Tell the children that the brothers have to tell a lie, so that their father won’t discover what had really happened to Joseph. They think up a great big, mean lie. But the problem with a lie is that once you have told it, to have to keep on telling it, and keep the lie up. You’re always afraid that someone will discover your lie.

Ask the children if any of them have ever experienced that? If you have your own example it will help the children to tell their stories.

Divide the children into two teams and ask them to form two rows facing each other. Make sure that the rows are about three meters away from each other. Each team has its own balloon, in different colours so they can be told apart.

The aim of the game is for a team’s balloon to touch the ground behind the opposite team – it has to go over the other players. Each time this happens the team has a point.

If the balloon touches the ground in front of the teams then a penalty point is awarded to the team which touched the balloon last (this could be either team, as the balloons are being swatted back and forth).

You can set a time limit of (for example) three minutes.

Afterwards ask the children: was it easy or hard to keep the balloons off the ground? Is it easy or hard to keep up a lie?