Praising
Puppets
Scripture: Genesis
6-9 with emphasis on Genesis 6:13-22
Memory Verse: Psalm 124:8
“Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”
Offering: PC
Concepts:
1.
God
communicates with people.
2.
God
wants us to be kind, obedient and faithful like Noah.
Objectives: Children will learn that God talked to Noah and continues to
communicate with people. Children will understand that Noah was obedient to God
even when he didn’t have any evidence that what God said would really
happen. The children will recognize that
Noah is an example to us of obedience to God.
The children will become familiar with the puppets, how to manipulate
them and how to store them.
Procedure:
1.
Greet the children and introduce yourself.
Remember you are interacting with a different group of students each
week that may not know you. Begin with a brief prayer asking God to help us be
obedient.
2.
Explain the puppet workshop. The
children will use puppets to learn more about Bible stories and how those
stories are important to us in our life.
Today we will focus on Noah and his obedience to God.
3.
Test for Knowledge. Ask younger children whether the story of
Noah is found in the Old or New Testament, or for first graders, a simpler
question might be whether it is found earlier in the Bible or later. For older
children ask which Testament and also which book of the Bible it is in. Remind them this is one of our earliest
stories of God and is therefore in the first book of the Bible.
4.
Tell or review the Noah story from the Bible (attached
summary). In the first weeks of the rotation you will
need to tell more of the story. In the
middle to last weeks, children will have heard the story in other workshops,
and it may be that only a review is necessary.
During the review, you can focus on the following aspects—Noah built the
ark before it ever rained, he built the ark just because God told him to do so,
Noah followed all God’s instructions including what size to build the ark and
how many animals to include. End the
review when you feel that the children have a solid recall of the story and of
who Noah was. If a child asks a question
you cannot answer, you can say that it’s a great question, and then you can
hold up your Bible and say that the Bible is such a big book that sometimes
it’s hard to remember everything in it.
Then you can either ask a shepherd to see whether they can find an
answer during the class by looking in the Bible, or you can tell the child that
you will get an answer from someone at the Kirk and tell their shepherd so they
can tell them by next week. (Note: Because
of the recent tsunami, a natural disaster, some children may question whether God
is still keeping his promise, but the promise that God made was that he would
never again destroy all life. Many
people survived the tsunami, and only a small part of the world was affected,
so God is still keeping his promise.)
5.
Distribute the Puppets. Tell the children that they will each
receive a puppet. With your guidance
they will spend a few minutes learning to move their puppet in ways that will
help the audience understand what the puppet is doing. Pass out the puppets. It does not matter which puppet goes to which
child.
6.
Work in groups of two. After children have received a puppet, tell
them to work in groups of two. If there
is an odd number, a group of three will be fine. (NOTE:
You may want to assess how experienced the children are with puppets. If this is an older class, you can minimize
this puppet practice session. If it is a
younger class and less experienced with the Praising Puppet workshop, or if you
sense that there are a lot of visitors or infrequent attendees, you can do this
entire practice session.) You are going to suggest that their puppets show
certain actions or emotions. Have one of
the pair do the action or emotion that you suggest and the other person will
watch. The “watcher” may make
suggestions such as, “make bigger movements with the puppet” “do not turn the
puppet’s head so much” etc.
After
one person of the pair has had a turn, trade parts and let the other person
try. As a leader, you will need to tell
children when to switch parts and when to listen to the next instruction from
you for what motion they should demonstrate.
Ask
one child of each pair to show the following actions or emotions using their
puppets. “Show how your puppet looks when it is speaking quietly” (move mouth
of puppet with small movements, head rather quiet). “Show how your puppet looks when it is
speaking loudly” (move mouth wide open and show some head movement as well). “Show what your puppet does when it is
listening” (no motion at all, turned toward the speaker). “Show how your puppet might have helped build
the ark” (move puppets arms or hands as if it were hammering, lifting,
carrying, etc., something for the ark).
Tell
the children that since they have had a little practice with their puppet you
will do something a little more complicated now.
7.
Perform a short play. Keep the children in pairs and ask them to
choose which one of their puppets will be “James” and which will be “Sam” for a
short play. This play will be similar to
the story of Noah in the Bible, but will be in a modern setting. (See attached play.)
Younger Children (1st and 2nd
grade): Ask the Shepherd from the group to read one
part while you read the other and tell the children to act it out.
Older Children (3rd-5th
grade): Hand out scripts and let the students read
and act out their own parts in their groups.
Following the play, ask questions similar to
these. “How was this puppet story like the Bible story of Noah?” “How was this story different?” “What kind of person was Sam?” “How were Sam and Noah similar?” “How did Sam know what God wanted him to do?”
“Do you think God can communicate with us like he communicated with Sam and
Noah?” Continue the discussion until it
seems the children have an understanding of God’s communication with Noah and
Noah’s obedience.
If
time permits, you can repeat this section letting pairs/groups switch parts.
Or, ask several children to come forward to the stage and act out the play as
you or they read it, or choose two children to read the play while one pair or
all the children act it out.
8.
Make-up a situation. (time permitting) Now ask each pair of
children to make-up a situation where someone is being obedient to what they
know they should do just as Sam and Noah did.
Have their puppets act out the situation. Examples: not stealing candy at the grocery
even if a friend did, not cheating on a test, telling the truth when they have
done something wrong, etc.
9.
Tidy-up! When it is 10:35, ask the children to return the puppets to their
storage location and to sit back down quietly.
Reflection Time:
Ask the shepherds to pass out the journal
pages. Ask younger children to draw a
picture of Noah or Sam doing something related to this story—listening to God,
working on their building, etc. Ask
older children to copy the sentence:
“Noah obeyed God” and then to write any words, thoughts, pictures, ideas
they have related to this.
Closing:
Prayer: End with a simple prayer thanking God for the example of Noah in the
Bible. Also ask God to help us do what
God wants in our lives just as Noah did what God wanted him to do.
Tidy
and Dismissal: Ask the
children for help with any clean-up needed. The Shepherd should collect the
name tags.
Teacher preparation in advance:
1. Pray:
Ask God to give you clarity of this scripture and words to teach His
children this lesson. Ask for time
management.
2. Preview the scripture
passages.
3. Attend the Faith Quest Leaders Bible.
4. Prepare opening and closing prayers or plan
to use the ones included.
5. Check out the room before your first Sunday
workshop so that you know where everything is located.
6. Make 10-12 copies of the script.
Materials:
Extra copies of the
play as needed
SAM: “Did
you know I spend time with God each day?”
JAMES:
“Yes, you’ve mentioned it before.
But what do you do exactly?”
SAM: “I
read the Bible, then I pray for a little while and then I sit quietly.”
JAMES: “Why
do you do the sitting quietly part? That
seems like a waste of time.”
SAM: “I
sit quietly to see whether I hear a message from God.”
JAMES: “A
message from God?! That’s crazy! Do you get a little written message in a
bottle?!”
SAM: “No,
but sometimes I get a very clear idea in my mind. When that happens, I am sure it is what God
wants me to do. You know what that
message was today?”
JAMES:
“What? Go live in a cave?”
SAM: “No,
God said my construction company should build new apartments for 300 people.”
JAMES:
“That’s dumb. Our town doesn’t
need any more apartments.”
SAM: “I
know, but God said there would be lots of people moving here that would need
apartments.”
JAMES:
“Yeah, right. And what happens
when no one wants to move here?”
SAM:
“Well, I don’t know, but I am very sure the company needs to start on
the apartments soon.”
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
JAMES:
“Sam, how is the apartment building going? Are you still working on that crazy project?”
SAM: “We
have the outside all finished and we are finishing the inside painting and
floors. It should be done in about three
weeks.”
JAMES: “I
still think it is a crazy project! Who
is going to live there?”
SAM: “I
still don’t know, but I do know that God wanted this built, so we’re working on
it.”
ONE MONTH
LATER. NEWSPAPER HEADLINES READ
“HURRICANE GEORGE LEAVES 300 FAMILIES HOMELESS”
JAMES:
“Sam, Sam, did you see the headlines in the paper today? There are 300 families whose homes were
destroyed by Hurricane George.”
SAM:
“That’s it! That’s it! God wanted me to build the apartments for
those families. Now they will have
somewhere to live. Quick James, let’s
tell the mayor and the newspaper so the families can start moving in soon.”
Based on Genesis 6-9 CEV
The
LORD was pleased with Noah, and this is the story about him. Noah was the only
person who lived right and obeyed God. He had three sons.*
God knew that
everyone else on the earth was terribly mean. So he told Noah to get
some good lumber and build a boat, and God gave exact instructions about how
the boat was to be made. God said, “A
flood will destroy everything that breathes! Nothing will be left alive. But I
promise that you, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law will be kept
safe in the boat. Bring into the boat with you a male and a female of every
kind of animal and bird, as well as a male and a female of every reptile. Do
this so there will always be animals and birds on the earth. I don't want them
to be destroyed. Store up enough food both for yourself and for them.”
Noah did everything
exactly as the LORD told him to do.
Before
the rain started, the LORD told Noah:
Seven days from
now a rain will start that will last for forty days and nights. Noah, his wife, his sons, and his
daughters-in-law all went into the boat to escape the flood. Noah obeyed God
and took all the animals as God had told him. Seven days later (just as God had
promised) a flood began to cover the earth. Rain poured down for forty days and
nights (just as God had promised.)
The boat started floating high above
the ground. Finally, the mighty flood was so deep that even the highest
mountain peaks were almost twenty-five feet below the surface of the water. Not
a bird, animal, reptile, or human was left alive anywhere on earth.
God
did not forget about Noah and the animals with him in the boat. So God made a
wind blow, and the water started going down. God closed up the sky, and the
rain stopped. For 150 the water slowly went down. Then the boat came to rest
somewhere in the Ararat mountains.
Noah wanted to find out whether the
water had gone down, so he sent out a bird three different times to see whether
they was any place to land, but the birds always flew back to the boat. On the fourth try, a dove returned holding in
its beak a green leaf from an olive tree. Noah knew that the water was finally
going down. After some time, when the ground was finally dry, God said to Noah,
"You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the
boat. Let out the birds, animals, and reptiles, so they can have babies and
live all over the earth."
Noah
built a place to praise God and then he worshipped God. This pleased God, and God said: “Never again
will this happen. As long as the earth
remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat; winter and summer,
day and night.”
God
said to Noah and his sons: “I am giving you my blessing. Have a lot of children
and grandchildren, so people will live everywhere on this earth.”
Again, God said
to Noah and his sons:
“I am going to make a solemn promise
to you and to everyone who will live after you. This includes the birds and the
animals that came out of the boat. I promise every living creature that the
earth and those living on it will never again be destroyed by a flood. The
rainbow that I have put in the sky will be my sign to you and to every living
creature on earth. It will remind you that I will keep this promise forever.
When I send clouds over the earth, and a rainbow appears in the sky, I will
remember my promise to you and to all other living creatures. Never again will
I let floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the sky, I
will always remember the promise that I have made to every living creature. The
rainbow will be the sign of that solemn promise.”
Noah
and his sons came out of the boat. All people on earth are descendants of
Noah's three sons.
*Shem,
Ham, and Japheth—if anyone asks.