"This past Sunday we taught Lesson 24, "I can show gratitude" and the children and I decorated our very own Gratitude Binoculars.

First, I asked my mom and my sister to save their bathroom tissue rolls for me. I asked this a while ago so that I would have plenty of them saved up. Once I collected them, I hot glued two of them side by side. I decided to paint them all one color so that they would be more appealing to the class (instead of cardboard brown) but I made several in different colors (2 blue, 2 red, 2 yellow, etc.) so they could pick out the color they chose to decorate. I then came up with a little poem that I attached to each set of binoculars... 

"My Gratitude Binoculars"

These are my binoculars
They help me see
Some of the things
God has given me

I can show gratitude
With prayers, obedience and love
When I see the things
I have received from above
I am thankful.

I got together some stickers and foam cut outs that have the sticky back (to avoid glue) and brought this with me to class. The children loved picking out the foam shapes and cutouts and stickers to decorate their own binoculars. Then I let each one come up and show their binoculars to the class. I asked each one to look through the binoculars and find something they were grateful for and explain how they can show their gratitude. For example, one of my girls picked out the Book of Mormon with her binoculars and said she can show her gratitude by reading it.

What I wanted the class to see are blessings that we should be grateful for and sometimes we may over look these blessing but when we are specifically looking for them, we can see just how many we have and we can show our gratitude for them. The lesson went perfectly and I think the children really enjoyed showing their gratitude."

** ANOTHER OPTION: Styrofoam cup binoculars.