October 4: God's New People are Called

Read "God's New People are Called," part 15 of The Big Picture Story Bible.

Give each child a coffee filter and blue marker. Show examples, and have them decorate their coffee filter anyway they want- zigzags, stripes, polka-dots, etc. Then place a paper towel under and gently spritz with water.

{I use these bottles for all of our water needs, but I noticed they're discontinued.}

As the filters are drying {We swapped out for dry paper towels and it only took about 15 minutes} each kiddo chose a bird feather and eyeball to glue on a dove pattern (I drew it by hand so I don't have a copy, basically a big circle for the body, a small circle for the head, add a beak and a rectangle tail.)

Then glue the bird onto the coffee filter and have students retell the story of the dove landing on Jesus after John baptized Him to tell everyone that Jesus was, indeed, His Son. Remind everyone that just like Jesus had followers back then, we are His followers, too!

September 20: God's Promised One is Born

Last week the kids played a game to learn about the purpose of the census and why Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem. This week is the actual "Christmas Story" of Christ's birth, but since it's only September I desperately wracked my brain trying to think of what would bring everything we've learned up to the point where we FINALLY learn who God's Forever King is.

I decided to focus on the genealogy of Jesus. BORING! You say. TOO HARD! You agree with yourself. THERE IS NO WAY TO TEACH KIDS THE GENEALOGY OF JESUS! You scream in your head.

Wrong.

That's what I thought, too, until I figured out a way to do it. And I was blown away by the awesomeness my kiddos remembered from the last 3 months as we went over it. It was a PERFECT review! (Not many lessons make me as pleased as this one did).

Basically, we reviewed last week and read the story this week from The Big Picture Study Bible. We talked a little about Mary and Joseph, and then I mentioned that all of the stories we learned from the Old Testament have led up to this moment, and I gave them this paper I created:

I gave them a minute or so to read over it and asked if they recognized any of the names. Surprising themselves, they did. I explained that this was a list from the first man, Adam, to Jesus, following through dads {except in one or two cases where there were no males and it used the female that married back into her own tribe. I also mentioned also that this is Joseph's genealogy, but Mary's is available, too. Since we talked about Jesus being born in Bethlehem because of his dad-Joseph, I decided to take the "legal" way.}

Then I gave each student a highlighter and we reviewed, beginning with Adam, all of the names that we read about. As we read, we discussed that character and what he did... "Even though Adam disobeyed God, he still got to be part of Jesus' family line... God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many- can you believe his family line traces all the way to Jesus!?... Remember David, who killed Goliath and eventually became King?! Jesus had the royal line for a bit!" The kids were SO excited and loved highlighting the people they remembered that we've read about. Some even noticed a couple others we didn't talk about... "Hey, is that the Boaz from the Ruth lady?" I was really pleased to see how much the kids remembered as we reviewed Jesus' line.

After we finished highlighting, they cut out their book and glued it onto a piece of construction paper. Then we cut around it to make a book cover, and some chose to fold it to make their own part of the Bible.

August 23: God's Blessings Grow

Ask students to describe a really fancy house- keep notes on chart paper for reference. Encourage ideas of grandeur, shiny, gold-encrusted things; things they've seen on TV or movies but likely don't have at their houses.

Review with kiddos that God had promised Abraham three basic things: 1. His family would become a great nation 2. God would give them a special place to live and 3. God would make them a blessing to all the people on the earth.

A few weeks ago God began giving Abraham his great nation. Last week God gave them a special place to live. This week we're talking about how God continued to bless His people.

Read Part 9 of The Big Picture Story Bible "God's Blessings Grow." Discuss how King David {remind them of the kid-David we've talked about previously and explain this is him all grown up!} wanted to build God a special house, but God wanted David's son, Solomon, to build it instead.

Go back to your brainstorm list and explain that students will be drawing the temple Solomon built for God. Read over a few specifics and have kids discuss why he made it so fancy. Encourage students to take their time and use the whole sheet of paper to show details.

Make sure students put their names on their temples- we'll need them next week!