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: 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.

Parable of the Insistent Friend

So I had the hardest time getting components and inspiration for this parable. Pickings are rather slim for the less than famous stories of Jesus, and even artwork is lacking compared to, say, last week's. I managed to find a few things, but I had to make up some of my own parts, which, I guess is not terrible.

Story
I used the dark blue felt underlay from last week's parable, since this also takes place at night. I had several wooden figures: a man, woman and three or four children who were all laying in the bed from our doll house. These were set up inside their "house" along the path that was spread over the underlay. Then I had another man figure who was the friend, standing just outside the door. The whole "house and door were just our parable box because I couldn't come up with anything else.

I told the parable using the basic text from Luke 11, then asked lots of questions at the end. You can get the script here:

script: Parable of the Insistent Friend

Song
After the lesson presentation, we sang "Ask, Seek and Knock" by WonderKids, using simple hand motions. One hand was the door and we knocked with the other hand. I sang it with them and it was very quickly learned.

Craft
For our craft we made a moving coloring picture that I ended up creating myself from various components I found online. The friend's hand knocks by the action of a brad attached at his shoulder, and the door is openable as well. The template is available through the link below.

 

download craft template

Coloring

Here is another coloring page that I cleaned up and made available, but they were more interested in the craft, so we did it and I sent the other one home with them.

Video

A nice little animation of this parable was on YouTube, but it was in Spanish, and it was made to go along with the song that was written just for the animation. So I spliced it with "Ask, Seek and Knock" and it was perfect.

Snack

Since preparing went slowly and I ended up spending a while on designing and assembling the craft, I didn't have a snack. However, I probably would serve biscuits or rolls, since the parable ties it in, and I would serve it in a small bread basket.