Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds (Matthew 13) All Age Game / Intro.

Look away now if you are coming on Sunday!

I am planning to have a weed or not quiz, and then to go on to mention Jesus and the gospel!

I've got images of these plants on the screen and the idea is that everyone will have a red card to hold up for weed and a green card to hold up for not weed:


Weed or not quiz!



What is a weed?



A plant in the wrong place



OED: “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants”



Aggressive, invasive, hard to get rid of, likely to take over



Stinging nettles - Urtica dioica



Daffodills – Narcissus - variety called King Alfred – deer resistant! / deter deer



Sticky weed - Galium aparine – goosegrass - The small, hairy seeds are produced in large quantities, of between 300-400 seeds per plant, are easily distributed and can persist in the soil for 6 years.



Sunflowers – Helianthus - some discussion online of whether or not they are weeds! – perennial sunflowers can grow wild, spread rapidly and be invasive causing problems for farmers



Mock strawberries - Duchesnea indica – not edible, yellow flowers



Aster – daisy like – come in white purple and red – often mistaken for a weed



Japanese knotweed - Reynoutria japonica – many common names: fleeceflower, Himalayan fleece vine, billyweed, monkeyweed, monkey fungus, elephant ears, pea shooters, donkey rhubarb, American bamboo, and Mexican bamboo



Orange hackweed - Pilosella aurantiaca - fox-and-cubs, orange hawk bit,[3]:208 devil's paintbrush, grim-the-collier – can be v invasive – notifiable in some parts of the world, eradication programmes



Mountain mint - Pycnanthemum muticum – often mistaken for a weed – leaves look like they’ve been dusted with icing sugar