Cognition
Week 68
We care about having a clean and tidy appearance
Cognitive skills, or cognitive abilities, are the ways that your brain remembers, reasons, holds attention, solves problems, thinks, reads, and learns. Logic and reasoning skills help you solve problems and generate ideas. This cognitive ability is part of the preciousness of our humanity. God has endowed us with the ability to think logically well beyond any animal. There is a huge gulf between our cognition and that of animals. Animals mostly live by instinct and inborn behaviors.
Point to emphasize
Children like to have clean faces and their hair in place.
Sample content and conversation with children
- We have been discovering how God made us so differently than the animals. Now we will discover that God made us with a marvelous brain that is so far above any animal’s brain.
- Today we will see that we care about our appearance, whether our face is clean and our hair is brushed in place.
- [Show pictures #1-2.] Wow, have you ever looked like this? [Let the children respond.] Can you go out of the house looking like this? Would your mom let you go out looking like this? [Let them respond and tell you about having to get cleaned up first. Let them tell about how they wash the dirt off their hands and how they get their hair in place.] That is right! We all want to be clean and have our hair put into place before others see us.
- [Show picture #3-4.] Which one of these do you use for your hair? [Have the children answer.] Do you brush or comb your hair by yourself or does your mom/dad help you sometimes? [Show picture 5.] What’s the child doing? [Let the children respond.] That’s right. Do you brush your teeth? [Let the children respond.] God made us so that we want our hair to be in place and our face, hands and teeth to be clean.
- Let’s have a look at these pictures: [Discuss each one of them with the children.
- Look at this child! What is he doing? [Show picture #6.] And how does he look when he is finished with his ice cream? [Show picture #7] Do you look like this when you eat ice cream? [Let them respond.]
- [Show picture #8.] What is this girl doing? [Have a conversation about using your napkin to wipe your face.]
- Looking clean and tidy can make us feel good about ourselves–it shows that we care about ourselves. God made us this way. What are some of the things we do to be clean and tidy? [Have the children think of things they do to keep clean. Below are some answers.]
- Wash hands before eating
- Wash hands after using the bathroom
- Wipe mouth after eating
- Take a bath or shower
- Brush/comb our hair
- Brush our teeth
- Change our clothes
- Animals do not consider their appearance. A dirty face or sticky fur never bothers them.
- [Show picture #9] Who knows what this cat is doing? [Let the children answer.] Yes, it’s licking itself. It licks itself all the time, not because it thinks about being clean and tidy. No cat has ever looked at itself in a mirror and thought, “Oh, the fur on my head is sticking up. I should brush it down.” Actually, cats do not like being in the water. They may lick themselves to cool themselves off or if something is itching them. They lick themselves for several reasons but it’s not because they care about their appearance. They don’t think about whether their fur is sticking up or if it’s neat.
- I am so glad God made us in a special way, with a marvelous brain that is able to care about being tidy and being clean. Let’s all say together, “Thank You God, for making us this way!”
Suggested activities
- Zoom game: What’s that sound?
- Pretend to wash your hands or brush your teeth as you sing “I love my mom and dad.”
Songs
I love my mom and dad, I love my family
Hold out your hands
Pictures
#1: Child with messy hair
#2: Dirty hands
#3: Hairbrush
#4: Comb
#5: Child brushing teeth
#6: Boy eating ice cream
#7: Messy face after ice cream
#8: Child cleaning her face with a napkin
#9: Cat licking itself
