Toddler Bible Lessons – Week 5: Moses

Posted by Sarah on July 29, 2020

Day 4: The Plagues

*There are 4 activities for this day’s lesson. Feel free to choose one or two of the activities OR spread them out over several days! :)

Materials:
Bible (I like the NirV)
Activity #1: Any toys of each plague: river, frogs, gnats, flies, cows, sores, hail, locusts, darkness, baby boy (I used white ping pong balls for hailstones)
Activity #2: Plagues Matching Game (basically, 2 copies of a picture of each plague – I have a PDF of the pictures I used, so contact me if you’d like me to send you mine mrs.turnerviolin@gmail.com)
Activity #3: One rock, Play dough OR Baking soda and cornstarch to make play clay *Make play clay ahead of time on stove and let it cool, Heart-shaped cookie cutters (we used 3 different sizes)
Activity #4: Large plastic tub, plastic toys, fingerpaint, paint brush

Day 4: Lesson and Activities: Open Bible to Exodus 7-11. Ask if child wants to touch God’s Word. Touch gently. Then, “read” the story. The ruler Pharaoh was mean and did not want to let God’s people leave. So God sent lots of bad things called plagues to make Pharaoh listen to Moses. God was going to save His people!

Activity #1: The Plagues Fingerplay

What toddler doesn’t like to say NO? ;) As we did each verse of the fingerplay, when Pharaoh said NO, I emphasized it and pushed my hand forward. Katelyn started doing it, too, and it was pretty cute!
If you have toys to match each plague, you can use them in conjunction with the fingerplay. I only used ping pong ball hailstones – Katelyn LOVED them, but they were also a distraction for the rest of the fingerplay. So I might suggest to do the entire fingerplay once all the way through, and then do it a second time adding the objects.

(wiggle fingers like river, stick out tongue) The water turned to blood – yuck! The water turned to blood. The water turned to blood – yuck! But Pharaoh said NO
Ribbit, ribbit went the frogs (hop like frog) Hopping everywhere! Ribbit, ribbit went the frogs – But Pharaoh said NO
Zzzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzzzzzz went the gnats (fly fingers) Zzzzzzzzzz everywhere! Zzzzzzzzzz, Zzzzzzzzzz went the gnats – But Pharaoh said NO
Bzzzzz, Bzzzzz, went the flies (fly and flick fingers) Bzzzzz everywhere! Bzzzzz, Bzzzzz, went the flies – But Pharaoh said NO
Meeeeeeh, Meeeeeeh, went the cows (fall over) The sick cows die Meeeeeeh, Meeeeeeh, went the cows – But Pharaoh said NO
Ouch! Ouch! Sores on skin (touch arms and legs) Itchy, itchy, ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Sores on skin – But Pharaoh said NO
Pound, Pound, went the hail (throw hands toward ground) Crushing all the plants. Pound, Pound, went the hail – But Pharaoh said NO
Chomp, Chomp, went the locusts (chomp with mouth) Eating all the plants. Chomp, Chomp, went the locusts – But Pharaoh said NO
Darkness, darkness everywhere (cover eyes) The sun has gone away. Darkness, darkness everywhere – But Pharaoh said NO
Wah, wah baby boys (crying motion with hands on eyes) Pharaoh lost his son. Wah, wah baby boys – Finally, Pharaoh said YES!!! GO!!!

Activity #2: Play a matching game.

Prep: I taped one copy of each picture to a large piece of cardboard. I just put one piece of tape across the top and one across the bottom – I wanted them to be difficult, but not impossible, to remove from the cardboard since I might use the cardboard for something else in the future.
I then “hid” the matching pictures around the room (rolled up a piece of masking tape on the back and stuck them to things). I made the mistake of “hiding” the objects before Bible Time. The whole first portion of Bible Time, she kept excitedly finding the papers and taking them down before I was ready.
So… if you hide them ahead of time, maybe plan on doing a hunt for the papers BEFORE anything else – kind of like the attention catcher at the beginning. Or else wait to hide them until just before you want to play the matching game. With a young toddler, you can quickly “hide” things in plain sight while they watch, and they still get super excited to “find” them.
Once we were doing the activity, I helped Katelyn find the “hidden” plagues and guided her to match them up to the same one on the cardboard.

Activity #3:

Prep: Make/get playdough or play clay
This activity came to me after we had done the first two, so I added it in (on another day). We had talked a little bit about how Pharaoh had a hard heart saying NO, so I thought an activity about hard and soft hearts would tie in well.

I made the play clay on the stove while cooking dinner, let it cool, and stored it in a plastic bag until the next morning

Try to squeeze a rock. It’s so hard! We can’t squeeze it!
Sing (Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb) Pharaoh had a hard heart, a hard heart, a hard heart. Pharaoh had a hard heart, so he would not obey.

Open Bible to Ezekiel 36:26 and read the verse. Our sinful hearts are like Pharaoh’s. They are hard like a stone. But if we trust in Jesus, God will give us soft hearts to obey Him.

Get out play dough or play clay and press heart cookie cutters into it. The clay is so soft! We can mold it and shape it!
Sing (Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb) God can give a soft heart, a soft heart, a soft heart. God can give a soft heart, so we will obey.

Activity #4: This was not part of our Bible Time, but I wanted to add it as an idea because you could tie it into the lesson by using red paint so that the water turns to “blood.”

Gather some bath toys or large legos and put them in a large tub.
Let your child paint on the toys for as long as they desire.
Then, fill the tub with water and play in the colored water.
When you’re all done, rub each toy and set it out to dry. Dump and rinse the tub. It’s a nice activity because the clean-up is part of the play!