Experiment - Joseph and Pharaoh: ‘The different between looking and seeing’

What do you need:

- a pack of cards
- pen and paper

What do you do:

Lay out the following combination of cards on the table.

Ask a child to choose one of the cards and write the name of the card on a piece of paper. Ask them then to turn over the paper so that no one (and especially you) can’t see which of the five cards they chose. Then remove all five cards from the table.

Tell the children about the story you’re going to tell, about the baker, the cupbearer and the Pharaoh who all watch their dreams but don’t see the meaning of them. God gives to Joseph the insight to understand the meaning of the dreams.

Is there a difference between looking and seeing?

Put the following four cards on the table.

Ask the child who chose a card at the start to turn over the paper on which they wrote which card it was. Lo and behold, their card has vanished!

It’s all about looking and seeing.

The baker, the cupbearer and the Pharaoh watch/look at their dreams in their sleep, but Joseph needs Gods help to see the true meaning.

With this experiment you also need to look very carefully.

Which of the original five cards are the same as these four cards that are now on the table?

They are all different! Not a single card is the same as the first five.
This is why the card that the child chose will always have disappeared.

But how come we don’t see this?

The cards look so similar to each other that we don’t remember properly which cards we have seen. We look, but don’t see properly.
With God’s help Joseph learns to see the meaning of the dreams.

You can repeat this ‘trick/experiment’ so that the children learn how to do it at home.