Patriarchs Era

If you haven’t read the introduction to this series yet I recommend going here.

Patriarchs Era 
(Abraham / Isaac / Jacob / Joseph)
For more ideas check out my Pinterest Board: HERE

Timeline of the Patriarchs Era

Giant 10 Foot Bible Timeline

Abraham:

"Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them - so shall your descendants be."

Genesis 5:15

Hands-On Activities:

Stars were a major theme this week as we talked about the above verse

One of my favorite activities was painting glitter on paper.

I asked the kids to count the stars...obviously there were too many to count

Then we cut out several stars and wrote names of all our family members.

This helped them realize that the stars represented people

This is a flashlight toy we got in a CFA kids meal. You can also make your own constellations with a flashlight and paper with holes poked in it. The kids had fun trying to count the stars at bedtime.

God promised Abraham 3 things: 

Land (Promise Land), 

Seed (Jesus born through his line), 

Blessing (Large family that God would bless)

**I do not have a template for this...I just cut out a large "3" and made pics to represent the promises

We used 2 brown paper bags to create a tent for Abe and Sarah

This was part of us acting out the story

Media:

I love this video because it's kids telling the story of Abe

We read the story of Abraham several different ways: Books, different Bibles, videos, interactive apps. The Bible for Kids app has comprehension questions throughout the story.

A fun song with motions

Coloring Pages:

Print

Print

Comprehension Questions to ask while kids color: 

Name the people in this story.

What did God promise Abraham?

Did Sarah believe God?  Why?

Abraham and Sarah had to be patient for God to do what He said.  Did God give them a baby?

What was the baby's name?

Story Review:

Print and cut sequencing cards Here

Picture Quiz: Print Here

Isaac:

"The Lord will provide" Genesis 22:14

Hands-On Activity:

Making stones for our alter out of crumbled newspaper

We built alters all week long...too bad Hannah thought they were snowmen - Ha!

Acting out the story:

Riding donkeys to the mountain

Binding Isaac with rope and laying him on the alter

Finding a ram caught in the thicket

Replacing Isaac with ram

I printed and laminated these characters which we used as another way to act out the story. 

Print Here

I have found that my kids listen better when their hands are busy. These are great times to read the story aloud and ask questions.

Coloring pages:

Print Here
You can cut out the ram and glue cotton balls on it for texture

Print Here

Comprehension Questions to ask while kids color: 

What did God ask Abraham to do?

Did Abraham obey God?

What did Isaac ask his father on the way to the sacrifice?

What did God provide for the sacrifice?

Jacob and Esau:

"...The older will serve the younger." Genesis 25:23


Media:

God's Story is a great video series that tells the stories of the Bible in a fun way for kids

Hands-On Activity:

Making Jacob and Esau puppets to discuss the differences between the brothers

Jacob: Younger, Shepard, smooth skin, cooked, loved by his mother

Esau: Older, Hunter, hairy man, loved by his father

We used the puppets to act out the story

Coloring Pages:

Print

Print

Comprehension Questions to ask while kids color: 

Which brother was a hunter?

Which brother did Rebekah love the most?

How did Jacob get Esau's birthright?

What does it mean to have a birthright?

How did Jacob steal Esau's blessing?

Acting out the Story:

Esau comes home from a hunt and is hungry

Jacob makes a pot of soup

Esau sells his birthright to Esau for soup

Jacob puts on animal skin to trick his Father Isaac and steals Esau's blessing

Story Review:

Picture Quiz: Print Here

Sequencing cards Print Here

Joseph

Joseph's Story is ?? chapters in Genesis. You could easily spend weeks on his story but for the purposes of the era study I decided to hit the highlights (Colored coat, sold into slavery, jail, becoming 2nd in command in Egypt)

Acting out the story - We made a "jail" for Joseph and talked about how he interpreted the dreams of the baker and cup bearer.

Coloring Sheets:

Great for keeping the kids hands "busy" while listening to the story being read

Joseph Quiz

PRINT HERE

Here is the cut and glue lift-the-flap worksheet that can be used by itself, or with the lapbook printab

PRINT HERE

My Kids love watching these God's Story videos

**For more ideas on the Patriarchs Era visit my Pinterest page:

HERE

Creation Era

If you haven’t read the introduction to this series yet I recommend going here.

Creation Era:

(Creation / Fall / Flood /Tower of Babel)

For more ideas check out my Pinterest Board: HERE

Creation:

 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

I checked out these books from our church library to read throughout the week. Every night we used a different book/Bible to read the creation story. 

I found these great sequencing cards at biblestoryprintables.com

I had Benjamin cut out the cards then I would mix them up and have him put them back in order.

Print PDF

I printed out numbers 1-7 from this Blog Link and we decorated them to help remember what God made on each day of creation.

 This was a huge success for Benjamin since he is a visual learner. 

On day 3 we planted some lettuce seeds in a make shift green house
(i.e. baseball card pockets taped on window) It has been fun watching them grow.

Bible App for Kids

This was a fun and interactive way to reinforce the creation story.

I found that doing a short song each day helped my kids remember what God created.
Each day we added a new verse...

"Day one, Day one God made light where there was none.

Day two, Day two God made clouds and sky so blue.

Day three, Day three God made flowers, and plants and trees.

Day four, Day four God made sun, moon, stars galore.

Day five, Day five God made birds and fish alive.

Day six, Day six God made animals and man that day.

Day seven, Day seven God rested in His Heaven"

(For the tune you can listen Here)

Fall:

"You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Genesis 2:17

There were not many books I found about Adam and Eve in the garden. I checked out this Bible which uses rhymes to tell the stories. Hannah (2 yrs old) really enjoyed this one.

Ken Ham has a series of books that focus on the accounts in Genesis. I would highly recommend anything written by Ken Ham, although this book was a little over my kids heads being only 4 and 2.

We love the "What's in the Bible?" Series! 

We have the DVD set but you can also watch this on Right Now Media. 

Sequencing Cards
Print PDF

      The kids made snakes by twisting pipe cleaners together. I read Gen 2-3:24 and

every time I said "snake" they had to raise their snake high. It was a good way for them to actively listen. 

For two days I had out two plates (one with candy and one with good snacks). I instructed them to "not eat the candy" just as God told Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Although Hannah often touched the candies, Benjamin would remind her of the rule and she never ate any! It was a great object lesson to discuss temptation and obeying.

We got creative and acted out the story of the fall. We used our basketball goal is our fruit tree (lol). The first time we acted it out it was an epic FAIL! Frank and I were Adam and Eve and Benjamin was the snake. I brought the candy plate to use as the "forbidden fruit". When I took a candy Benjamin started wailing and crying "Nooooo!!!" I told him that the snake encouraged eating the fruit but he was hysterical. Finally he cried "But now you're going to DIE!!!" He was not kidding...poor guy thought Frank and I had eaten poisonous candy. Despite our best efforts to recover he did not want to eat that candy anymore - Ha!

The next day the kids wanted to act out the story over and over so I guess he had not been truly traumatized. This time they were Adam and Eve. I wrapped them up in their lovies as a visual of how God sacrificed the first animals and made coverings for Adam and Eve.

Flood:

"But Noah found favor with the Lord." Genesis 6:8

There are an abundance of books about Noah's ark since it's a popular child's Bible story, however not all of them are historically accurate.

There are lots of fun coloring pages for each story - It's an easy thing to google and find. As the kids would do their coloring/painting I would talk through the story. I found they listen better when their little hands are busy.

We talked a lot about rainbows which was God's sign of His covenant. Every morning we have a rainbow on our radiator and the kids love to try and hold the rainbow : )

This was a fun song to sing and learn during the week.

We built a Noah's Ark out of blocks and loaded it with all our animals.

We also found different containers and floated them in our bathtub with animals

Noah's Ark felt board book

Sequencing Cards

Print PDF

I used hot glue and we made an ark from graham crackers and pretzel sticks. The kids painted the "pitch" or tar on the ark to make it waterproof.

Finished product

Tower of Babel:

"Come, let us build for ourselves a tower whose top will reach into Heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves." Genesis 11:4

We built towers all week long out of different things: Wooden blocks, play dough, bowls, legos...

Benjamin would say, "I'm going to make it reach into the Heavens!"

I found a fun tower building game. Roll the dice and move the spaces which would tell you how many legos to use to build your tower. The winner was the one with the tallest tower at the end. 

Print Game Template

Our craft board

Sequencing Cards
Print PDF

One of the ways to reinforce the Tower of Babel was to talk about how God confused the languages. This fun video/song is about how to say "hello" in different languages. We practiced saying them throughout the week.