A Fruity Puzzle

Make a puzzle out of a picture of a piece of fruit or a fruit grouping. You can make the puzzle as simple or as elegant as you would like. The simplest would be to find a picture of fruit in the weekly store flyers and cut it into random or puzzle-like pieces. A sturdier solution would be to print a fruit picture, glue it to cardboard (cereal box works well for this) and cut it into random or puzzle-like pieces. You can make the puzzle as difficult as is appropriate for the age of your children or make multiple puzzles of differing complexities to match the skills of the children. Have the family work together to assemble the puzzle(s).

To process this activity, ask these questions:

• How much patience did it take to test pieces until the correct piece was found?
• Did they expect all of the pieces to fit the first time?
• Did they get discouraged when a piece didn’t fit?

Read Galatians 5:22-23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Discuss why patience is a fruit of the Spirit. How can you use patience to be a better person?

When the discussion is over, you may want to bring out another puzzle, one that could take days to work on. Set it up where any one can work on it whenever they have time. Try to predict how long it will take the family, over time, to assemble the puzzle. If you choose a puzzle that has meaning to the family, perhaps you can frame it to use a reminder of the lesson.