- Animals...set out some of the animals involved with the plagues: plastic animals, and finger puppets all work here.
- Felt board... set out all the pieces involved in the Bible stories of Moses and allow the children to use the pieces to retell the story in their own words and explore what might happen next.
2) Songs: Start the Story Hour with the learning our names song. Go around the circle or table and introduce each child.
Here is a simple song to reinforce the story today: sung to the tune of "This Old Man"
- First God sent, Plague number one,Turned the Nile into blood.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number two, Jumping frogs all over you.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!
- Then God sent, Plague number three, Swarms of gnats from head to knee.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number four, Filthy flies need we say more?All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number five, All the livestock up and died.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent,Plague number six,Boils and sores to make you sickAll the people in Egypt were feeling pretty low.They told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number seven, Hail and lighting down from heaven.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number eight, Locust came and they sure ate.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number nine, Total darkness all the time.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowThey told Pharaoh "Let them Go!"
- Then God sent, Plague number ten, Pharaoh's son died so he gave in.All the people in Egypt were feeling pretty lowFinally Pharaoh let them go
3) Prayer... Praise God for his power over all creation and every nation!
4) Theme: Remind the children of the theme of the unit: God works among his covenant people to prepare the world for the Savior. Hebrews 12:1&2 “Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us… look to Jesus.” Tell them that they are going to hear a Bible Story again today that shows how God works through Moses. God shows that he is more powerful than any earthly king, and more wise than any earthly wise man.
5) Bible Story: Today’s Story is about Moses and the 10 plagues. Read pages 86-95 from the Read and Learn Bible (Scholastic).
You can use the Pharaoh, Moses, Aaron and plagues (frog and flies) pieces to help tell the story today.
6) Text: Today’s Text is: These things will happen "so that you may know there is no one like the Lord, our God." Exodus 8:10b
7) Craft:
- The Ten Plagues (poster)… Before the lesson, take a large sheet of paper for each child and draw lines to divide into 10 even spaces. Write the names of each plague with their numbers in the spaces. Allow the children to draw/color the water into blood, hailstones and darkness. Provide small pictures for the other plagues and assist the children to glue them in the right space and color them. I used the same pictures as for the mini-book. My daughter liked having the book much better and it would be much easier to carry home from church. :-) This would make a good group craft to color together and display on the bulletin board, and you would have time to make a frog to take home! Paint the frogs, do the group poster, and then complete the frogs.
Reminder: 1) water into blood 2) frogs 3) gnats 4) flies 5) death of all the Egyptians animals 6) sores 7) hailstones 8) locusts 9) darkness 10) death of Egyptian first born.
- The Ten Plagues (mini-book)... use the link below to find pictures for all 10 plagues. I copied and pasted all of the pictures into a document and reduced them all so that I had 2 pictures on every page, then added the titles underneath. Email me and I can send you the document to save you some work! Cut before the lesson (I used a paper cutter to make quick work of it, cutting each page 5"x7"). During the lesson, have the children find the correct pictures and put them in order. Give them a blank sheet of paper to fold in half for the cover (again, I just cut 5X7 rectangles from construction paper). Staple the pages together and have each child write a big number "10" on the front, then glue/write the text on the front cover.. Some children may want to color the pictures right away and some will enjoy reading it to you, instead.You can do this and one frog craft together.
There are pictures of all 10 plagues here: http://coloringbookfun.com/moses/index.htm
- The plague of frogs (Paper Plate). There are several ways to make really cute frogs and kids like frogs. They may not understand why this is a plague. After you have made the frogs, have the kids use them to imagine frogs in their beds, in their food, everywhere!
Frog (Paper Plate) Paint a small paper plate green. (Note: I found green paper plates at the local Dollar$ Store) Cut out arms and legs from green paper, and a tongue from red. paper. Cut out eyes from white paper and draw black circles in the center. Have the children glue on the eyes and staple the arms and legs and tongue in place. The frogs are cute just like this, but our kids wanted spots so we glued foam shapes all over them, too. If you have time, you may want to have the kids paint their plates green early on in the session and complete the craft later on.
( I cut all the legs with the same pattern, and then tucked the front legs under the plate a bit further to make them a little shorter. This cut down my "prep" time!)
The completed frog!- The Plague of Frogs (Rocks) Collect enough small to medium sized rocks for all the children and paint them green before class. Cut out arms, legs and tongue from construction paper. Attach to green rock with hot glue gun if necessary. Add googly eyes. Set on paper plate with child’s name and text. Again, painting could be done by children if you divide the craft into two work sections.
Experiment with the glue you have available first to see how well the arms, legs and eyes attach as there is nothing so disappointing as a limb-less frog. :-( White glue worked, but my daughter wanted to play with the frog right away. We tried it again with a glue gun and found the results much more satisfying. On the down side, you need to do the gluing yourself.
- Frog (Paper Bag Puppet) Cut out smaller arms and longer legs from green construction paper. Cut out eye shapes and bend at the bottom to make a "tab" for gluing. Cut out a long strip of red/pink for the tongue and slightly curl the end. Glue all the pieces to the paper bag and decorate the frog with green crayons/markers or poster paints. My son used the green paint dabber to add spots instead and was very happy with how "froggy" this looked. Just FYI... most 5 year olds will be able to assemble this with little assistance if you have a sample available, but 3&4 year olds will need some help. Make sure that you have all the pieces cut out (and bagged in sets) and have an extra pair of hands around for this craft.
8) Prayer.. say the Lord's prayer together with the children.
9) Going Home: .Sing the closing together. Then, check to see if all the children have collected their crafts and coloring sheets before they go home. Say goodbye and tell them that you enjoyed learning about God together and were happy to have them today! You were, weren’t you?
10) Optional Coloring Page
Here is one option showing Moses and some of the 10 plagues:
http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.coloring.ws/bible/exodus8to10.gif
