Tapestry of Faith: Wonderful Welcome: A Program for Children Grades K-1

Activity 1: Wonder Box

Activity time: 5 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Wonder Box (See instructions in Session 1.)
  • A wind-up or battery-powered alarm clock

Preparation for Activity

  • Make sure you know how to make the alarm clock sound. Place the clock inside the Wonder Box.

Description of Activity

With the children still in a circle around the chalice, ask them to guess what could be in this big, beautifully wrapped box. Take guesses. Open the box, take out the alarm clock, and activate its sound. Then say:

Who knows what this is? Who has one at home?

Affirm that it is an alarm clock. Say, in your own words:

An alarm clock makes a sound that wakes everyone up in time to start the day. Well, on a farm, one of the animals has a job like an alarm clock. Who knows which animal?

Affirm that on a farm, a rooster - a male chicken - crows and wakes the other animals. Ask the group what sound a rooster makes and allow some "cock-a-doodle-doing." Then say:

I see that most of you know how to make that sound. How did you learn how to do it?

Allow some brief discussion. Then tell the group:

Today we will hear a story about a rooster who was asked to do his wake-up job before he knew how to make that sound. Just like you, the rooster figured it out by learning together with his friends. The gift of learning together is our intangible gift today, and we will find out why it was such an important gift for a rooster and his friends to share.