Tithing

*Thanks to Jamie for submitting this idea!

A couple weeks ago, I threw together an activity for the 8-11 year old's at church. (We have about 9 girls who show up regularly.) We talked about tithing and the importance of saving money. I learned that most of them had never filled out a tithing slip, so it was good to go over that with them. We also talked about tithing settlement since that is one of the Faith in God requirements. I had found some ceramic farm animal banks on clearance (they ended up costing less than $2 each after I pointed out some flaws on them to the cashier and got an additional 20% discount off the clearance price...bargain of the century!!) I wanted the girls to decorate and personalize their banks and boy was I surprised with the creative results!!! I had prepared small squares of cardboard (which they covered in scrapbook paper) as a platform and then I let their imaginations run wild. Here are some pictures of what the girls made.
This really cracked me up. She made a nest for her chicken bank and even included eggs made out of puff balls.

This is a very sassy chicken. Not only does she have flowers and a feather boa around her, but the chicken has a ruby red necklace made out of puff balls.

Mooo! This cow is living large in her barn yard complete with a fence made out of pipe cleaners.

I thought this one was very simple, but very clever. You'll notice that her pig is a little muddy from rolling around in the pigsty.

If I were to do this again, I would allow for more time to decorate the banks. I could have talked to them for at least an hour about how to calculate tithing, the importance of saving money, the importance of wanting something but not having to buy it just because it's there, what a credit card is and to impress upon them how expensive things are and that they shouldn't expect their parents to buy them whatever they want. We ended up spending at least 45 minutes decorating the banks and the room was a disaster afterward, so help with cleanup would have been very much appreciated.