Joseph’s Brothers Are Jealous (Preschool Adaptation)

Give each child a piece of colorful fabric. When I point to you, bring your fabric to me. I will put all the pieces together to make a long chain.

Look at your pretty fabric! Red! Blue! Green! Yellow! So many colors! Let's make something beautiful together. When I point to you, bring me your fabric piece.

These colors remind me of Joseph. Joseph had a daddy named Jacob. Jacob loved Joseph very much. (Point to a child.) Jacob made Joseph a special coat with lots of colors - just like our fabric! Red, blue, green, yellow! (Point to another child.) Joseph's brothers saw the pretty coat. They felt sad and mad. They wanted a pretty coat too. (Point to another child.)

One day, Daddy Jacob said, "Joseph, go find your brothers." So Joseph went to look for them. But his brothers were still mad about the pretty coat. (Point to another child.) They said mean things. "Let's throw Joseph in a big hole!" That was not nice! (Point to another child.)

The big brother Reuben said, "Don't hurt Joseph! Just put him in the hole." He wanted to help Joseph later. (Point to another child.) So they took Joseph's pretty coat off and put him in the deep hole. (Point to another child.)

Then some men with camels came by. The brothers said, "Let's sell Joseph to these men." So they did. They got money for Joseph. That was very sad and wrong. (Point to another child.)

The brothers took Joseph's pretty coat and put animal blood on it. Yucky! (Point to another child.) They showed Daddy Jacob the dirty coat. "Look! We found this!" they said. (Point to another child.)

Daddy Jacob cried and cried. "Oh no! This is Joseph's coat! Something bad happened to my boy!" But Joseph was really okay. His brothers just lied. (Point to another child.)

The brothers were jealous. Jealous means wanting what someone else has. When we're jealous, we might do mean things. But God wants us to be happy with what we have. (Point to another child.)

Don't worry! This story gets happy later. Joseph sees his daddy again! But today we learn: don't be jealous. Be happy! God loves you! (Point to last child.)

Let's pray: Dear God, help us be happy. Help us not want other people's things. Help us be kind. Amen.