Unit 3A: Moses and the Exodus

After Easter and an early Ascension, we went back to the Old Testament.

Date	Bible Story	Game	Craft	Bible Study
4/29/07	Birth of Moses	Pass the baby à drawing things out of water	Honey/peanut candy "Moses baskets"	Ephesians 2:10
5/6/07	God calls Moses	"excuses answered" flash card game	Burning bush pictures	Review of Moses' excuses & ours
5/13/07	First nine plagues	Paper wad war (getting locusts out of the house)	Clothespin locusts	Exodus 9: 27-30, 33-35
5/20/07	Passover	"Musical cards"—reds live.	Bubble bottle lambs	I Peter 1: 18-19
5/27/07	Crossing the Red Sea	Drowning (paper) chariots w/ squirt gun	Phylacteries	Isaiah 43: 1-2
6/3/07	God's provision, man's complaining	Gathering cotton-ball manna	Slingshots (to shoot quail)	Psalm 78: 18-22
6/10/07	Receiving the Law	Race to find ten number discs	Clay tablets	Psalm 1: 1-3

 

For our game for the birth of Moses, we passed the "baby" until the music stopped, then whoever had it got to fish a malted milk ball out of a prune juice bottleful of water—with chopsticks! One mom thought this was a great way to teach her chocolate-loving son patience and perseverance. But for the paper-wad war two weeks later, the same boy got very uncomfortable, because he felt like we were really fighting.

The Passover story went really well. For killing the Passover Lamb, I had glued cotton balls all over a water bottle & added pipe cleaner legs and a lamb face (same as we did for our craft). The lamb was "killed" by wringing its neck and letting the ketchup-blood out. We poured that into a bowl which the kids then dipped small bunches of dried flowers in to smear on the top & side posts of a door I'd drawn on a piece of brown posterboard. It was quite realistic.

I couldn't think of a good craft for the crossing of the Red Sea, so we did phylacteries because it was actually between the Passover and the Crossing that the Bible mentions for the first time (I think) having a sign on your hands and forehead (Ex. 13:9). It did seem like a bit of a stretch, so once again, I would love to hear of other ideas.

For receiving the Law at Mount Sinai, first the kids all had to wash their faces and put on my husband's neckties again. Then a couple of us held a large white sheet over the top of a tall ladder. One of the kids had to climb the ladder up under the sheet to get the tablet. It's a real plus that we're borrowing the mission dorm for our services, because there are so many great props handy!

For the clay tablets, we smeared clay over Styrofoam templates (another exercise in patience) & then just wrote in Roman numerals I-X with nails.

The moms enjoy some of these crafts at least as much as the kids!