Storytelling, Movement and Music Workshop Lessons and Ideas for Teaching Jonah's Story in Sunday School

Bible Sunday School lessons and ideas about Jonah -with Storytelling, Movement, and Music, teaching with songs, Bible songs, Bible instruments, etc.

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Visit the Music & Movement Workshop Forum for many ideas and links about teaching with music and movement.

Visit the Storytelling Workshop Forum for a manual about Biblical Storytelling by Amy Crane, as well as other posts containing many ideas and links about storytelling techniques, resources, using flannel-graph boards, etc.

Retelling the story by creating verses to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell"

Jaymie Derden - posted this idea over in the general music forum and we've copied below:

I'm not very musical, but I've had fun with piggyback songs, especially with younger children. (Older elementary kids think I'm just really weird!!!) I can remember basically retelling the Jonah story while singing a piggyback song to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell." After singing a few verses (Jonah was a man... One day God spoke to him, Go to Ninevah, I don't wannna go, So JOnah ran away, etc.) I involved the kids in helping to create the verses... "And then the storm blew in... ask the kids what that must have felt like (cold wind blew, ocean waves got rough, waves crashed in the boat, etc.) As they come up with ideas turn them into verses and sing them together. It was really fun when we got to being inside the giant fish -- what was it like in there? Cold, dark, scary, SMELLY!

Great FUN! My two kids still roll their eyes when they remember their crazy mom singing the Jonah song.

A Jonah Song

Sung to “the other day, I met a bear” (a familiar camp song)
Written by Melodie Telfer, Mosaic Church, Mississauga Ontario

Here is a fun song for a Jonah lesson. Just like the camp song, the kids repeat each line after the leader and then everyone sings the stanza together while clapping their hands.

There was a man
Named Jonah
God said to him
Go to that town

Jonah was sacred
He listened not
He ran away
Onto a boat

God knew he ran
God had a plan
To teach this dude
That he was rude

The waves grew high
Up to the sky
The tiny ship
Began to flip

The sailors hummed
The sailors hawed
They wondered what
Had caused this storm?

Jonah knew why
The seas were high
He told the men
To toss him in

A great big whale
Was swimming near
It swallowed Jonah
with one big gulp.

There Jonah stayed
For three long nights
Inside its belly
With no daylight

The third day
Jonah said please
God I ‘m so sorry
For running away

God heard his cry
The whale complied
Out Jonah went
On land warm and dry.

His lesson learned
Jonah returned
And Jonah, boy
He understood
When God says “go”
So, go you should.

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Here are an assortment of MP3's versions of the original camp song https://mp3paw.com/mp3-downloa...her-Day-I-Met-A-Bear