Scripture: Matthew 25:14-30, Luke 19:11-27
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn God gives different people different gifts.
- Students will learn God expects us to use our gifts to serve Him.
- Students will learn God rewards us not for the number of gifts we have, but for how we used them.
- Students will learn about money equivalency.
Guiding Question: How can students learn the equivalency of different combinations of coins?
Materials: Pretend money
Procedure: Tell students the story of the talents. Explain to students, that like in most parables the story has a meaning beyond the obvious one. Explain that in this case the story is about the gifts God has given us to serve Him.
Introduce the activity. In the story, there are money units we aren’t used to having – example 60 mina = 1 talent. Teach the students money equivalence like 10 pennies = 1 dime. Give them fake money and have them create, record and solve as many equivalence problems as possible.
Additional Questions: How can students create different coin combinations?
Supplemental Activity: Give the students coin amounts such as 26 pennies, 13, pennies, 63 pennies, etc. Have the students come up with ways to make the same amount but by using different coin combinations.