Creation Kids - creative Christian curriculum for today's creative kids

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Outstanding Oysters
(God's Animals)
by Sandra Harris

The oyster gets very irritated when a tiny grain of sand gets inside its shell -- it hurts! But the pain produces something very beautiful and valuable.

Characteristic: trusting God through tough situations

Bible Verse: Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials. James 1:2 NIV

Concepts:

The oyster has two shells and is therefore a bivalve mollusk. Its shells are hinged together at the narrow end. Some oysters grow to be 3 feet long! Most, however, are much smaller. You can tell an oyster’s approximate age by measuring how many inches in diameter the shell is. An oyster grows about one inch every year.

The American-Canadian oyster lives in the Atlantic Ocean. The female can lay as many as 10,000,000 to 60,000,000 eggs in one season. The British-Columbian oyster lives in the Pacific Ocean. This oyster is both male and female at the same time.

The oyster itself has no skin to protect its flesh, so when a grain of sand gets inside its shell, it hurts! So the oyster tries to cover the sand with a smooth coating so that the rough sand won’t hurt anymore. After awhile, the oyster has put so many coatings on the grain of sand that the sand has become a pearl – something of great beauty and value.

Sometimes God lets us go through tough situations so that our rough behaviors and rough ways of thinking will become smooth as we begin to think and behave more like God. Instead of becoming more beautiful on the outside like the grain of sand, we become more beautiful on the inside. God can use irritating situations to create beautiful things, in oysters and in us.

Center Activities

Science: Put out some pieces of wood and sandpaper or sandpaper bocks and let children sand the wood. Have on hand a piece of wood that has already been sanded for children to compare. Show them some other sanding tools, like planes and electric sanders. Talk about the planing/sanding process and how long it takes to transform a tree into a beautiful toy or a piece of furniture.

Art: Make macaroni necklaces (or use a circle-shaped cereal like Cheerios, Fruit Loops, etc.). Talk about valuable things like jewelry. What other things do the children value?

Craft: Jewelry /Treasure Boxes

Materials needed:
empty boxes or tins (preferably with lids) to recycle
colored tissue paper
glue wash (1 part white glue to 1 part water)
old paint brushes
glitter
newspaper
strips of paper with this lesson’s memory verse printed on it

To make:
Cover work area with newspaper. Have children glue torn pieces of tissue paper to box, covering box and overlapping colors. If box is a dark color, covering with white paper (or painting tin with white paint) before applying the colored paper will make the colors more vibrant. If desired, sprinkle with glitter before glue wash dries. When dry, give each child a Bible verse to put in their box, reminding them that valuables are not always things we can touch.

Story Time: Oliver Oyster

Enrichment Ideas:

1. Draw with crayon on pieces of fine-tooth sandpaper.

2. String beads.

3. Equip the drama center with costume jewelry and a jewelry box.

4. Let the children examine some real pearls. Compare them with fake pearls.

5. Examine oyster shells. Teachers of one of the age 4 classes that field-tested this lesson brought some real oysters to class for the kids to pry open and look for pearls. They reported that it was hard work prying the shells open, but that the kids were fascinated by the activity.

6. Choose another mollusk to study and compare it with the oyster. How are they the same? How are they different?

7. Have children cut pictures of things they think are valuable or beautiful from old magazines. Make a collage with them.

8. Serve oyster crackers with soup for lunch.

9. To help children understand how much pain a tiny grain of sand can cause, ask them to remember how much it hurts when a small pebble gets in their shoe. If they haven’t experienced this, let them put a dry pea or a small bean in their shoe and try walking.

10. Gather a variety of objects that can be recycled: empty cans, bottles, cardboard boxes, bottle caps, etc. Have the kids brainstorm ideas for turning these items of trash into beautiful treasures. Let them choose one of their ideas to try.

11. Talk about everyday things that can be painful or uncomfortable but we do them anyway because they help us: visiting the dentist, getting a shot, getting a haircut, the first time on skates, taking a bath, going to bed earlier than others, etc.

12. Although the events of September 11 were by no means a tiny irritation, this lesson can be used to talk about how God can take something really painful and ugly and create something good and beautiful from it. We can trust God to help us through this, and believe that He will create something beautiful in ourselves, in others, in our country and in the world at large.

13. Books to read: Children’s books about oysters or pearls seem to be pretty rare, but here are a few to try:
My Mother's Pearls, Catherine M. Fruisen, ages 4-8
Seashells, Crabs and Sea Stars, Christiane Kump Tibbits, ages 4-8
National Audubon Society First Field Guide : Shells (National Audubon Society First Field Guides), Brian Cassie, ages 9-12
Eyewitness Explorers: Shells, Jennifer Coldrey, ages 9-12