For the first meeting of a new Adventurer year, I like to have an award night with the whole club together. The wide range of ages does make this a bit more challenging, but I love to have a little chance to get to know the kids. Cooperation is a wonderful award to start the year off. The kids all have the opportunity to get to know each other while they work together. I made some small modifications to better fit the ages and needs of my club. Cooperation is a multilevel award. However, it is also a recommended award for Busy Bees and fulfills one of their Investiture Achievement requirements. (My World I)
What is Cooperation?
Fulfills Requirement #2
Read the book The Perfect Plan or another book about cooperation to the kids. Reading a story (other than the bible stories below) is not a requirement for this award. I chose to include it because it shows the kids what cooperation looks like and what we can achieve with it. Telling them is faster, but showing creates longer memories.
The Perfect Plan by Leah Gilbert is obviously a work of fiction and could never happen (as one of the third grade adventurers pointed out repeatedly throughout the story!). But, it is a lovely beautiful story about a little girl building a tree house and finding willing (animal) helpers to work together to achieve their goal. This book kept the kids ages 4 – 8 engaged. It’s a fairly newly published book, so check your local library.
Ask and discuss: What is cooperation?
Dictionary definition: “the process of working together to the same end.”
Ask and discuss: How did Maya and the animals cooperate? Obviously, you’ll want to tailor this question to the book you choose, if you choose to read a story here at all.
Game: Cooperation Musical Circles
Fulfills Requirement #6
What is Cooperation Musical Circles? Well, it’s a lot like Cooperative Musical Chairs. Don’t you love definitions that require more definitions?
Start with hoops/circles on the floor. One per person, but the number of circles isn’t as important as it is in musical chairs. I used a mix of hula hoops (dollar store ones are just fine for this game) and circles from an obstacle course. I think large paper circles would also work.
Play music, and start walking around the outside of the circles. When the music stops, jump in a circle. Each time you start the music, remove one circle. (Wait, this isn’t this just musical chairs without the chairs?) When the music stops, and everyone gets in a circle, players are going to start having a problem finding a circle. In a non-cooperative version, they’d be out. But, in our cooperative game, we want to work together! When you see someone outside of the circles, invite them to share your circle.
Keep playing music/removing circles until there is only one circle left. It’s helpful to have a large hula hoop for the last circle since the entire class needs to fit – we used the idea of fitting in the circle very loosely! Most of the kids were entirely in the circle, but the parents (who played the game with us) mostly just stuck a foot in the hula hoop. You can also play this with chairs. But, if you are including parents in the game, the hoops are probably a better choice. For music, we played Cooperation Hop by Sandi Patti.
Craft: Cooperation Heart
Fulfills Requirement #7
I was inspired by this cooperative puzzle craft. As we did this award as a whole club, I knew we would have a range of abilities in whatever craft we did. One of my favorite things about this craft is that any ability is welcome. Scribbles fit in just fine. So do little doodles for the more drawing inclined.
Once all the pieces were colored, the kids (and the parents) put the puzzles together. Assembling the puzzles was more difficult than I expected. I cut out three puzzles. I planned to use two and have an extra in case new kids joined the club at our first meeting. The kids were enjoying coloring the pieces, so they they colored all three sets. And the three sets were scrambled together! Color-coding the back of the pieces would fix this challenge.
The plain heart was helpful while putting the hearts together. After the hearts were assembled, we set them aside for an adult to glue them to the whole heart. Although, we assembled them carefully, the background heart did need some trimming at the end.
I printed the heart on cardstock paper and cut out the puzzle pieces before our meeting. The free printable and cut file are at the end of this post.
Bible Time
Fulfills Requirement #1A&B
While the kids colored, I read the story of the Children of Israel building the tabernacle. (Exodus 35:20-29) I chose to use the The Bible Story Volume 2 by Arthur Maxwell to make the story a little more accessible to all of the kids. As the story is quite long in this version, I read the first story and quickly summarized the second story. (Exodus 36:2-7) If your church has a church library, these books will likely be in it.
A short version of the story of building the tabernacle is in 100 Bible Stories. I also created a printable version of the all three Bible stories from the Bible. And, If you are doing this award with older kids only, this is a fantastic opportunity to grab those bibles, practice looking up verses, and read the stories straight from the Bible together.
Activity: Find & Build Together
Fulfills Requirement #4
After listening to the story of the Children of Israel eagerly sharing their treasures with God to build the tabernacle, it was time to act it out. Our Adventurer club has a set of foam blocks. Before the meeting, I scattered them around the room – some were lightly hidden, some were just tossed around. Kids choose which part they wanted to play:
- Moses, who received the donations
- Bezaleel, the master builder who led the builders in the project
- a crew of builders – Follow Bezaleel’s directions
- a crew of Israelites to donate building materials – Go search for building materials around the room and bring them to Moses
Everyone wanted to be a builder, but once they understood the collectors got to find all the blocks, more kids jumped to that job. I think most kids did a combination of collecting and building.
Early Christians Share
Fulfills Requirements #1C & 3
Read the story of the Early Christian Church working together (Acts 4:32-37). I chose to use a Bible Story book to best accommodate my age range. This story is in The Bible Story Volume 10 by Arthur Maxwell. I chose to read a shorter version from My First Hands-On Bible.
After reading about the early christians, ask and discuss: Why is cooperation important in your family, school, and church?
Sing Together
Fulfills Requirement #5
Sing along to a song about cooperation. We chose the song Working Together.
Downloads
What is your favorite award to earn together as a club? Please tell us about it in the comments.
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