Friday, December 30, 2016

Learning the Old Testament part 3

Each week I'm focusing on teaching the books of the Old Testament. In addition to practicing the song (see my blog "Learning the Old Testament part 1") and playing the game ("Learning the Old Testament part 2") I'm going to have the kids work in small groups to sort the books in each category of the Old Testament. By breaking down the parts into manageable chunks they will hopefully remember better. Here is a link to my free book sort. I'm going to do one category each week: law, history, poetry, major prophets, and then minor prophets, with a few weeks between to learn what those books are about. Here are a couple screenshots of what the cut-and-paste activities look like.




Learning the Old Testament part 2

As I begin my mission of teaching students the books of the Old Testament, we will start each week singing the OT Canon and end the lesson playing a game, called "I Have..., Who Has..."

To play, cut out the cards and pass out to kids. (If you have fewer kids than cards, give each child more than one.) Start with the beginning card, "Who has Genesis?" The person that has Genesis will read his card, "I have Genesis, who has Exodus?" and the game continues, with students taking turns reading the books in order. The game ends with "I have Malachi."

Download the game cards for free here

Here's an example of the pages. I recommend copying onto cardstock for durability.


Learning the Old Testament part 1

A goal I have in 2017 is to teach my church kids the books of the Bible. We're going to start out with the Old Testament, and then in July swap to the New Testament.

There are many versions of songs to teach the Old Testament books, but a favorite of mine is Rappin Rabbit's O.T. Canon. (Yes, it's incredibly lame and old and totally from my childhood!) I like it because in addition to learning the books in order, it also teaches categories. Here the Youtube video along with a copy of the lyrics. You can click on the image to save and print.




The O.T. Canon
The books of the Bible are split into two
testaments: the Old and New
In the OT there are 39 books
What are their names? Let’s take a look

The Book of the Law starts with Genesis
Exodus and Leviticus
Numbers and Deuteronomy

Next are the Books of History
Joshua, Judges, then you’ve got Ruth
First and Second Samuel, full of God’s truth

Next is the First and Second Kings
First and Second Chronicles telling ‘bout things
Ezra, Nehemiah come up next
Esther ends the Historical Text

Job is the first Book of Poetry
followed by Psalms and Proverbs, see
Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon
We’re over half way through all of ‘em!

Next are the prophets in the Major League,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, would you believe?
Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel all have tales to tell

The Minor Prophets are a little less famous
There’s Hosea, Joel, and Amos
Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, and Habakkuk
Funny name, huh?

Zephaniah and Haggai
Zechariah and Malachi

Check ‘em all out and see if you can

Start all over and say them again! 


2016 30-Hour Famine

In June our teens raised money for World Vision through the 30-hour famine. I created an Interactive Notebook for each person to fill out using the information from the booklet as we went along. It was a great time and everyone seemed to enjoy cutting and gluing before they reflected on each activity. 




2016 Activities part 3

One week over the summer we created pinwheels to remind us of when the Holy Spirit came down to the followers on Pentecost. 


We created a mobile about how God cares for animals, trees, etc. and cares for us most of all!


We read another Old Testament story of when Moses threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and it turned into a snake. My boys LOVED this one! We cut toilet-paper rolls into spirals, colored them and added sticker-eyes.


2016 Activities part 2

Sorry this picture is turned. During the fall we spent a few weeks on parables. For this parable (Matthew 13:44) the kids painted the picture and then had to draw what the treasure was from the story.


I broke my foot and was out a couple of weeks. I had two great substitutes who completed this Old Testament activity with my kids. It's a weirdo-awesome story about how God opened up the ground and it basically swallowed up the people who disagreed that Moses was following God's directions. The kids loved creating the little colored people and the foldable from Children's Bible Lessons.


The next week the kids had to cut and sort the verses from John 3:16, then look the verse up and self-check.


We also folded paper to make a fish, and then opened the fist to draw the coins from Matthew 17:24-27, when Jesus paid taxes with money from a fish.


2016 Activities part 1

I did not do a great job keeping track of each week's lesson in an orderly fashion this year, so I'm going to post the things throughout the year I did remember to get pictures of in no particular order.


We wrote our verse in white crayon and then water-colored over it. 

For St. Patrick's Day we traced hearts to make shamrocks and learned about the Trinity.



Between spring and summer we had an 8-week lesson on magic versus miracles. I'm hoping to do a write-up about it soon- it was awesome!

For Father's Day we learned how to draw dads.


Over the summer, we held our own Olympics and each kiddo made an award to give to someone else.

We finger-painted Jesus.


We worked together to write the Beatitudes.