A House Built Of Choices

Last Saturday we were teaching the kids about the influence and meaning of their choices they make daily in their lives. Nathan taught them with a blackboard explaining how bad choices lead to more bad choices and good choices lead to more good choices. He got this lesson from his own experience, so he  didn’t even have to use any additional materials from the internet:-)

And I was helping my husband. God gave me a good idea for a creative and practical game to demonstrate to the kids how their choices can work in their life. I want to share it.

A house built of choices

For 10 kids:

Needed: Color paper (6 colors), 1 scissors, 5-10 little glue sticks and 10 white paper A4 sheets, 10 pens.

Before game: you cut from color paper:

- 60 rectangles (10 of each color), about 5×15 cm each.

-20 triangles of different color (15cm).

 You spread out all these parts on one table.

One more thing you do before start the game: take a piece of each color and put the points on the back, for example: yellow +20, black 0, red -10, pink +30, brown -30, blue + 10. It will be the cost of every color (choice). And you don’t show it to the children. Hide it for yourself for now.

Let’s start:

To every kid you give one A4 sheet, and explain that now they will have to make their own color choices of the house parts.  Let them come to the table and pick up 4 rectangles and 1 triangle of colors they would like for their own house.

Now you give them glue sticks and let them build a house. Each house is built of 5 parts. All houses are so colorful and nice:-)

After the houses are made you tell them something like: “Every house is nice and you built them of the colors you wanted. Imagine that your house is your life, and EVERY COLOR is YOUR OWN CHOICE. And you chose it because you liked it, didn’t you? But not every time we like something does it mean that it s good, and not always does it mean ts bad when we don’t like it. I didn’t tell you that every color has some points, some pluses or some minuses. And now I’m going to declare their cost. Please write the points on each color your house has.”

After you show them the colors with their points, let them count how many points their houses have. Some of them will be surprised and happy, some of them will not be happy with the results. But here it’s time to explain them: “Dear children, before you chose the colors WITHOUT KNOWING their meaning, you chose them BECAUSE YOU LIKED THEM. But I’m sure if you knew the meaning and cost of each color everyone of you would choose the colors with the best cost, wouldn’t you? SO, BEFORE MAKING ANY CHOICE IN YOUR LIFE, NO MATTER YOU LIKE OR NOT, IT’S GOOD TO KNOW ITS COST AND MEANING. Very often the cost and meaning of the choice is hidden. That’s why it’s good to ask somebody who is older than you for advice. AND REMEMBER THAT GOD IS ALWAYS NEXT TO YOU AND HE IS THE WISEST COUNSELOR TO ASK FOR THE BEST ADVICE even in the most difficult situations of your life.”

Hope you will enjoy this time during the game.