It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts – A Lunch Bunch Project

I tried a new lesson with my Lunch Bunch groups, and this will be going into the “keep” pile. I loved the message and the kids loved the project that went along with it.

When the kids came in I asked them,

“How many of you have been to, or have seen on tv, a beach?”

“How many of you have been to, or have seen on tv, a beach cave?”

We talked about what a beach cave would be like and what it might be like to explore one. This became the setting for the story I told them.

The Discovery

A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves, he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn’t look like much, but they intrigued the man so he took the bag out of the cave with him. (I asked them to try to describe what they might look like. . .some of the responses were pretty comical.)

As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. (And of course to make the story interesting, I pretended to throw the balls of clay into the ocean, making little sounds as they hit the water.) He thought little about it until he dropped one of the balls and it cracked open on a rock. (I asked to guess what was inside.) Inside was a beautiful, precious stone.

Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure.

He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 3 or so clay balls he had left. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he just threw it away.

I went on to ask the students, “How are the clay balls like people?” One 5th grader answered, “They’re just like me: a little plain on the outside but special on the inside. Because I’m so quiet, some people don’t know how special I am.” What beautiful words. . .well said my little friend!

I then told the girls we were going to make bottle cap magnets. We will fill them with words and jewels that describe us, and like the jewels inside the balls of clay, are not noticed right away until people get to know us. I also told them that when they left my room, their magnets would be filled with a white glue (mod podge) and it would cover what they had put inside their magnets. I then showed them one of the sample magnets I had. I told them that when they returned from break, their magnets would be dried, and the “clay–mod podge” would become clear.

I had small craft gems, crowns, scrapbooking paper, and words typed on paper for the girls to cut out. I also had a 1″ punch that was the perfect size for the inside of each bottle cap.