Golden Calf Centers

Some of my favorite class activities came from this lesson.  We first talked about how Moses came down from the mountain and was so mad when he saw that the Israelites had made a golden calf.  He was so mad that he threw the 10 commandments down and smashed them everywhere.  So, I let the boys throw down graham crackers (relating to the snack the night before) on some paper.  At first, they were a little hesitant, but then got right into it.  They did a great job pretending to be mad throwing their graham crackers down.

Then, we talked about how Moses melted the golden calf down and made it into powder.  I had a golden calf (see picture at the bottom of this post) and put it over the campfire you see in this picture.  I switched the golden calf (that I had put in the pot that you also see in the picture below) and showed them how the fire made it into powder.  I had put UNsweetened lemonade powder in the pot before class began.  I showed them how Moses took the powder and poured it into their drinking water for the children of Israel to drink.  I had a pitcher of water and poured our powder into the water, mixing it up.  Then, I gave each child a cup with some of the water in it.  We had talked about how the water was very bitter for them to drink, and this showed them how bitter it was.

Their faces were so funny drinking the bitter water!!! One child actually liked it!! Go figure!

Then, we made golden calves.  I used the die cut machine again to make 3D golden calves for them to take home.

Of course, we had to have a picture of them with the golden calf - which I actually took on Tuesday night because I had to get their paper bag scrapbooks ready to give them this night.  Diane had found a blow up calf and spray painted it gold. They loved it!

We had a great time learning about Moses this year at VBS!

10 Commandments Activities

I don't know where all my 10 Commandment center pictures are.  I guess that is what I get for FINALLY putting them up in December when it happened in June!!! Oh well!!!  We did have some great centers!  The first being our drama center.  I loved how each night the mountain stayed the same - yet changed!!!  For the mountain of the Lord, we added clouds and lighting bolts to the top and let the kids climb up the mountain to receive the 10 commandments.  I love how the 10 commandments are about as big as the kids!!! Ha Ha! They did NOT care!

We also played "Find God's 10 laws" over and over and over again.  Our church as a tablet die cut so I made 10 of them to hide all over the room.  We would count them as we found them and would remind ourselves that God gave the Israelites 10 laws.  This, of course, was a huge hit!

Crossing the Red Sea Centers

To help us review the Red Sea lesson, we did the following centers.  The kids really enjoyed these activities.

The first thing we did was allowed them to make their own pillar of cloud and fire to take home.  This especially was great after the big hit it was during class.

Then, we gave each a child a SNACK size Zip-loc bag.  We put a little bit of toothpaste (usually a line of toothpaste squeezed at the very bottom of the bag) at the bottom of the bag and sealed it up.  Then we let them spread the toothpaste all over the bag.  Then we talked about how the Israelites crossed on fry land.  The children took their fingers and separated the toothpaste at one point on the bag to separate the toothpaste.  Then, we found footprint stickers for them to place on the dry land.

Their favorite center was the drama center where we let each child be Moses and separate the Red Sea.  Our Burning Bush mountain, turned into the mountain where Moses stood to cross the Red Sea.  Each child got to stand up on the mountain with a staff.  My helpers were on the floor by plastic blue tablecloths and when "Moses" raised his rod, the helpers raised the "waters."  The children who were not Moses were able to cross on dry land and they LOVED it!!!!!

They wanted to do this the next night as well!!

Our Own Burning Bush

Each night at VBS I had a drama center for my two year olds - a chance for them to act out the story.  I made the mountain out of a table and lots of different size chairs.  Then I covered them with brown bulletin board paper.  At the top, I had our bush.  I could not find the red lights I had set aside so I used red bulletin board paper and yellow/orange paper streamers to make it look like it was burning.  The kids actually got to take their shoes off and "climb" up the mountain.  They loved it!

As you can see some of the shepherds (like Moses) were a bit fearful but overall it was 

a success!!!

Healing of the Lame Man

I don't teach below Kindergarten often, but, when I do, I try to do a lot of activities to keep the kids up and moving!!!!  When I was teaching the three year olds about Paul, these are some of the activities we used for the lesson.  This gate had been made for a VBS lesson.  We try to save as many of these things as possible so we can reuse them year after year.  I found the mat from Oriental Trading - in their beach section!!!  The kids loved that part of it!  We let each child that wanted to be the lame man on the mat.  The rest of the class would sing the song that went with the lesson while the child who was lame became well.  We did this COUNTLESS times!!!

One of the things we did when they came into class was to begin coloring their story telling figures. I took these same figures to teach the lesson later.  They worked on coloring them and we would talk about what we thought the lesson would be about.  It is always fun to hear their thoughts!

This is how I used them in the lesson.  The kids love the sand box.  I usually let them touch the sand after the lesson if they sit still through it.

This was one of my favorite lessons to teach and there are so many lame man stories you can use these ideas with - Jesus, Peter and Paul!!!!