SAMPLE LESSON The Lemonade Stand From Sour to Sweet Clarissa Krohn Teach His Way
The Lemonade Stand From Sour to Sweet As the old saying goes When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Because we live in a fallen world every single person on earth will face hard days, lemon days! What we do with those lemon days makes all the difference. Those lemon days can either make us sour or cause us to run to Jesus who can keep us sweet. This theme focuses on lemon days turning into lemonade days, when we give them over to Jesus. Suggested Theme Decorations: Lemonade Stand ( stack 4 wooden crates together) Tree house or simple yard painted background (on a large sheet) Fake lemons, limes, and oranges Shiny metal buckets (to hold the fruit) or baskets Lemonade pitchers (Walmart s summer time dishes) Colorful straws and cups Large fruit- lemon, lime, and orange paper cut-outs Large yellow, orange, and green tissue paper pom poms and large paper umbrellas (Hobby Lobby) Large pinwheels (place them in Styrofoam in flower pots) Suggested Song: Theme Song: Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy- See appendix for lyrics Prayer Song: We Thank Thee (verse 3)- Patch the Pirate Praises 3 Daniel and the Lions- By The Donut Man (Rob Evans) In His Arms- By The Donut Man (Rob Evans) He Gives Me Joy Patch the Pirate Praises 2 Be Strong- All The Best Songs For Kids God Said It Master Chorus Book 1 Silly Song: Pigs Don t Live in Houses- Patch the Pirate Praises 2 Contest Ideas: Assign a labelled wooden crate or metal bucket for a girls team and a boys team. Boys will be awarded with limes and girls will be awarded with lemons. Fruit will be awarded for winning- most visitors, the review games, and the sweet and sour spin. Sweet and Sour Spin It: Make a large spinner. Write the following things on the spinner wedges; Forgot to put sugar in the lemonade award the other team with a fruit, Hooray your lemonade stand is a success gain an extra fruit, Oh no, forgot to buy fruit for the lemonade loose a fruit At the end of each service the team that is ahead in fruit gets to spin the spinner and follow the instructions. It could be sweet or sour! For spinner instructions go to http://kidsparties.about.com/od/diyideas/ss/diy-valentines-day-spinner.htm
Puppet: Add a little extra fun with a puppet! I use a Melissa and Doug man puppet who travels around everywhere with us. This year He is going to live in the tree house with a new pet. Boy is he surprised when he learns his pet is not a kitty cay but a skunk! You can buy a really cool skunk puppet that crawls up your arm on amazon for cheap! Super Sour Introduction: To get each day started, tell the kids about one of the top 6 sourest candy in the world and show them a picture of a person s face after eating sour candy. You may wish to place these on the backs of paper cut outs of lemons and limes and use them for decorations. See appendix for pictures of sour candy and pictures of sour faces. Continued Story: This recommended story is based off of the book, Sons of Africa by Leslie Parrott. It has been condensed and worded for children. Discovery Bible: You will need to buy two black foam boards from the dollar store. Use yellow duct tape to hold them together. Cut out letter to glue on the front that says, Giant Discovery Bible. Inside make little pockets, boxes, and etc. to hold items that go with each Bible story. Before each Bible story have a child volunteer come to the front and pull out the item. This gives you a chance as well to discuss the importance of our Bibles! Catch Phrase: You want the kids to take home something that they have learned from this series of lessons. Add this catch phrase randomly throughout the lesson. You will shout out, What do you do when life gives you lemons? In response, the children will reply, Don t pucker and pout God will help you out. As the kids say the response, have them actually make a pucker and pout face. - - - - - - - - - - - - Quiet Seat Awards - - - - - - - - - - - - There are many views on incorporating a quiet seat prize into a children s service. Many think you shouldn t bribe kids, but I think a little motivation is necessary! The children s service should be interesting, exciting, and upbeat enough to keep the children s attention. There are days, for whatever reason- hungry, trouble at home, sick, etc. - that can cause children to get a little restless. A quiet seat prize can help motivate children to pay close attention to the lesson. The prizes don t have to be large- small things such as a can of Pringles, glow sticks, and anything from the dollar store! I have volunteered at a VBS where no motivational prizes were given and I prayed to God for mercy and that time would go quickly. I had a team of super rowdy kids who had never been to church before!
Lesson 1 God is With You Sour: When we feel alone Sweet: God is always there! Super Sour Introduction: Welcome to The Lemonade Stand, where we talk about how the sour things in life that we face can be turned sweet when we give them to God. When we have bad days, sour days, or down right lemon days we can ask God to step in and help us make it through them. To start each day we are going to have a little sour fun. Sour things that we face are not nice but there is something sour that is candy! How many of you like to eat sour candy? Let s take a look at the top 6 sour candies in the world and what a person s face may look like if they eat one! Candy #6 Sour Punch Straws Theme Song: Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Additional Songs: Add two or three more songs here. Catch Phrase: What do you do when life gives you lemons? Don t pucker and Pout. God will help you out Prayer songs help to quiet the children to pray. Tell them that the prayer song is a way to help us get started talking to God. Prayer Song: We Thank Thee Prayer Time: God loves to spend time with us. He may even whisper to your heart to invite you right then to talk to Him. God doesn t need any sleep so even if we wake up in the middle of the night He is always awake and ready to talk! Let s close our eyes, fold our hands, and pray. Discovery Bible: Object= fake food. Our Bible is a special gift from God. It is like His love letter to you and I. On super sour days we can go to it and be reminded of God s love for us. Let s see what we can discover inside for today! Bible Lesson: God is present- Daniel far From Home Daniel Chapter 1 Sour: Far Away from Home Sweet: God is There Wherever You Are Story Help: You will need the Melissa and Doug food sticker book. From the book pull out 8 dinner plate pages and stick various food stickers on them. Print out a picture, which goes along with the story, and glue it on the backs of the dinner plate pages. See appendix for Bible Story Pictures. When telling the story pick a child volunteer to come to the front and hold each dinner plate. The volunteers will reveal the pictures at the appropriate times during the story. Start: For today s Bible story we have been invited to the palace. In fact, we are going to have dinner with the king. Wow, it looks like a delicious feast has been prepared! I need some volunteers to come help eat this meal. At this time have child volunteers come to the front to help hold up the dinner plate pages. Dinner Plate 1: Soldier Picture: Our story starts out rather sour and sad. The great king Nebuchadnezzar sent soldiers into the kingdom of Judah to attack it and take it over. The
soldiers were instructed to capture strong, healthy, and smart young men to be brought back to King Nebuchadnezzar s kingdom to be trained and work for the king. Daniel and three of his friends were sadly among those who were captured. Dinner Plate 2: Feast Picture: Daniel and his friends were devastated. They were ripped away from their homes and their families, far away from everything that they knew. One important thing that they would learn is that even though they were far away from home they were never far away from God. He was going to be close to them no matter what. The young men were not going to be thrown into prison but taken care of. They were to be taught many things and would get to eat the best of the king s food. Dinner Plate 3: Daniel and friends Picture: Not only were these young men taken from their homes into a foreign land but the king instructed that their names be changed! What! Daniel and his three friends had names with special meanings that honored the one true God. Daniel s name meant, God is My Judge. His name was changed to Belteshazzar which means, May Bel protect his life. Bel was a false god that the king worshipped. Bel was fake and could never answer anyone s prayers. Daniels three friends were given new names as well. Their names were changed to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. Even though the king had their names changed, he could not change their hearts. Daniel was determined to serve the one true God no matter what! Dinner Plate 4: X through food: Because Daniel and His friends decided they would honor God there was something they could not do. They would not eat the meat and fancy food from the King s table. They could not eat the king s food because the king would offer up the food to an idol, a fake god. If Daniel and his friends accepted that food then it would mean that they believed in that false god. What were they to do? Dinner Plate 5: Chief Eunuch: Daniel went to the man who was in charge of them and told him they could not defile themselves by eating the king s food. They didn t want to honor a false god. The man in charge listened very carefully because he had grown to like Daniel. He knew there was something special about Daniel and his friends but he was afraid. He told Daniel, I will be killed if the king sees that you look sickly from not eating the food. He will think that I am not doing my job in taking care of you. Dinner Plate 6: Daniel and Friends eating Vegetables: Daniel had a plan. Let s put it to the test. Me and my friends will only eat vegetables and water for 10 days. Then you examine us to see if we look sickly. So the test began. While everyone else was eating the delicious foods of the king, these four young men had to sit at the table and eat their plate of vegetables. That would have been hard to do but they decided to honor God no matter what! The ten days were finally over. When they were examined they looked healthier and stronger than all of the others who were eat the fine food. God had been with Daniel and his friends. The chief man in charge then decided that everybody needed to eat only vegetables and water so they could be like Daniel and his friends.
Dinner Plate 7: King Nebuchadnezzar: As these young men trained and learned, our Bible says that God gave them knowledge and skill. God also gave Daniel the ability to understand dreams. At the end of the training all the young men had to meet with the king. When it was Daniel s turn and his three friends turn the king realized there was no one like these young men in his kingdom. They were the smartest in the group. Not only that, but they were smarter than the smartest men in the kingdom. The king gave them jobs right away. Dinner Plate 8: Lemon: Daniel and his friends faced some sour times, especially when they were taken away from their families, but they kept trusting in God. God didn t take their troubles away but God showed them He was always there during those hard times/sour times. God does that for us as well. God won t always take our bad days away but he promises to always be there with us! Suggested Song: Be Strong According to the time you have randomly sing songs throughout the service/class. This will help get kids active and keep out the squirming. Catch Phrase: Don t pucker and Pout. God will help you out Memory Verse: Matthew 28:20b I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Memorization Help: Make a cootie catcher See appendix for directions Write the words of the verse on a dry erase board or poster board. Cover 10 of the words with cut outs of oranges, lemons, and limes. Play the cootie catcher with a child volunteer. Whatever fruit flap they turn over is the fruit they get to remove from the verse, revealing the verse one hidden word at a time. You may want to add a free choice option under one of the flaps so the child can remove any of the fruit cut outs. Play until the entire verse is revealed. Make sure you say the verse together each time a word is revealed! Verse Discussion: Jesus is the one who said this verse. It was for His disciples and for anyone serving Him today! It is a great reminder that God will always be with us! We will never have a day without Him, even if it is a sour lemon kind of day! Suggested Song: Silly Song: Pigs Don t Live in Houses Continued Story: Elmer, Son of Africa (missionary kid Elmer Schmelzenbach) Review Game: Lemonade Race Things Needed: 2 plastic lemonade pitchers, 6 lemonade stand clipart- on the backs of these write out fun lemonade recipes (you may want to reuse these depending on time). You will need the following clipart; 12 lemons, 3 strawberries, 12 sugar, 12 water, 3 watermelon, 3 lady bugs, 3 chocolate, 3 oranges. See appendix for clipart samples Recipe #1 Strawberry Lemonade: Lemons, strawberries, sugar, water: 500 points Recipe #2 Watermelon Lemonade Slushy: Watermelon, lemons, sugar: 500 points
Recipe #3 Super Sour Lemonade: Lemons, water: 300 Points Recipe #4 Lady Bug Lemonade: Lemons, sugar, water, 1 lady bug: 100 points Recipe #5 Chocolate Swish Lemonade: chocolate, lemons, sugar, water: 600 Points Recipe #6 Secret Recipe: The first person to find an orange wins 700 points Game Instructions: Place the recipes face down on a board or wall with sticky tac. Scatter the ingredient clipart all around the room. Divide the children into two teams. The teams are competing against each other to see who has the best lemonade stand. Ask a review question to a child from each team. Alternate which team picks a recipe from the board. Read it to the two competing children and say go. They must grab one of each ingredient listed. They can only grab one at a time and place it in their team s designated pitcher. Whichever child has all their ingredients in their pitcher receives the points, which are written on the recipe card, for their team. At the end of the game, the team with the most points is the winning team! Review Questions: 1. Does God ever go to sleep? Never 2. What was our super sour candy for today? Sour Punch Straws 3. At the beginning of our Bible Story, what were the soldiers instructed to ring back to the king? Young men 4. Even though Daniel was far from home, was he far from God? No 5. What happened to Daniel and his friends names? They were changed 6. Why didn t Daniel and his friends want to eat the king s food? It was offered to idols 7. What did Daniel and his friends eat instead? Fruit and vegetables 8. What happened to them after eating only the fruits and vegetables? Healthier than the others 9. Does God always take our problems away? No 10. What does God promise during those hard times? To always be with us! 11. How old was Elmer before he spoke English? 8 12. Where would Elmer hide when the witch doctor was near? Under his bed or in the tall grass. 13. Is life always easy peasy? No 14. When life gives us lemons, who should we ask to help turn them into lemonade? Jesus Sweet and Sour Spin It: Have a volunteer from the team that is ahead in points/fruit come and give the spinner a spin! The results could be sour or sweet! Catch Phrase: Don t pucker and Pout. God will help you out Closing Song: I suggest singing the theme song at the end as well as the beginning of every service/class
Quiet Seat Awards: If possible have another adult that is in the class/service pick out children who are quiet and paying attention to the lesson to receive a reward. How many prizes you give out all depends on your budget and the number of children in attendance. Closing Prayer