Doubting Thomas

John 20:24-31

Here's a super easy game to make! And it's even easier to play! The Doubting Thomas Game is basically as True or False game. 

How To Play:

-- Give each child an "I Doubt It" sign.

-- Read aloud one item from the list of unusual facts about the bible. Be sure to read the facts so the answers will sometimes be true, and sometimes be false.

-- Anyone who doubts the statement is true should hold up their sign showing the "I Doubt It" side toward the teacher. 

-- Anyone who believes the statement is true does nothing.

-- Give the players with the correct answers a point for each correct answer. Remember our Bingo Buttons? To make score keeping easier, I gave each player a button for each correct answer. At the end of the game, we simply counted the buttons to see who won. 

--The player with the most points (or buttons) at the end wins the game.

Materials:

This only takes a few things.

1. Front and Back pics. One set for each child/sign.

     Color download here: 
Front and Back.

     B&W download here: 
Front and Back.

2. Cardstock

3. Paint stir sticks
     (or craft sticks,
       or strips of balsa wood). One for each child.

4. Questions. More about this at #6 below.

5. A stapler.

Construction Instructions:

Realizing some may want to use this, when time allows, for a craft AND a game, and others will only have time for the game, I have included the graphic as a coloring page and as a full color image. If using it as a craft, I would suggest that you put the sign together yourself at home before class and just have the kids color it already made up.

1. Print the images onto the cardstock (one front and one back for each sign).

2. Cut out the images.

3. Staple the front and back together at the top and sides. No need to overdo it. I found one staple at the center-top, and one at the center-side of each side was sufficient. 

4. Insert the paint stick between the two pieces. Push it all the way to the top until it touches the top staple.

5. Place a staple on each side of the stick at the bottom. Do not try to staple through the stick. I considered placing a small line of glue on each side of the stick, but decided I wanted to have the option of re-using the stick for something else in the future if I wanted. I never know how many kids will be in Sunday school each week, so this prevented me from making fifteen, and then only using four, thereby waisting eleven perfectly good paint sticks. The sticks stayed in place just fine without the glue anyway.

6. Collect a list of bible facts. I found a website, JesusAlive, that gives a great list of little-known facts about the bible. Some of them are too advanced for third and fourth graders, but I found plenty for my game that was appropriate for my class. What I really appreciated was the way the author, Steve Shirley, gave the corresponding verse and a pop-up window with the quoted scripture. Seriously, it only took ten minutes to gather my list of questions. I opted not to give you my list of questions in a download. Mr. Shirley has done a great job with his list and it is well worth a visit to his site. He has obviously put a lot of work into it, and I don't want to get into any questionable infringements, so click on over to his list for help. 

Food for thought:
As I was preparing my lesson for today, I kept thinking about Jesus' response to Thomas, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29 NKJV

Our whole lesson today revolves around the fact that Thomas was hesitant to believe what others told him. I felt it was important to distinguish between doubting Jesus' power verses doubting what others may tell us. In dealing with children, especially in today's dangerous world, I wanted to be very careful not to give them the impression we should not doubt anything, so we spent about five minutes talking about why it is good to question things we hear that may sound suspicious, and why we should trust in God completely and never doubt His power. 


NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Easter Egg Toss Game

(Matthew 21-28) Holy Week events &
(Matthew 28:6) He is risen!

Here's another idea that bloomed from Pinterest! The original idea came from Mammabeefromthehive.blogspot.com.au , but I made a change or two to make it into an educational game.

How To Play:

I added an element to the traditional toss game to make it educational by filling sixteen easter eggs with one question each. 


Each child, in turn, will pick an egg from the basket, open it, read the question aloud, then answer the question. If they get the answer correct, they get to toss their egg into the cups. If it lands in a purple cup, they get a treat (jelly bean, piece of chocolate, etc.) If it misses the cups or lands in a clear cup, no treat. If they get the answer wrong, they return the egg (with the question still inside) to the basket for someone else to pick. [Note: they do not get to toss the egg if they get the answer wrong. This sounds a little harsh, right? Well, not really, because we will have just reviewed all the answers in detail while making our Holy Week Bookmarks (see post below). When we are going to play a game, I always tell the kids to pay close attention to the lesson because they will have to answer questions during the game. This makes them extra alert! :) I make it very clear what questions may be asked during game play, so the kids are well prepared by the time we get to the game.] After all the questions have been answered, everyone gets to toss empty eggs until they tire of it.

Materials:

I am sure lots of different materials would work for this. I scouted around my house and used what I already had on hand. Feel free to do the same. I love it when I can recycle items AND I don't have to go to the store!

1 Foam core board
34 Clear plastic cups
X-acto knife
Scissors (or paper cutter)
Ruler
Cylinder (soup cans, empty Pringles can, wrapping paper roll, 2 more of the clear plastic cups, or anything that can serve as legs)
Basket
Plastic Easter eggs
Questions & Answers (download here) 
Approximately 6 pieces of purple construction paper (purple because that is the liturgical color of Easter)
Optional: circle cutter

How to build:

1) Line up the cups 5 columns by 7 rows. 

2) Measure the area at the bottom of the cups. 

3) Cut the foam core big enough for all the cups to fit on.

4) Hot glue the cups to the foam core. I wasn't sure if the hot glue would make the cups melt or not. I'm happy to report, it didn't. The hot glue worked beautifully.

5) Cut the cylinder to the desired height. 

6) If using a cardboard cylinder, cut one end at an angle to hold the core at an angle. If using something like cans that cannot be cut, just hot glue the edge that touches the board. There is no need to make this thing super strong. The cups weigh next to nothing and there will not be any pressure put on the board. The only purpose of the legs is to tilt the board at an angle.

7) Hot glue the legs to the underside at the top end only. The bottom end will rest directly on the floor. Exact placement doesn't matter as long as it isn't wobbly. 

8) Cut eleven strips of purple construction paper to fit inside the eleven cups that form a cross. I also added circles to the bottom of the cups because I like the way it looks better. The circles are completely optional, though. It would be fine either way.

9) Print and cut out each question. Place one question in each egg. Place eggs in the basket. NOTE: My questions are about the days of Holy Week. Of course, any questions would work just as well. I typically have 7 to 10 children in my class any given week, so 16 questions were plenty. If your class is larger, you may want more. If you need question ideas, send me an email, and I'll be happy to help.

That's it. Very easy. Very fast. Once I decided on the materials, it only took about 30 minutes to build the game board and another 5 or 10 to prepare the eggs.


Happy Easter! 


~~~~~Update: 
Oh, what fun we had today! The kids loved this game! And I have to say, making the bookmarks before playing the game worked out perfectly. By the end of the game, everyone had a great understanding of the order the Holy Week events and were excited to take their bookmarks home so they could refer to it each day during the upcoming Holy Week. 


The kids were not ready to go home when their parents came to pick them up. Don't you just love it when that happens?!

I am very careful to not take pictures of children for the blog for privacy & safety issues, so sometimes my pictures do not adequately reflect the excitement we experience in class. This is definitely one of those times.



NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Holy Week Bookmark

Matthew 21-28

Two and a half weeks till Easter, but only one more Sunday school class. Hmmmm...how am I going to pack so much material into one lesson? Well, certainly, I can't. Holy Week alone could be eight different lessons. Although my lesson plan this week focuses on events that happened prior to Holy Week, it just seems wrong to completely ignore such a significant time (the most important event on the Christian calendar) just because we will not actually have class that week.

When I was a child, Holy Week meant very little to me. I heard the adults talking about various events, but I couldn't absorb it for the growing anticipation of Easter. There was only so much my young brain could focus on, and sadly, the Easter basket weighed heavily in my thoughts. Everything else skipped across my consciousness like a stone across a pond. 

One of my goals as a Sunday school teacher is to help children see the chronology of biblical events. I especially would like them to have a deeper understanding of Holy Week. 

My third and fourth graders have a good grasp of The Last Supper and of Jesus being crucified, but what about the other events leading up to all that? They know Judas betrayed Jesus at some point, but when I briefly talked to them a few weeks ago about this, I saw blank stares when I referred to Judas as a spy. "A spy? Why is he a spy?" they asked. Often, I think we use the same language over and over to describe something (e.g., Judas betrayed Jesus), and the children get used to hearing it, perhaps can even regurgitate it back to us, but they don't always understand what we are saying. After I explained the Judas-spy relationship, I began wondering how much of the whole Holy Week concept do they really get? Individual events? Mostly, I'd guess, with a few blurry details (e.g., Judas was a spy). What other details are unclear? Do they understand how these events are related? Do they see the chain of events in order? I feel I should spend some time discussing Holy Week as if it were a movie, in today's kid-friendly language, so they can see exactly how each event led to the next, rather than studying eight individual incidents thereby disconnecting their relationship somewhat. And that is how the Holy Week Bookmark idea came about. 

As we glue each day onto the bookmark, I will retell the story in a movie-style format. Hopefully, open discussions will occur, so any unclear points may be addressed. Then, they will have this nifty little bookmark to refer to from now on to help them remember the relationship and order of the Holy Week events. 

On to the craft....

Now, I won't lie to you--the method I used for the bookmark was time consuming. But, don't fret, I am going to tell you how to do it more efficiently! :) First, let me explain why I did this the hard way. I mentioned that I am trying to pack a lot into this lesson, right? Well, I had already decided to make the Easter Egg Toss Game above. I think the kids are going to love that game, so I didn't want to scratch that idea to replace it with the bookmarks. Ideally, I would spread these two things out over two class periods, doing the bookmark one week, and the Easter Egg Toss Game the next week; but, since I don't have that option this year, and I'm determined to do them both, I had to do most of the work on the bookmarks myself.

So...here's how to make the bookmarks the hard way (and the easier way is in parenthesis):

Materials:

Paper Cutter
Card Stock
Fine Point Sharpie
Paint Swatches
Glue Sticks or any child-safe adhesive

Optional: Ziplock baggies for organizing chips

At Home Before Prep:

1) Cut out each paint color into squares. Our bookmark will cover eight days--from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. I could not find paint chips with eight colors already on one card, plus I thought the kids might enjoy mixing their own color combinations, so I decided to individually cut out the colors. This took much longer than I expected. (To make this fast and easy, use the paint cards with several colors on a card and let the kids glue together as many cards as they need to make eight days. Depending on the number of colors on the chips you find, they may not even need to cut any off.)

2) Next, using the paper cutter, cut out a bookmark for each child. The actual size will be determined by the size of your paint chips. Be sure to lay out eight color chips in a row to get an accurate measurement leaving extra space along the side/top to write "Holy Week" as a header if desired. I cut my bookmarks 8" x 1 3/4".

3) Because we will be pressed for time in class, I wrote on all the chips myself beforehand. This was a last minute decision or else I would have printed the info. on clear label sheets and cut to fit. That would have given a much cleaner appearance. (But preferably, if time allows, the kids could do all the writing themselves, and if larger chips are used, they could also draw a palm leaf on Palm Sunday, a fig tree on Holy Tuesday, etc.)

Class Instructions:

1) As you talk about each day, give the Holy Day name(s) (some have several), what happened on that day, and any other tidbit info. you like about the day. Have the kids glue that day onto the card while you are talking. Start with Palm Sunday and have them place it snuggly at the bottom left corner of the card (if orienting your cards as I did). Then as you go in order of the week explaining, it will be easy for them to line up each day squarely. (If you are using the paint strips straight from the store without cutting, glue them onto the card stock until you have eight colors in a row. The kids can write the day of the week and draw a picture for that day while you are talking about that day.)

2) Lastly, have them write "Holy Week" across the side/top of the card.


In an attempt to make this project as streamline as possible, I put each day in a separate snack-sized baggie. I will simply hand out each baggie with the instructions, "Take one, pass it down," as I'm talking about that particular day.

After we finish the bookmarks, we will move right into the Easter Egg Toss Game. And how great is this...? The bookmark activity will be the perfect review for the questions we will use in the Easter Egg Toss Game, so the kids should not have any problems answering the questions! 




~~~~~Update: 
What a great class. Please also read my update at the bottom of the East Egg Toss Game post above. The extra time I spent preparing this craft was well worth it. I'll do the Holy Week Bookmarks and the Easter Egg Toss Game, perhaps every year from now on, just like I did it this year (both in one day).

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

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Thanks for visiting!


Teresa

Buzzer Trivia Game: Liturgical Calendar and The Gospels

The kids have requested another game using the buzzers. They were a big hit last year when we used them with our Noah's Ark lesson. So much so, that the kids still remember exactly how to play that game! 

As you may have noticed, we have been primarily studying lessons in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John this year. The kids are now able to locate The Gospels in their bibles without help, but they are having some difficulty remembering all four names on their own, so I decided to build a trivia game to reinforce some of the general gospels info. 

Another weak area for the kids is the liturgical calendar. We move the calendar marker every Sunday, and we talk about the church seasons frequently, but most of the kids tend to stare at me with glassy eyes during these conversations, so I thought adding in some calendar questions would also be good review.

The beauty of Buzzer Trivia is that any questions can be used and additional elements can be added into the game. The additional element we used today is the calendar. Read on for specifics.

Materials:

Printer Magnetic Sheets
Buzzers
Liturgical Calendar Puzzle
Trivia Questions
Scissors
Sharpie

Pre-Class Instructions:

1. Download the Liturgical Calendar Puzzle and print it on the magnetic sheets. If you do not want to use this puzzle, use any image that will compliment your lesson, and that can be made into a puzzle. One magnetic puzzle image will be needed for each team.

2. Download and print the trivia questions (on regular printer paper). Alternatively, any biblical questions may be used.

3. Cut the calendar (or other image) out - piece by piece.

4. If using the calendar, notice the words "Christmas" and "Day of Pentecost" are not actually written on the puzzle pieces. Take the sharpie and handwrite them on the correct piece since once they are cut out, they will not be labeled otherwise. 

Game Play:

 1. The kids wanted to divide up into Girls vs. Boys. Draw a space on the board for each team and randomly place the puzzle pieces in their area.

2. Set up a place with two buzzers. Have one player from each team stand/sit in front of their buzzer, one hand behind their back, and one hand (completely) palm down on the table.

3. Read a question aloud. The first buzzer to sound gets to answer the question. If the question is answered correctly, the team gets to jointly decide where to place the first puzzle piece. If the answer is incorrect, the other player gets to answer. If they get it right, their team places a puzzle piece. If their answer is incorrect, both players return to their seats and two more players get into position (for a new question). Be sure to tell the group the correct answer, but do not ask that question again until all the other questions have been asked.

4. The first team to correctly complete their puzzle wins. If possible use a puzzle that is easy to put together incorrectly. Since our calendar is a circle, it could be put together in a number of ways, but only one way is correct. This adds a level of difficulty to the game. If a team completes the puzzle incorrectly, the game continues until they get it right.

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Fishers of Men

(Mark 1:14-22)

At first glance, today's scripture appeared very simple... too simple for a game. There are a plethora of fish crafts but, we haven't played a game in a while, and I had my heart set on having an active activity this week. I read the scripture over and over trying to pick out enough details to support a game. As the week waned, I tried to talk myself into a craft anyway. But I couldn't do it. Thankfully, I awoke Saturday morning with this game idea:

Supplies:

Colored cardstock

Scissors

Sharpie

Any fish drawing

Bean bags (hacky sacks would work well, too)

Questions (click to download)

Optional: Blue plastic disposable table cloth

If you do not want to draw your own fish, or have a picture you can use, you are welcome to download mine here. (Of course, this is for your private use only, and you may not sell the image or anything made from it.)

Pre-class Instructions:

1. Using a copy machine or printer, copy the fish image onto 18 pieces of colored cardstock.

2. Cut out the fish.

3. Write one question on the back of each fish. Notice there are only 9 questions, but I have instructed you to cut out 18 fish. Each question will appear on two fish. This allows the game to be played in teams (each team getting their own set of questions/fish, or when there are only a few kids playing, the repetition will help them learn the correct answers.)

4. Print out the question & answer sheet in case it is needed during game play.

How to play:

1. If using a blue tablecloth to mimic water, spread it on floor.

2. Spread the fish, face up, on top of the water. If not using the tablecloth, just spread the fish in a smallish area on the floor.

3. Pick a spot on the floor where the kids will stand when it is their turn. I used a rug we have in our room. I simply told them they could not step off the rug during their throw.

4. Each child gets one throw at a time. They are to toss the bean bag in an attempt to land on a fish. 

5. When they land on a fish, they get to turn it over and read the question aloud. If they get the answer right, they get to keep the fish. If they do not know the answer, the fish must be returned to the sea, face up. Be sure to tell everyone the correct answer so the next time someone lands on that fish, they will know the answer.

6. The team or child with the most fish at the end of the game wins. 

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!