Summer: Jonah

If there's one story I remember from Sunday school growing up, it is Jonah. Probably Jonah and Noah are the two most famous in my memory, at least from the Old Testament.

Unlike many other scripture narratives, the story of Jonah is meant to be more light-hearted, even absurd, which is the interpretation given by a storyteller on this blog (recommended).

I really wanted to tell this famous story, but I did have a hard time with it, because it is part of the Godly Play® regular curriculum and I do not own the books for any of them. (They also don't come with patterns, unlike Young Children and Worship). I also don't use it in my regular schedule. The story is totally not new, but it was new for us.

I did end up using the basic GP story, but I learned it from watching a couple of other storytellers. I really liked how this woman used her hands.

I also made the pieces I needed myself. The waves were the hardest part to get, but eventually I found a clip art piece, and it worked perfectly.You are welcome to the patterns for Nineveh and Jonah as well.



We used a bright turquoise/aqua underlay and a rust-colored shore. It resembled the maps in the back of many Bibles, which is why I think we were drawn to choose it over a darker blue. Our waves are also aqua. It has a very beachy feel.

One thing that draws children to this story is putting Jonah in the fish and spitting him back out again. Godly Play has a very nice wooden fish, but we couldn't make that with our jigsaw. I did find a nice pattern, though and made our from denim off a pair of unrepairable jeans. It was tricky to sew the mouth open (not part of the directions) but it worked. I got my idea from the post linked here, but the tutorial here has a pattern.

For Jonah's "mercy" plant, I used an aquarium, weighted tuft of grass. Just the right size for our grumpy prophet.

The children did make a comment about how Jonah was a giant compared to little Nineveh, but given the scale of the whole story I think it was not a huge difficulty for them. The story is from Jonah's perspective anyhow, so if he, being up on the hill outside the city, was looking down on the city, it would be "smaller" from his vantage point.

This was a fun story to tell and wonder with the children about. It has seen alot of use since appearing on our shelves, especially by the younger children.

Summer: Moses & the Burning Bush

This enrichment lesson on Moses comes from I Wonder... More Stories for Young Children and Worship. This is an excellent book, in my opinion, and I am so glad I found it.

I find that children who have parents who read from the Bible to them welcome these stories not covered in the Godly Play or YCW books for the school year. Godly Play goes through the life of Moses more completely, but it is all in one lesson and a bit more challenging for the younger children to really play with, as it is more of a time line.

These objects from Godly Play in the UK were an inspiration to me. I particularly used the baby, the ark and the burning bush, but all for different stories. My burning bush looks almost identical to this one, actually. Last summer I tried it plain but the effect was really lacking, and the idea in the I Wonder book was for something I think would be less durable. So a couple of weeks ago I got out the paints. Much better.

The children in our church like this story, and in particular they enjoy pulling out Moses' staff and laying it in the sand and putting it back; so much so that we broke two staffs in a very short time. I hit the Dollar Tree and found this 100-pack of small, thin craft dowels the same size, so hopefully the story will now get good use, since it was last played with when the last staff broke.

It doesn't require this in the story text, but I used our Mount Sinai in the desert box when I told this story this time, since it is part of the biblical text. It had a great effect.

One thing I appreciate about telling some of these biographies in shorter increments rather than one long narrative is that the children remember them better. 

Have fun with Moses and the burning bush!

Summer Plans

So...over the last year we basically just covered all the stories we have done from YCW the first time I worked through it. This is somewhat like reading through the Bible again after you finish. There is always something new to learn.

Some of the re-tellings were well-received, some less so. But hey, I figure that's what it's like with the Bible in real life. We read not to get our ears tickled, but because "man lives... by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4). 

This summer, I was looking to spend our weeks covering some of the famous narratives that aren't in the curriculum. Godly Play does have these narratives, but I feel that they are less appropriately presented for my group, and with some, like Daniel, I'd like to spend more time "playing" with them.

We are planning to tell the following Old Testament stories over the course of the summer:

• Joseph
• Baby Moses
• Moses and the Burning Bush
• Ruth
• Esther
• Three Brave Friends (a.k.a. Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego)
• Daniel in the Lion's Den
• Jonah

I hope to be putting up what I have for these as the summer progresses. My heart is full of excitement and anticipation of what God is going to do with the little hearts in my care through His Word about these amazing people of God from Old Testament times.

Summer: Joseph

I was so pleased to find a version of Joseph! I found a fantastic script and presentation for the life of Joseph here. I particularly like the story cloth (pictured below).

This was a more involved story to prepare for, since I needed to buy the fabric and make a pattern for it and sew it together, but it really gave me alot of time to meditate on the story itself. I used fabrics like those pictured, but just cutting and gluing felt onto a larger felt back would probably work just fine for people who don't sew.

Figures

My husband is a gem and cuts all my figures. I used an image of the same Pharaoh who was ruling at the time of Joseph, but I didn't color it in (contrary to the photo above). We also just used his figure without the paraphernalia in his hands and on his belt. 

For Joseph we used the priest figure from Young Children and Worship session 13 and for his father Jacob we used the nativity Joseph from session 22 (hope that makes sense). The Ishmaelite trader is Zaccheus from session 34, and the camel is also from the nativity session 22. Some mix of Jesus' disciples from the New Testament stories works well for Joseph's brothers.

Due to copyrighting, I can only say where I got these from in the book.  Of course, you don't have to have cut figures at all. They can all be skittle people, as suggested for Joseph's brothers, but I have found that when the figures are less realistic they are not used (tried it once in a pinch for time and NO ONE used it until we cut realistic figures). This may not be an issue for you.

A jig saw is a low cost tool, and clear pine from a home improvement store, some safety gloves and sandpaper are all you need to make figures cheaply yourself, possibly more cost effectively than skittles. But again, it is not a necessity.

"Dreams"

I also have the images for the dreams in the story of Joseph here:

Joseph's first dream

Joseph's second dream

The chief butler's dream

The chief baker's dream

Pharaoh's 2 dreams

I am taking two weeks to tell this story, as suggested, to keep them from getting lost in the length of the narrative. It kind of builds suspense. Hopefully soon I can get my things together for Ruth to share with you, as that is just 3 weeks away. We already have Baby Moses and Moses & the Burning Bush from last summer. Until then, enjoy this version of Joseph's story.

Summer Enrichment and Baby Moses

I have had many, many thoughts about how to fill in the Sundays from my scheduled curriculum until the start of the next year's cycle in the middle of August. There were several possibilities I explored, but in the end, I decided to use the four stories that were only lacking in one existing in-print story script with figure patterns. Life in summer is so busy, and this was the simplest path. So for the four weeks we have available we will be covering Moses and David in the following summer lessons:

• Baby Moses
• Moses and the Burning Bush
• David the Shepherd Boy
• David & Goliath

I was so thrilled when I found I Wonder... More Stories for Children and Worship when I was in the initial stages of considering whether or not to adopt the sensorimotor curriculum (since financially it seemed to be potentially out of our budget ability as a baby church), and I ended up ordering it. 

There are many "extra" stories in this book, as well as a sample schedule covering a several year span to incorporate them. The only story not in this line-up is Baby Moses, but I felt confident someone had already done it, so I searched, but again, not much was around. 

I found some wondering question samples in one spot and a couple of simple script ideas in another, but nothing concrete. So, as is my custom, I made one myself. Using patterns in the back of I Wonder... I sketched figures. From the sample story lines I designed a script. I am making them both available to you here to freely use in your homeschool, Sunday school, or worship center. If you'd kindly link back to this blog, I'd be grateful. Enjoy!!

Baby Moses figure patterns

Baby Moses script

Update: June 2015

The story of Baby Moses has been one of the most used stories in our classroom over this past year. I don't know if it is because it is about a child, because it is so "famous", because they really like the little plants to put in the sand or putting the baby in the basket and into Pharaoh's daughter's arms. Whatever the reason, I am so pleased that it was well-received!

I am also thinking of setting out this craft as an example for inspiration of those choosing to do artwork in response time. Enjoy!

Parable of the Great Pearl

I really liked using the Godly Play style of presenting the lesson to the two preschoolers I currently have for the parable of the hidden treasure, so I was glad to have a lesson to copy for this week instead of inventing my own. I basically followed the parable as the video which is posted at Living Montessori NOW that I ran into a few weeks back.

The official/original presentation of the parable uses a white circle (like a great pearl itself, shown here), but I used the same background of green felt as my previous lesson. And I used my own 3-D wooden figures instead of the flat pieces sold by Godly Play. I don't think it really matters. Even simple drawn figures or printouts of similar pieces would work. The pearl was one of my own earrings. Again, as in our parable of the hidden treasure, all that the merchant possessed was represented by our dollhouse furniture and merchant was the doll.

After our lesson presentation, I read the account from The Beginner's Bible as well, to give another mode of reinforcement. I allow the children to have access to the materials used for the lesson so they can retell it themselves and further internalize the parable.

We also had a simple snack of round rice crackers, since the shape reminded us of the great pearl. Really, it was the only snack I had on hand, but it fit nicely with the theme of the lesson.

I am noticing that colouring pages are much more scarce and of lesser quality with some of the less "famous" parables, so we didn't really have anything to color this week. For older children, there are some nice activity pages in this booklet from calvarycurriculum.com . But as we don't have an official class outline and they were ready for a snack, things went okay without a colouring page, and they just played until service was done.

Parable of the Hidden Treasure

This week I had just two children, both under 5. I found the greatest inspiration for my lesson this week from the well-known and loved Beginner's Bible we picked up used for a few dollars at a local thrift, and a post from Living Montessori NOW that had a video of a simple presentation of the parable of the great pearl. Since reading aloud to them from the story Bible seems to be not enough material to communicate this parable, and since I don't own and can't afford--or store--the Bible in Felt, I liked this approach with figurines.

The video shows the parable from a curriculum called Godly Play. This is actually the first time I have ever heard of Godly Play, which is an  approach to religious instruction for preschoolers with roots in the Montessori method. It seems very good. I can't get the books through the library and I'm not sure if I would want to own them without previewing them, but it seemed to be an easy enough thing to prepare, so I thought I would tell this parable in this way, using what I have. (I don't think it's essential to have the specific materials that are sold for this.)

I had some green felt left over from another project that was the background, our "field" for the hidden treasure. The treasure was one of my rings in a ring box hidden under the felt, a true treasure. I told the parable using our doll house and the two doll figures. We set all the dollhouse furniture in front of the house to show that the man was selling all he had and then he got the field and the treasure in it. It went over very well. The yard sale concept is one they could relate to.

We coloured this activity page from childrensbulletins.com (below). I'm not subscribed, but this came from their sample for 3-6 year-olds. I plan to use other pages in subsequent lessons, since they're about the kingdom parables.