Noah Day 4: God’s Judgment Rain
*There are 2 activities for this day’s lesson. If you have time, you can do both. If not, choose one of the activities OR spread them out over 2 days! :)
- Materials:
- Children’s Bible with illustrations
- Activity #1 Materials: Noah, ark, and animal toys (or just a plastic toy boat), tub/container, cup with holes, strainer, spray bottle, squeeze bottles, etc. for rain
- Activity #2 Materials: boat to float on water, ice cube tray, pom poms, bottle lids
Day 4: Lesson & Activities
- Open Bible to Genesis 7:4-5. Ask if child wants to touch God’s Word. Touch gently. Then, “read” the story. God said, “Get inside the ark! A flood of rain will destroy everything, but you will be safe inside the ark.” God opened the windows of the sky. Rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. The water covered the grass. The water covered the bushes. The water covered the trees. The water covered the hills. The water covered the mountains! It was a great flood of water.
Children’s Bible Reading: Open children’s Bible. Look at illustrations of the boat/ark, Noah, the animals, clouds, water, rain, etc. The Say and Pray Bible only has one picture for each story, and it shows the clouds parting after the rain ended. Katelyn loved pointing to each puddle of water in the picture.
Activity #1:
- Put Noah and animals inside the ark. Take it outside, place it inside a tub, and pour water on the ark with cups, strainer, spray bottle, squeeze bottles for rain. (If it’s cold outside, you can also do this activity in a shower or tub, or just lay down a towel on the floor underneath the tub. It’s a good way to teach children to focus their play in one area.)
- Sing: It rained and poured for forty dayses dayses, rained and poured for forty dayses dayses. Almost drove those animals crazies crazies, children of the Lord. So, rise and shine, and give God the glory glory. Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory. Rise and shine and give God the glory glory, children of the Lord! (See Day 2 of lesson, Page 4 of blog post – for YouTube video)
- Katelyn absolutely loved this activity, and it got her completely soaked. It might have been a good time to put on her swimsuit! Since it’s summer, it worked well to go outside for the activity, but this could easily be done in a bathtub as well. We used her water table for easy access to scoop and fill up our bottles.
- I introduced one item at a time to make the rain. I started with the squeeze bottles because Katelyn is able to do it herself. I also showed her how to scoop and dump water into a strainer to make it rain on the ark. And she helped me hold a strainer cup to watch the rain fall. She wasn’t able to squeeze the trigger for the spray bottle yet, but she enjoyed “helping” me squeeze it to see a misting spray.
Activity #2:
- The whole world was covered with water! I put our plastic Noah’s ark inside a tub before we made the rain fall. Then we could see how much water had collected. We also used her water table to show how much water covered the earth, but you could fill up the bathtub also.
- Put a boat on the water to float. Use the ice cube tray as a “boat” to float on the water. Fill the sections with pom poms and bottle lids.
- Did you know pom poms can get wet, and they dry just fine?! I actually think they feel softer once they have dried. Katelyn loves playing with pom poms in the water. The bottle lids were just another fun item to collect and put in the spaces.
Finally…
Closing: Peek inside the ark to see Noah and the animals safe. Proverbs 29:25, “Whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.”
Child-led Exploration:
- You may notice that in every picture Katelyn is holding one of the squeeze bottles. She absolutely loved that part of the lesson and wanted to continue squeezing water all over the patio (and herself!) for quite a while after the lesson.
A Note about Lesson Flow:
- Being a teacher, I am very conscious about the flow of a lesson. Closing the lesson is often overlooked. When I was doing Katelyn’s creation lessons, I often would “close” with a prayer while she was playing just so that we could be “done” whenever she was done playing. But the prayer didn’t seem valuable to toss it in while she was busy.
- So with these lessons, I let her play for as long as she wants after the main part of the lesson. Then, when she is slowing down, I pull her onto my lap for the closing prayer. It’s much more meaningful and gives us a focused end to our Bible Time, separating it from the rest of the day.
- Lessons like today’s where we don’t just stay in one place in the play room can sometimes make the lesson feel disjointed. It took a while today to gather up everything I wanted to bring outside for the rain. But Katelyn didn’t care. She loves the one-on-one focused play. I just made sure to remind Katelyn about what we’re learning about Noah as we played, so that she would make the connections between our play and what God wanted to teach us through the lesson.