Altar snack

Here's a very simple altar snack that could be used for any lesson involving an altar. I used it when teaching about Abraham and Isaac. You could make this snack using different things. I used prepackaged peanut butter cookies. If you have peanut allergies in your class you would obviously not want to use these. Any square snacks would work! I used three stacked on top of one another and connected each cookies with a little peanut butter to keep them from sliding. For the fire I just colored some canned icing. I made some red and some orange. I put a dab of each color on top of the cookies and placed a few broken pretzel sticks on top for the fire. When doing this with the 2 year olds I put everything together and let them add the logs. Older kids could probably manage doing it all by themselves. 

A- Ascension snack

The Kindergartners started the ABC's of Acts this morning. Our first lesson was on the ascension of Jesus. Here is what they had for snack. Super easy and inexpensive. The kids loved it!

Used a jumbo gummy bear for Jesus. He is attached to a sour punch straw cut into a thin strip. You could use pull apart twizzlers as well and not have to do any cutting! Teddy Grahams are the followers watching as Jesus ascends. And mini marshmallows are the clouds. I attached the gummy bear to the "string" with a dab of chocolate so they could pull Jesus up through the clouds. 

Jesus Calms the Storm

VBS- "By the Sea" lesson- Jesus Calms the Storm

2 year old center- sorting boats by color

Jesus calms the storm craft. Use a piece of construction paper and fold the top down a few iches. Under the flap glue storm cloud and lightening.  Glue water and boat along bottom of construction paper. 

Lower flap and glue sun and white cloud. When you raise flap..you have a stormy sea. When you lower the flap you have a calm sea. 

Tune: "If You're Happy and You Know It"

Je-sus calmed the stormy sea.

Je-sus calmed the stormy sea.

Jesus spoke to the wind and said, "Peace be Still'

Je-sus calmed the stormy sea.

Our snacks to go along with the lesson were edible boats! We had apple boats with cheese sails and we also had banana boats with strawberry sails. These could be used with many lessons involving boats including Jonah, Paul being shipwrecked, Noah, apostles fishing, etc. 

Nets Full of Fish

VBS- "By the Sea" lesson- Nets full of fish

snack- nets with fish made using waffle pretzels, hershey kisses, and goldfish. Place kiss on pretzel and melt the for a few minutes in the oven. take out and press fish into chocolate. That's it!! So simple and tasty! Found this idea on Pinterest!

easy center for 2 year olds. Match colors and shapes

Fish matching center. Found foam fish on oriental trading

also found this craft idea on Pinterest. Used pieces of a laundry bag for the net, mini die cut fish, and jumbo popsicle sticks. 

Tune: "If You're Happy and You Know It" 

The apostles caught a bunch of fish

The apostles caught a bunch of fish

Jesus said, "cast your nets on the other side."

The apostles caught a bunch of fish.

Jesus Calls the Apostles

VBS "By The Sea" Lesson- Jesus calls the apostles to be fishers of men! 

snack-  fishing poles using pretzel rods, pull apart twizzlers, and gummy fish! 'Glued' the twizzler and fish with almond bark. 

The 2 year olds counted the apostles. An upside egg carton works perfectly with there being 12 places to stick apostles on popsicle sticks! Also used the poster board with apostles while singing the apostles song and then used it in a matching center. Kids matched the smaller apostles with the one on the poster board. 

Tune: "If You're Happy And You Know It"

One day Jesus called some fisherman.

One day Jesus called some fisherman.

He called "come follow me"

They left their nets and went,

One day Jesus called some fisherman.

To go along with our "by the sea" theme the kids counted sea shells in one center

They also went fishing in a pool filled with tissue paper and fish with paper clips attached. I hot glued a heavy duty magnet to the end of a string attached to a pole for them to fish with.

Jesus Walks on Water

Just recently had our VBS. The theme was "By the Sea". One of our lessons was Jesus walking on the water. Here are a few things we did in the 2 year old class. 

Made a very simple paper plate craft using tissue paper, boat die cut, and Jesus clip art. 

Ate blue jello with a teddy graham as Jesus. Was able to get the teddy graham to "walk on water" by "gluing" him to a pretzel stick with almond bark. 

Tune: "If You're Happy And You Know It" 

Je-sus walked upon the sea.

Je-sus walked upon the sea.

Peter tried to meet Him there,

but the waves were everywhere.

Je-sus walked upon the sea

Making Bricks . . .

My mom was teaching the second grade class on Wednesday nights in the summer and they were studying the life of Moses and the children of Israel in Egypt.   She decided to make bricks for the kids to eat the night they were talking about what kind of work the Israelites did when they were slaves.  She melted chocolate almond bark in a pot and added chow mien noodles to the chocolate.  After stirring very well, she poured them into ice trays, and put them in the refrigerator to harden.  

Right before class, she took them out and VIOLA! edible bricks! The kids loved them!

Golden Calf Snack

For the snack when we taught the golden calf, we gave each child a sugar cookie with a sad face.  This was to represent how sad Moses was when we saw what the children of Israel had done.  We also gave each of them an extra cookie!!!

10 Commandments Snack

For our lesson on the 10 Commandments, we served 10 Commandments for snack.  Simple enough - we took graham crackers, "cut" the top to make them look like tablets, spread a little frosting on them and sprinkled more graham crackers on top.  The kids LOVED them!!!

Crossing the Red Sea Snack

This night of VBS had a great snack!! Kim adapted this idea to fit our little dears.  We used Cool Whip and turned it blue with food coloring.  On a paper plate, we placed a graham cracker down to represent the dry land and put the blue food coloring down on each side to represent the water.  On the graham cracker we spread a little bit of icing so our teddy grahams aka the children of Israel could cross on dry land.

The kids LOVED it!!!!!

Burning Bush Snacks

We just finished our VBS this year where the preschool class focused on Moses.  Our first lesson was centered around the burning bush.  For our snacks that night, we served the kids this . . .

We made sausage ball snacks and pretzel rods to represent Moses' rod turning into a snake.

We also had broccoli (which we called the bush) and they were able to make it burn by dipping it in ranch dip that we made red with red food coloring!!!

The kids LOVED it!!

It was a hit!

Pig Food

I love seeing teenagers in the Bible classrooms learning how to teach!  This idea comes from one of our best!  She made this as a take home when teaching about the prodigal son.  This was her pig's food - although I think all the kids liked eating it!!! She put popcorn, fruit loops, cheerios, raisins, etc. in her pig's food!  It is a good way to show the kids how the pigs ate whatever was left over!

A Shepherd's Snack Sack

I don't know if I have put this up yet or not, but better twice than never!!! We used this simple (not that I made it, but I was told it was simple to make) sack to place our VBS snack in for the night we learned about David as a shepherd.  My friend, Kim, made them out of scrap brown fabric.  Sewed a casing (?) at the top to slide the rope through so we could tie it off.  She also sewed the sack up on two sides.  (Don't you LOVE my sewing instructions!)  Inside, we placed a snack size Zip-loc bag with a shepherd snack (trail mix).  We met at the river in our room to eat our snack.  The kids loved it and were able to take it home with them at the end of the night.

Creation Review/God Made People

This quarter the 2,s have been learning about creation. This week they learned about Day 6 and that God made people. They did animals last week! I found some review/center ideas online that I could just print off, cut out and use. No coloring was required (with a color printer) so it took very little time to prepare. I did laminate everything for durability.

Used this as a whole group review. I found this activity at www.christianpreschoolprintables.com It could be used with older kids by letting them match pictures to the correct day all by themselves. With the 2,s I let them hold the pictures and then as I talked about each day we looked to see who was holding the correct picture. They would then come add it to the correct spot. They like having something hold! They did very well with this activity and were so cute studying their pictures to see who was holding what I was describing!



Used this next game as a center for the kids to match the pictures. Found this at www.sundayschoolresources.com.




For our snack/take home we made these marshmallow people. I put them in a bag labeled "Day 6- God Made People" The kids enjoyed eating the parts while making one to take home! I found this idea here! The internet really is a great resource for teaching the bible to children!!

Jesus' Resurrection

Resurrection cookies/buns

These were a big hit with everyone when teaching the lesson on Jesus' Resurrection. Kim found this idea and made these for both of our classes during VBS. They are super neat! As you can see in the picture you take a big marshmallow and a crescent roll (not cooked) and wrap the marshmallow to show the tomb not empty. You roll it in sugar and cinnamon and bake. As it bakes the marshmallow melts and when you remove them from the oven you have an empty tomb! These were cooked ahead and brought to class but we used a non-cooked roll to show the children that the marshmallow was in the tomb! I just loved these. They taste really good too!!

Tomb

My friend Sasha and I made this tomb to use in the 2 year old class at VBS. It was not hard at all. I called our local furniture store and asked for a box. We cut the box down a little so it wouldn't take up quite so much room. Sasha made rocks from poster board. We had them laminated for durability so we could use them again in the future. The stone was made by covering a piece of the box that we cut off and stuffing a little paper into one side. We cut a hole for the entrance and that's it! The box was plenty big enough for the kids to get in and look for Jesus! It was a big hit. Boxes are great for making props and just about every store has boxes that they would love to get rid of.