Aims to learn that God gave us a mind, heart and body to use for goodness

Aims
* To learn that God gave us a mind, heart and body to use for goodness
* To learn what it means to be good

Materials
*The Bear Who Didn’t Care, from A Child’s First Steps to Virtues, by Emily Hunter
*visual aids – large pictures of the story
*pictures to colour
*scissors, glue

Lesson Outline
1. Introduction
2. The Bear Who Didn’t Care
3. Some Questions
4. Activities – act out the story, colour a picture
5. Review aims
6. Prayer

1) Introduction
God gave us a mind to know. We go to school to learn to read and write. God also wants us to know what is right and wrong.
* He gave us a heart to feel. We can feel happy, sad or angry. Most of all God wants us to feel love in our hearts.
* He gave us a body to do many things – walk, jump, run, stretch, bend and carry. He also wants us to do good things with our body, such as helping others.
* God wants us to use our mind, heart and body for goodness. With our mind we need to know what is good. With our heart we need to love what is good. With our body we need to do what is good. Today’s story shows us how to use our mind, our heart and our body in a good way.

2) The Bear Who Didn’t Care
Benjamin the Bear is happy, because he is going to the fair. On the way there, several people need his help, but he ignores them. He only thinks about his own happiness. After the fair, things go wrong when a robber takes everything he has. On his way home he meets the same people he refused to help earlier in the day. When he asks them for their help, they refuse. Benjamin feels
miserable. Finally, he mets the same old man he refused to share his umbrella with. But the man shows Benjamin kindness by inviting him to his home and giving the bear some food and drink. Such kindness moves his heart. He also reads some words from the old man’s book, that tell him how he should treat people. He feels very sorry for his own wrong attitude. What he learns from his mistakes is to do to others as he would have others do to him.

In the story Benjamin’s mind, heart and body are very self-centred. His mind thinks about himself first. His heart is insensitive to the needs of others. And he doesn’t do anything with his body to help others. Later he changes. Reading the golden rule (do unto others) brings a change in his heart and mind and his actions. He decides that helping and caring about others is the right thing to do and what brings real happiness

3) Some Questions

Why did the bear feel happy at the beginning of the story?
Who asked him for help?
What did he think, feel and do when they asked for help?
What happened to the bear after the fair?
What did he think, feel and do?
What did he ask the farmer, the woman and old man?
What did they think, feel and do?
What happened in the old man’s house?
At the end of the story how did the bear change?

4) What can we learn from the story?
The bear was happy at the beginning of the story, but because he only thought about himself, things went wrong. He didn’t care for others and did nothing to help, At the end of the story he learned that if he wants to be happy, he has to think about other people’s needs, care about them and do something to help them. He learned the Golden Rule . Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

5) Activities
Act out the story
Colour pictures, paste words

6) Review the aims of the lesson
* To learn that God gave us a mind, heart and body to use for goodness
* To learn what it means to be good

7) Prayer
Say a prayer to thank God for giving us a mind, heart and body, so we can grow to be good and happy.