Silly Putty

The past two Wednesday nights I have taught the preschool and elementary  class at my church. I love getting to teach, and luckily I have been off on the past two Wednesdays so that I can do that. This past Wednesday I worked during the day, and a thought crossed my  mind when I scanned borax while I was at work. In my chemistry class we made silly putty. It was supposed to show us something about polymers, but I didn't gain anything from this project that I was supposed to except that is was a cool project to do. I wanted to make silly putty with the kids, but I wasn't sure how I would make a point with the project. I found a recipe for it online and with the directions I thought of the perfect object lesson that I could teach along with the project. Before the kids came down I put glue in individual ziplock bags and mixed the borax and water in one cup. When the kids took their seat  I told them that the glue represented them. I explained that just by ourselves, just like the glue, we can't really do much. Then I added the water to the glue in the ziplock bag. I told them that the water represented the world. I explained that even though we live in this world that sometimes we get carried away and it is a big sticky mess. Just like the glue by itself, it didn't have much of a purpose. Then, I added the borax/water mixture to their bags and explained to them that it represented God. I told them that we need God to make our life complete. I then told them that our relationship with God takes work, because they needed to squeeze the mixture in their ziplock bag to make it into silly putty. Then, I asked them to look at what they had created in their bag. I told them that this represented our life with God, a life with a purpose. I told them that just like silly putty is super cool, if we allow God in our lives, He can do pretty cool stuff with it as well. Finally, I added food coloring to the silly putty. I told the kids that this represented the brightness that God adds to our lives once we allow Him to work in our lives. I enjoyed doing this with the kids, and I hope they got something from it other than messy silly putty.