Optimism
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” – Philippians 4:8
As I was trying to figure out our last lesson in optimism, I was considering an optimism word picture. I love word pictures. I began to think of the phrase, “Is the glass half empty or half full?” I decided to introduce this phrase to my kids.
I first set them down in front of a glass that was half full. Ha! You catch that? I asked them if the glass was half full or half empty. Abby concluded it was half empty. Kenzie concluded the opposite. I then explained the phrase a bit more and showed how thinking of it as half full was a way to be optimistic and think about the positive.
I gathered the materials for our fun word picture: Diet Coke, Mentos, Paper Rolled as a Tube the size of Mentos, and Another Flat Piece of Paper.
I got everything ready. We poured out half of the Diet Coke. I loaded up my tube with 5 Mentos and kept the paper underneath it.
Next, I talked to the girls about how the bottle was only half full of liquid. I then talked about our Bible verse as well as the verse, “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24 I had them shout that verse over and over as loud as they could. I talked about how our glass may only be half full, but when we choose optimism and choose to rejoice in the goodness of God, then we can be overflowing. I compared the Mentos to our optimistic views. It was time for the fun.
Finally, we put the tube of Mentos over the Diet Coke. I slid the paper away and…Explosion. The kids were amazed. I re-emphasized that when we choose joy and optimism, God can do the rest and overfill us with His gladness more than we could ever imagine.
Awesome!
I love the lesson behind it! I’m laughing because exploding would be the only thing my husband would say that Diet Coke is good for! 
As always, great ideas!
Mackenzie
I’ve been looking through your blog a bit since finding it through Sun Scholars blog hop and I’m thinking we’re on the same path with our kiddos, except you’ve got the whole Bible verse connection going, which I dropped a while ago (my laziness). Anyway, I commented on the catapults and then saw this (we’ll be calling ours an experiment) and just had to comment! I’m going to be using some of your ideas if you don’t mind! I promise to link back!
…I’m following via e-mail!
So cool. I’m excited to poke around your site more. I just became a follower and will have a lot of fun looking around later today when I have more time. So glad we found each other.