Our study of the Solar System and the planets led me to think about the uniqueness of our planet Earth. The Earth is a beautiful creation. Out of all the 9 (8) planets, God chose to create life on only one of them.

We often read the creation story in the book of Genesis. How often do we include a study of the complete Universe and the Solar System in that study? If God created the Heavens and the Earth, then He created the entire Universe.

Why didn’t He put life on the other planets? Why did He choose to beautify only one planet (Earth)? We are blessed to live on such a beautiful planet. When we look at pictures of the other planets, we see they are all one color: big round spheres of red or blue or brown. Earth is colored with green and blue and white. God created those colors for His children.

At one time there was a possibility that life existed on the planet Mars but scientists later discovered there was no air or water for life on that planet. God gave us our home, planet Earth.

To say thank you and show our gratefulness to our great God for His great creation, let’s work together to care for His Earth that He has given to us.

The following lesson plan is written and designed to be used in a preschool Sunday school class or preschool worship session or weekday Christian preschool class.

Objective: To teach young children the importance of saving money for future events and life happenings

To teach young children 4 important things to do with their money: earn it by working hard, save it for future things/events, spend only some of it, be generous by giving to others

To teach young children that they must work to earn money in order to have things they want or need for the future

To teach young children the importance of taking turns and working together with friends

To teach young children counting skills

To teach young children the importance of sharing and being generous by giving to others

Goals: For young children to understand to have money they must work hard and they must save some of their money for future life events and goals and they must be generous by giving/sharing with others

Required Materials: Center-based Learning environment: Set up the preschool room in the following classroom learning centers:

Art, Math, Dramatic play, Language arts/Calendar, Science, Blocks/Transportation

Accompany this lesson with the following written materials:

1. Malachi 3:6-10 ? (verse 10) ? Bring to the storehouse a full tenth of what you earn so there will be food in my house.
2. Matthew 25:14-30 ? Parable of the Three Servants and their bags of gold.
3. Book, Savannah Goes to Children?s Worship, by Brenna Phillips. Read about how Savannah learned about reserving her money in three jars for saving, spending, and giving. She chose some money from her giving jar to take with her to children?s worship to give for use at church for others.

Book is available at amazon.com and bn.com.

1. Catalogs with pictures of things children like: toys, cars, ball games, vacations
2. Classroom Centers:
3. Play food, cash register
4. Old laptop, old phone
5. Blocks
6. Cars and trucks
7. Circle time calendar, etc.
8. Housekeeping table, dishes, play food
9. Science center activities: microscope, insect slides, etc.

10. Envelopes with $10 of play money, all in $1 bills. Three envelopes for each student: one for saving, one for spending, one for giving

11. Toys and balls and games on the shelves for shopping

12. Bank with big box for storing students? saving envelope

Procedure: Setting up Center-based Learning environment:

1. Art/cutting skills: Have students cut out pictures from catalogs of things they would like to have.
2. Art/gluing skills: Make a collage of those pictures on a posterboard.
3. Discussion/Listening skills: Tell the students that if they want those things then they need to work to earn some money to purchase them.
4. Dramatic play/individual expression: Set up different centers in the classroom to be ?job? centers:

Have students place play food on a table like stocking shelves of a grocery store. Have one student work the cash register while other students grocery shop.

Set up an old laptop computer on another table and place an old phone next to the computer. This job center is an office. Have students work in an office. There can be multiple offices set up for more than one student to work.

Use the blocks in the block center as a construction site. Allow students to work to build houses and buildings.

Use the cars and trucks for students to build roads.

Allow students to use the calendar and word wall and other circle time materials to be teachers.

Set up a restaurant in the housekeeping center. Allow students to set the table, pass out menus, take orders, and serve play food as in a restaurant.

Set up a science lab in the science center. Allow students to examine insect slides under the microscope.

Set up one job center as the bank. Use a big box as the bank vault. Students will visit the bank with their saving envelope of money.

Social studies: Talk about the jobs of the students? parents/grandparents. Ask parents to visit the class to discuss/show their jobs.

1. Have each student choose a job center location where they want to work.
2. Once all students have chosen a job center and worked for a little while, go around to each student and give him/her an envelope with some play money in it. That is their payday.
3. Math: Help the students decide how much is a tithe of their pay, at least 10%. Put that money in their giving envelope.
4. Math: Allow one or two students at a time to ?be off work? and go shopping.
5. Math: Tell the students they are only allowed to spend $2-3 of their money. They may purchase something from the table set up as the store for themselves and for someone else. Example: spend $1 on themselves, $1 on someone else. They must save the rest and put it in the saving envelope and take it to the bank. They should have already reserved their tithe money in their giving envelope. Talk about what the tithe money will be used for. Talk about ways to share money with others: food, clothing, daily needs, etc. Talk about ways to share/give to others doesn?t have to be money; it can be time as well as growing food in the garden, etc. List ways to give to others.

10. Once the students have spent their $2-3, tell them they must go back to work.

11. Working together/taking turns: Then switch students to take turns to go shopping and to the bank to save part of their money.

12. Repeat lesson activities the next day/week so the students get the picture they must return to work everyday to earn more money, therefore, $2-3 for more spending/expenses and remainder for more saving and giving.

Assessments/Discussion questions:

1. What are some things you want?
2. What do you need in order to get those things?
3. How do you get money?
4. How much of your money earned should you spend at once?
5. What should you do with the rest of your money you aren?t going to spend?
6. How do you get more money?
7. Can you spend all of that money?
8. What should you do with that money?
9. What can you do with the money you saved in the bank?
10. What happens to the money you gave to others and to the church?
11. What does it mean to be generous?
12. What does the Bible tell us to do with our money?
13. What happened to the three servants? (money) in the Matthew parable?
14. How can we earn money/save money/give money and other things?
15. What jobs would you like to do when you get older/grow up?
16. Do you have to be older to work some jobs and earn money?
17. How can you earn money as a child? What jobs can children do to earn money?

To conclude our Jungle theme week, we made Jungle Juice — the non-alcoholic version, of course. Jungle Juice is yummy and easy to make.

Recipe:

4 oranges

3 lemons

3 limes

Cut each of the above fruits in half and squeeze the juice into a pitcher. I used a juicer. The students loved putting the fruit half on top of the juicer and pushing down to make it turn around and squeeze the juice out.

Add 1/2 pitcher of water. Add 1/2-2 cups of sugar. Add ice. Stir.

Savannah Goes to Children’s Worship is a book I authored to ease the transition for preschoolers who promote from small preschool classes at church up to larger children’s worship groups with multiple grades and ages of children.

These preschoolers are used to smaller classes with friends close to their same ages. Now that they are older and going to kindergarten or first grade, they are ready to promote up to the children’s group at church, too. Usually the children’s worship groups have many more children and are mixed ages and grades.

This can be tough on some children to get used to at first. This book will help ease the transition. Watch this video for a short snippet of the book then order the book at www.amazon.com or www.bn.com to read the rest of the story. Click below to view the video: