He Makes Me Mad!

An assembly in the ‘Hello, Scruff!’ series

by Revd Sylvia Burgoyne

Suitable for Reception / Key Stage 1

Aims

To introduce the Bible story of Joseph and to consider why he made his brothers angry.

Preparation and materials

• You will need a glove puppet or sock puppet of a donkey, called Scruff.

• As the assembly begins, ensure that you already have Scruff the puppet on your hand.

• Optional: have available the song ‘Any dream will do’ from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and the means to play it at the beginning or end of the assembly. It is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpuc2-RUf4s and is 3.51 minutes long.

Assembly

1. Scruff waves to the children. Encourage them to say, 'Hello, Scruff!'
   
   If this is the first time the children have met Scruff, you will need to use the following introduction.

   Scruff lives on a farm with Lucy Jane, her mum, Mrs B, her dad, Farmer Brown, and her baby brother, Tom. Lucy Jane loves Scruff. She looks after him. She plays with him and she talks to him – when she’s happy and when she’s sad. Scruff is her best friend!

2. Lucy Jane has been learning to play the trumpet.

   Ask the children if any of them are learning to play an instrument.

   From his stable, Scruff could hear Lucy Jane practising. Sometimes, she made lots of mistakes, and Scruff wished that he could cover his ears!

   On Saturday morning, when Lucy Jane was giving Scruff his breakfast, she complained to Scruff about having to practise.
   ‘Mum says I have to go straight back and do my trumpet practice before we go for our ride today,’ she moans. ‘Why do I have to practise every day, Scruff?

   Ask the children why they think that Lucy Jane needs to practise every day.

   This morning, when Lucy Jane came into the stable, she was very happy.
   ‘I had a great dream last night, Scruff,’ she said. ‘I could play my trumpet brilliantly. I travelled all over the world. I gave lots of concerts, and people clapped and cheered. I became rich and famous. When I woke up, I told Mum about my dream, and asked her if she thought my dream would come true. But do you know what, Scruff? She just laughed and said, “No - not if you carry on moaning every day when it’s time for you to practise!”’

   Lucy Jane stroked Scruff’s fur. ‘She’s right, isn’t she, Scruff?’ she whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll have to work harder!’

   Scruff nodded his head and said ‘Hee haw, hee haw!’ very loudly.

   Take off Scruff.

3. I wonder whether you would like to become rich and famous one day. Let’s listen to a story from the Bible about a boy called Joseph. You may have heard of him before – there is a famous musical that tells his story called Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

   Joseph lived on a farm with his dad, Jacob, his mum, Rachel, and his eleven brothers. Often, the brothers would stay away from home for days at a time, driving the sheep to find fresh grass for them to eat. Joseph liked sleeping out under the starry sky. He had amazing dreams, which he couldn’t wait to tell his brothers as they ate their breakfast.

   ‘Listen to this!’ he would say. ‘There we were, binding up sheaves of corn in the field. Suddenly, my sheaf stood up straight, and all your sheaves bowed down to mine.’

   The brothers would get cross with Joseph for thinking that he was so much more important than them, even though he was younger than them!

   ‘Oh yes, little brother?’ they would say angrily. ‘So you think you’re more important than the rest of us, do you?’

   Joseph had a second dream, but he waited until they all got back home to the farm before he told his brothers about it, because he wanted his mum and dad to hear about it, too.

   Ask the children why they think Joseph was keen to share his dreams. Was it because he was always the greatest and most important in his dreams?

   ‘Listen to this, everyone!’ Joseph announced. ‘In my dream this time, the sun, moon and eleven stars were all bowing down to my star.’

   ‘What?’ exclaimed his dad. ‘Do you really think that I, your mother and brothers will one day kneel in front of you?’

   Jacob couldn’t possibly imagine that one day, Joseph’s dream really would come true!

Time for reflection

Do we sometimes find it hard to like someone?
What do they do that makes us cross?
Do we sometimes make other people cross by the things we do or say?
Isn’t it better to try to be friends with everyone?
Isn’t it better not to be boastful, but instead to look for good things in other people and praise them for those things?

Prayer
Dear God,
We are sorry for the times we fall out with each other.
We are sorry that we get cross when someone else is chosen to be the leader in a game, or wins the prize that we wanted.
Please help us to play and work together.
Please help us to be happy when good things happen to other people.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Together’ (Songs for EVERY Assembly by Mark and Helen Johnson)

‘Any dream will do’ from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpuc2-RUf4s