Sunday School on Friday – The Shepherd and the Lost Sheep

This week’s Bible story is from a parable that Jesus told, found in Luke, chapter 15.
We read this story from a couple of different children’s Bibles this week – one in the morning, and then the other one for bedtime. I just recently received the second one and I’m hoping to post a review of it within the next few days.
M was feeling a little emotional about this story; the idea of anyone being lost and alone makes him sad. We actually had tears at one point! Toddlers can be rambunctious and drive us nuts, but they also have very tender hearts!
I told him that the shepherd loved the sheep and kept looking for him until he found him, and that Jesus loves us that much too. For some reason this story really seemed to sink in with him.
For a craft we used this idea and made a paper plate sheep. M tore some cotton balls in half (makes it fluffier) and glued them to the back of a paper plate, then added some googley eyes.

At that point, it was looking cute. My artistic skills apparently need some work, because I cut out ears, a nose, and a small mouth and M glued them onto his sheep, and this is what it looks like:

I know! It looks like it has a moustache, doesn’t it?! I can hardly look at the thing. And those ears… well, I’m not sure what sheep ears look like, but I don’t think they look like that! :) Anyway, the fact that it looks funny is totally my fault, and I don’t want it to discourage you from making one with your child. M loves this sheep and was very proud of it.
We also played a very simple “count the sheep” game I made. There are links to the materials I made for this game at the bottom of this post if you are interested in doing this too.
Each person has a game card – basically a blank grid of 20 empty squares. Take turns rolling the die and then put that many lambs on your grid. Going left to right and top to bottom as you place the lambs on helps develop the habit they’ll need later on when they learn to read left to right and top to bottom. Whoever fills their card up first is the winner.
I’ve been really bad lately about getting pictures of M doing these things, but he really enjoyed it and we’ve played it several times since! After we are done playing he likes to sort the lambs into piles by color.
Next week is Noah’s Ark!
Have a beautiful day! :)
Link to make your own dice
Link to game cards
Link to lamb game pieces

Sunday School on Friday - A Net full of Fish

Last Friday we read the Bible story about the apostles who were out fishing but weren't catching anything. Jesus showed up and told them to cast their net onto the other side of the boat. The net was instantly so full of fish that they had trouble hauling it in! Again, we used our favorite little Bible for toddlers.

M is REALLY into fishing lately so this was a great story for him. He has never really been fishing, but he sure pretends to a lot. He fishes in the backyard with a stick, in the bathtub, at Grandpa's farm sitting in a wagon... he is a born fisherman.

For activities we played a fishing game that I made a long time ago. It's made from cardstock and has the letters of the alphabet on it. The "eyes" of the fish are metal grommets. The fishing pole is a wooden dowel with a string glued to it and a magnet glued to the end of the string. Once a fish is caught we name the color it is and the letter written on it.

We also did a craft with liquid watercolors. You can buy these at school supply stores, or simply make your own by mixing regular (washable!) tempera with a little water or liquid starch. We keep ours in a muffin tin and used plastic pipettes to drop the paints onto coffee filters and paper towels. I am so sorry I didn't get pictures of this part. Must've been a little too tired that day. The neat thing about watercolors on coffee filters, paper towels, and tissue paper is that one little drop will soak in and bleed out, making new colors as the paints mix on the paper.

After letting them dry, we (I) cut fish shapes out and using a needle and white thread we created this mobile for M's room. The picture doesn't really do it justice. It turned out really pretty. And, most importantly, it was a chance to be creative and have FUN!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Sunday School on Friday - David and Goliath

We had a lot of fun with this one! We read the story about David and Goliath in our Bible for toddlers.

Then, to help the story "stick" in M's mind we did some fun stuff with rocks.

We painted them:

Then put them in a little glass votive holder for a table centerpiece:

We also drew this on the patio:

And took turns tossing rocks into the squares and saying the numbers:

Whoever's rock landed in the square with the bigger number won. Simple, yet lots of fun for a 2 year old who normally isn't allowed to throw rocks!

I thought about drawing a giant and trying to hit him in the head (like David did to Goliath); but fortunately my brain kicked in just in time to realize that might not be a good idea, and might be pretty horrifying for a small child. Hee hee.

We did have a talk about how we normally don't throw rocks at people, but God told David it would be ok this ONE time because Goliath was so mean and David had to win so the people could be safe. We didn't mention death or anything very gory; neither did his little Bible, which is one of the reasons I love it so much!

For more ideas about Bible stories and activities to go with them for your young child, visit some of these sights:

Christianpreschoolprintables.com

DLTK-Bible.com

BibleStorySundays.com

Have a beautiful day! :)