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Reply to "BIBLE SKILLS & GAMES Workshop Lessons and Ideas for Baptism of Jesus / John the Baptist"

Jesus' Baptism and Temptation

Bible Skills & Games

Grades 1st, 6th, 5th, 4th

 

Summary of Lesson Activities:

This story covers both the promise of baptism and the fighting of temptation. The activity portion of this lesson will focus on making the right choices by playing the board game "The New Kid's Choices Game".

 

The memory verse reminds us that God sent us Jesus to be with us and help us through temptation and make the right choices. This is a great lesson to have a meaningful discussion on what is right and wrong



This Workshop's Focus:
This classroom will focus on developing Bible skills (Exploring God’s Word). Every rotation will include Hands-on Bible time, a memory verse/Bible story game and a short quiz at the end to receive a special item from the treasure chest. The goal is for the students to learn about God’s word and have a lot of fun doing that. We will be using the Good News Bible in the classroom (which is the same version of the Bible they receive in 3rd grade). Please use the Good News Bible to read the chosen Bible story from. Using the Bible and learning to listen to the Bible is key to this classroom. The classroom also has a copy of the Children’s Bible for a different way to enhance the story time. The Children’s Bible provides the text in more of a condensed, story-telling method.

Over the course of the Church School year, we want the students to learn about the importance of the Bible (it is God’s words and teachings to us), how the Bible can help us be better Christians (by following his directions), and about the different books in the Bible. For an outline of the Bible learning objectives by grade, please refer to last page of this lesson plan. By understanding these objectives, it will allow you to tailor your lessons for the individual grades. Please share your own experience and habits about using the Bible with the class. Thank you for being part of sharing and teaching the Bible to the students.



Scripture Reference:

Matthew 3:13-4:11


Memory Verse:

Matthew 3:17 (Good News Bible)
Then a voice said from heaven, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased.”

Lesson Objectives: (What you want the kids to learn)

  • For the students to understand that baptism is the sign and seal of God’s grace and covenant in Christ.
  • For the students to know that God calls them to turn away from dishonest, disobedient and sinful lives.
  • For the students to be able to retell the major points of the story.
  • For the students to learn the memory verse.
  • For the students to learn where Matthew is in the Bible.


Lesson Activities: (Brief description of what will be done)

  • Temptation in the room
  • Memory verse in sign language
  • Hands-on Bible time
  • Making choices game
  • Journaling
  • Class quiz

 

Supplies provided and located in room: (What teacher needs for lesson)

  • Good News Bible for students
  • Treasure chest (actually just a basket)

Leader Preparation:

  • Bring out a Good News Bible for every student for the Hands-on Bible time (from the Church School cabinet in the room).
  • Bring out the Treasure Chest (basket from the Church School cabinet in the room), so the students can choose an item after the short class quiz, right before the end of the class.
  • Set up “temptations” in the room. Bring in cookies for the class.
  •  Review the memory verse game and learn it in sign language.
  • Purchase The Kid’s Choices game. Review the instructions and become familiar with the game. Determine if certain dilemma cards are more appropriate for different age groups. Choose what type of game board you will use (either make an overhead or squares out of construction paper for the floor).


Presentation


Opening- Welcome and Lesson Introduction:


Welcome: Welcome the children and introduce yourself. Call the children by name. Have them wear their nametags. Nametags are located in the tote box and the shepherds are responsible for giving them out.

Set up temptation in the room…

  • table set with cookies and a sign, “Please do not eat”
  • cover something with a sheet and have a sign, “Please do not peek”
  • on the white board write, “Please do not erase or write on this board”
  • or come up with a few of your own

 

Introduction: (What teacher says to class to frame the lesson)
(Pass out the cookies to eat while you sit and talk.) What is temptation – testing, trying, enticing to evil. How did they handle the temptations in the room? How can we rely on God to help us through life’s temptations (the memory verse)? What promise is made when you are baptized? These are the different items to discuss and look at today when reviewing the Bible story.

Memory Verse: Matthew 3:17 (Good News Bible)
Then a voice said from heaven, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased.

Spend a few minutes and teach the class the memory verse in sign language. The sign language instructions are included in this folder. If you would like someone to review the signs with you before class, please contact Linda Klug.

Worship Time (we do a short worship in this workshop)

Light a candle: We will now enter into our Worship Time. This candle that I light represents the light of Christ who is always in our midst. This is a quiet time for us to focus on the Word of God.

Opening Prayer:
Heavenly Father, at Jesus’ baptism we heard you tell the world that he is your beloved child. Lord God, help us to live as your children, too. Amen.”

Collect Offering: Now we will pass the basket to collect the offering. Don’t worry if you don’t have anything for the basket today. Whatever is given helps the church in many ways, including helping to buy things to make BLAST happen as well as helping others in our community and around the world.

Hands-on Bible time in Worship
Make sure every student has a Good News Bible to use for this exercise. Before you open up the Bible, explain about the difference between the Old and New Testament sections. Show how the Bible starts back at page number 1 for the New Testament section. Review the Books of the New Testament, by either the Table of Contents, Books of the Bible poster or The Books of the Bible song on the We Sing CD.

The book of Matthew is one of the four books of Gospel. The word Gospel means “good news”. The Gospels tell the good news about Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection that provides eternal life to everyone who will believe. Some of the stories are the same in these four books of Gospel.

After you read the story, talk about Jesus’ baptism and how God offers us a picture of His love for all his children. Baptism is a time for declaring and renewing our faith in God and our commitment as the church of God to care for all people. The symbol of the water is the sacramental sign of God’s grace making all things new.

 

Dig-Main Content and Reflection:

Bible Story Time:
With their Bibles open to Matthew, start the story:

Matthew chapter 3:13-4:11 (Good News Bible)
Children’s Bible 250 & 252 (reference)

For the younger grades, read them the story. The older students can read the story to themselves.

Closing Prayer: Dear Lord, as we enter into our activity time, please keep our hearts and minds open to hear you speaking to us. Amen.

Extinguish the candle

The Making Choices game:


Pick up the Kid’s Choices game from the Church School office. To expand the game so that all students can play, break the class into teams (between 3 to 6 teams). Each student on the team will take a turn being the captain and answering the question for the team. You can expand the board by either putting it on an overhead or making it out of construction paper on the floor of the room. (Putting the board on the floor would be a lot of fun for the younger grades). One player at a time will pick a dilemma card and answer it with one of the twenty principles. Then all players can discuss what principle fits the best and then call for a vote. (There is no right or wrong answer).

Complete instructions and all the cards are in the game box.


Description: OK, you find your sister's diary unlocked. Are you going to read it? This situation and other updated dilemmas and questions will help your 6- to 12-year-olds deal with challenging real-life issues and apply biblical principles to everyday situations. Designed for 3 to 10 players.


Journaling
Ask the students to journal about something they found meaningful, surprising or interesting in today’s class or pose a reflective question as a journaling topic. (Journals are kept in the shepherd’s box.)

Reflective Questions:

  • Where were you baptized?
  • What does baptism mean to you?
  • How do you handle temptation?


Class quiz:
To review with the class some of the major points they learned, have the class answer the questions listed below. This will be the last activity before the students leave the classroom. After they have answered the questions, have each student pick an item from the treasure chest.

  • Who can recite the memory verse?
  • Where is the memory verse found in the Bible?
  • Tell me about the story.
  • Where is story found in the Bible?
  • What type of book is the story found in? (Gospel)

Additional Activities:

  • reading books (in the Church School cabinet)
  • games/puzzles (in the Church School cabinet)
  • activity sheets (in the shepherd’s box)
  • plan a game of hang man with words from lesson

Closing:

In closing, express how you enjoyed being with their class today and you hope they can come back to BLAST next week.

 

Resources:

  • The New Kid's Choices Game, Cook Communications, ISBN: 9789834500894.

A lesson posted by Sunnyvale Presbyterian - Sunnyvale, CA, 

 

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.

 

Last edited by Rotation.org Moderator
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