Week 9: The Wiseman and The Foolish Man

Click to Download: The Wise Man & Foolish Man PDF

Morning Meeting (Matthew 7: 24-27 - The Wise Man & Foolish Man): Hold up the picture of The Sermon on the Mount and read the summary on the back (link at the bottom of the post). As you read the scriptures, tell the story with these images (from LDS.org). I printed them and placed a small magnet on the back to use with our magnet board. You could also place them on the ground to tell the story. Really emphasize not only knowing what Jesus taught, but actually DOING it. Explain the parable:

• House = Us (spiritually)
• Rock = Learning the teachings of Jesus and doing (living) them.
• Storm = Temptations
• Sand = Learning the teachings of Jesus and NOT doing (living) them. 

When the storm (temptations) come, if we are living the teachings of Jesus we are like the house built upon the rock. We stand tall and don't move. We are safe. If we are NOT living the teachings of Jesus, we don't have a strong foundation. When temptations come, the sand falls from beneath us and we fall down. We are not safe. 

Family Home Evening:

1) Teach dad about what we learned this morning. 

2) Temptation Game. Print the Wise Man & Foolish Man (link at the bottom of the post). Cut them out and tape them onto popsicle sticks. Give one wise man and one foolish man to each child. Read the temptation cards and have the children hold up the wise man or foolish man depending on the scenario. 

3) Wise Man/Foolish Man Object Lesson. You'll need:

• 2 Trays
• A Rock OR Brick
• Sand 
• 2 Houses (we used bristle blocks to make ours)
• Squirt Bottles - temptation 

Prepare your trays. Place a rock on one of the trays and place molded sand on the other tray. Have your children help you make two houses. Place one house on top of the rock and the other house on top of the sand. Have your children squirt water (temptations) on the brick. If we DO what we're supposed to do, we won't fall when temptations come. Now, squirt water (temptations) on the sand. Talk about temptations and when we DO NOT do what we're supposed to. It may seem okay at first, but eventually our house will fall down.

Please Note: It snowed a foot and a half in Eugene this week, which is so rare. My plan to get some sand from a park didn't quite work out, so we used snow instead! We filled the water bottles with warm water. This is one of those activities that I didn't expect my boys to love so much. They wanted to do it over and over again. 

This is about the point when they started squirting each other with their squirt bottles. We all had a good laugh.