A range of newspapers, including some church ones like the Church Times and the Methodist Recorder. (You will be cutting out pictures of hands.)
Materials to display your cuttings.

Talk about people using their hands in public. In particular, talk about powerful gestures. How do we feel if someone gives a friendly wave? Or raises an admonishing finger? Think about football referees, police, teachers, clergy and politicians. (Be prepared for children talking about offensive gestures too.)

Make a collection of pictures of hands from newspapers. What sorts of things do they seem to indicate? (Love, care, anger... )
Try to get as wide a range of papers as possible, especially such papers as the Church Times and Methodist Recorder, and possibly sporting papers too. Use books to see how hands are used in church services.
Invite a member of the clergy to talk about how hands are (and for older children - have been) used in the various forms of church worship: Eucharist; Baptism; Marriage; Ordination; Confirmation and so on.

Make a display of the material you have collected and try to group the hands according to broad headings such as instructing, caring, blessing and so on.

Discuss physical strength and things that make us stronger or faster. Extend this by asking if this ability to extend strength or speed makes us better people. Try to encourage the children to think about why these things might be seen as making us better - or worse - as people.

Collect examples of tools that improve our strength, such as levers, pulleys, screwdrivers and so on. The children can make examples of these things by using construction materials.

Develop the collection by gathering examples of where these simple devices are used, such as in vehicles, cranes, cars, bicycles, drills, corkscrews, food mixers, door handles and so on.

Make a collection of both examples and pictures of the examples chosen.

Ask the children to devise a machine which will make lives better for people. Don't hamper their imagination too much or tell them that it has already been invented. Suggest such things as shoe cleaning machines, potato pulleys, or devices to help disabled people. Do however try and avoid the ubiquitous 'computer' solution whereby children simply say that something is connected to a computer that then does the work. Besides being unrealistic it misses the point: the need for us to intervene practically sometimes to assist people. This activity is really to do with moral issues about using strength, not practical inventiveness.

A collection of nutrition labels from foods.
Art materials.

Discuss again what makes us strong. Think about what makes us strong from within, especially food

Make a list of foods that strengthen us. According to the ability of the children you might like to make distinctions between say protein- and carbohydrate-rich foods. Older children could look at nutrition information labels.

Make illustrated lists of things that give us strength in the way we feel. These might be such things as teddies that make us feel safe, favourite books that make us feel refreshed, or favourite people who make us laugh. All of these things are ways of strengthening us. Point out that we need them in just the same way that we need food, warmth and shelter.

Discuss what it might be like to live without these things.

Finish with a discussion of the way Christians believe that God's strength is in them. Point out that Christians believe that their faith and belonging to the Church are ways in which they receive strength and support from God. Talk about practical examples of receiving strength' such as through prayer and worshipping together.

This activity could be linked with the first activity in this section, where we consider the ways in which hands are used.

With older children, you may like to investigate the use of hands in symbols and emblems. You could start with Kitchener's pointing finger or Churchill's 'V' sign.

Science links are obvious here. The work could be extended into mechanics and diet.

You may wish to consider bringing in a representative from a charity, such as Samaritans Purse who send shoeboxes of gifts to children in war torn areas.