Run, but omit the pictures of bugs. Say something like, "If you have blond hair stand up." If you want to have fun say, "If you're unique stand up." Every child should stand up. You can find out if they really understand.
• To modify this game (as they've already done something almost exactly the same) you could line everyone up on side of the room. Have someone standing in the middle of the room who says "If you have blond hair try to cross the room." The person in the middle must try to tag someone who then becomes the person in the middle. Only tag one person each round or it will get too confusing.
• If the children are old enough to write get them to post unique messages. Write a take 3 pieces of paper and write a one sentence letter to 3 other people saying, "You are special because..." finish it with something like: you're good at art, you are very caring, you are good friend. Discourage sentences about physical attributes such as 'you have brown hair.'
• To finish the lesson thank God that he made each of us special and unique. Thank God that loves each of us because we are unique. Ask him to help us remember that he loves us and we are special even when we think that we are not good enough or special enough.

* You might get a question about identical twins. They are still different - even if they look the same - because God made them unique. Maybe the like different things or are good at different things. They have different thoughts and different emotions - they think and feel differently.

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