3rd Article of Faith: Magic Paintbrush for Younger

“I have a magic paintbrush!  I can make the color I paint change!”  I hold my hand up as if holding a paintbrush.  With my other hand I “throw” magic sparkles at the imaginary paintbrush. “Poof,” I say,”now my paintbrush is yellow!”

I instruct the children.  “Get your imaginary paintbrush and think of the magic color you want to paint.  Let’s paint as I sing this song.”

I begin to sing “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ…”  I make long sweeping paint strokes down low, then up high.  As I come to the words “all mankind may be saved,” I call out “Freeze!”  I ask the children, “What color is your paintbrush?” and point to a couple of the children for them to tell me their color.  (I also hold my hand up as I ask the question, giving the children the silent signal to hold their hands up if they want to tell me their color.)

“Poof! I’m changing my color to purple with sparkles.  Let’s paint again.”  I begin to sing “by obedience to the laws…”  At the end of the song, I ask the children again what their colors were.

Extender:  As an extender to this activity, I sometimes have the children turn towards a wall of the room and challenge them to “paint” the whole wall as we sing the song, directing our paintbrush to each corner of the wall (even though we remain in the same place.)  If the children are still with me, we concentrate on painting the ceiling or the floor as we sing the song again, always changing our paint color occasionally along the way.