A Fishing Game to Teach Fruit of the Spirit

All right I admit, I just thought of another use/idea for this game as I typed up the title.   I really should be incorporating the whole ‘fishers of men’ theme into this game, maybe I will next week. 

Originally I made this game because we were learning about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Fruits of the Holy Spirit and just other good/bad words that are written in the Bible.  So what I did was cut out some fishys and write things like integrity, gossip, lies, truth, mercy, salvation, peace, love, joy, righteousness on them.  Most of the children can’t read well enough to work it out themselves when they catch the fish so they have to bring it over to the leader who tells them what is written on the fish and asks them whether that word is good or bad.  It is then a great opportunity to explain that word to them, which most of the time, stretches our own brain to come up with a good definition. 

There are a couple of ways to play this game, but we sort of make it up as we go.  To start with we were playing it that good fish go in one pile, bad fish in another, fruit of the spirit fish in another and gifts of the spirit in another, just to get them learning what they were.  After a couple of weeks they were really good at this and when we introduced this game upstairs in church during a ‘Sunday School Service’ the kids were winning over the adults hands down.

Another way is to get them to just catch them and count how many they have, or to grab the fish and if it’s good pray for it to come into the church, their family, their lives etc or if it’s bad, declare that they don’t want it.  After all the power of life and death is in the tongue and it’s never too early to start declaring stuff over or out of our lives.

So to make the fish, just draw a rough shape on cardboard and cut it out, then put a paper clip on it which will be attracted to the magnet glued on the end of your ribbon which is tied to your stick.   There you are simple,  the only other rule we normally have is that we make a pond out of some rope on our blue carpet and you can’t stand in it. 

The photos are of Raelee, my younger sister when she came to visit, catching some fish in our living room.  I brought the game home for her to play because she was sick on Sunday and didn’t come to church. 

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