Rotation.org Writing Team

Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin

Puppet Workshop: We're All A Bit Sheepish Sometimes

Summary of Activities

Students will explore the Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin using sock puppets. Each student will make a quick and easy sheep sock puppet which they will take home to share what they learned with their families. The puppets will help participants reflect on the meaning of being "lost and found" and the importance of welcoming other lost sheep back into the flock. The lesson concludes with a look at the Lost Coin parable and Rejoicing!

This puppet workshop doesn't include a scripted "performance." Rather, students act out and express various ideas and scenes from the parables with silliness and grace.

Scripture for the Lesson

Lost Sheep: Luke 15: 1-7
Astray Sheep: Matthew 18: 10-14

Lost Coin: Luke 15: 8-10

Key Verse: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices." Luke 15:4-5 (NRSV)

Lesson Objectives

See the Bible Background at Rotation.org for insights on this story and this set's complete list of objectives.

Preparation and Materials

• Read the Bible Background and scripture.
• Collect these puppet supplies:
  • White socks (or whatever color you want the sheep to be). We used adult women's size from the dollar store.
  • Black permanent markers to make the eyes and nose.
  • White, black, or off-white wool roving, which can be found in the yarn department of craft stores as well as online. You don't need much—a gram per puppet is enough. (You can substitute polyester fiberfill stuffing or cotton balls, but they will not be as sturdy.)
  • Various colors of yarn to fasten the roving to the sock puppet's head.
  • A crochet hook or a darning needle to pull the yarn through the sock to fasten the wool roving (sheep's tuft of hair).
• Whiteboard or flipchart and markers.
• Make a "God-Shepherd" puppet. You may already have an appropriate puppet in your Sunday School supplies; otherwise, simply stitch some yellow yarn as a halo on a white sock and draw on eyes.
• Make a sample sheep puppet so you can help students make their own. See the instructions and photos in the lesson below and also in Wiki-How: “Making a simple sock puppet.” (Consider having a few extra puppets made and ready if you have consistently late arrivers who might miss the puppet-making part of the lesson.)
• Optional: Recording of contemporary Christian music and a way to play it for the Sheep Dance Party.

Lesson Plan

Opening: Making and getting to know our sheep

Welcome your students and explain what they'll be doing and learning today.

Say: Today after each of you makes your own sheep sock puppet, we will hear the Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin from the Gospel of Luke, and then we will use our sock puppets to explore what it means to be lost and found. You will be able to take your puppet home with you so you can share with your families and friends these two stories that Jesus told.

Make the puppets

1. Name the sheep: Give each student a sock and have them write their names on the cuff of the sock before inserting their hands.
   
   
2. Demonstrate how to insert a hand into the sock to make a puppet. The hand should be in a “C” shape and the fingers go into the toe of the sock and the thumb goes into the heel. Bunch up excess material into the opening between your thumb and fingers. Smooth the cuff of the sock down the arm.
   Helpful hint: Have the children put the sock on their non-dominant hand so they can use their dominant hand to mark the sock in the next step.
   
   
3. Mark where the facial features will be: Demonstrate where the eyes and nose should be and put small dots in those spots with the permanent marker. Make an additional dot on top of the head of the puppet (above your knuckles) where the “fur tuft” will be tied on using yarn. Have students do the same.
   
   
   
4. Give the sheep a face: Remove the sock and spread it flat on a table. Using a permanent marker, have the students draw eyes and a nose where they put their dots. A capital "Y" is a good shape for a sheep nose.
   
   
5. For the sheep's tuft of hair, push a crochet hook or darning needle in and out at the spot you marked on the puppet's head, and pull a piece of yarn through. Use the yarn to tie a small bunch of the wool roving onto the top of the sheep’s head.

While you work, ask what the students know about sheep: how they behave, what their needs are. Discuss how sheep need a shepherd to take care of them and keep them safe.

Introduce the Sheep and Practice with Your Puppets

When the puppets are completed, sit in a circle around a table so everyone can see the other puppets and learn from others as they puppeteer. (The table serves as a stage/movement platform of sorts.) Welcome the sheep by name, then go through a couple of practice exercises, including:

• Show how your sheep walks.
• Have your sheep say something and laugh.
• Show us happy, confident, angry.
• What does your sheep look like when it's falling asleep?
• How can you make your sheep look scared? Worried?
• Hide.
• Look sad and "sheepish" (embarrassed).
• Jump for joy!

You may wish to have one student go first and then have others copy and expand on how the first student showed walking, happy, etc. The adults should also have puppets and do the puppet exercises.

Say: All of these sheep need a shepherd!

Introduce the "God-Shepherd" puppet and pass it to different students and have them try their hand at

• Trying to keep the sheep from scattering
• Searching
• Love
• Joy

Dig into the scripture

Say: When we read stories in the Bible we need to be asking ourselves, "What is this story trying to teach us about ourselves and about God?"  Jesus told short stories called "parables" to help us answer those questions. In today's lesson, he tells a story about sheep and another story about coins.

Have the sheep puppets try to open their Bibles to Luke 15:1-7, the Parable of the Lost Sheep. (Sheep almost always need help, so encourage the students to use their other hand if they need to.)

Have all of your sheep read the parable out loud together, moving the mouths of their sheep as they do. Then ask the following questions:

Ask: Why do you think the sheep became lost?

• Was it an accident?  Or did it wander away on purpose?
• Is it possible that someone may have led the sheep away from its home, "led him astray"? (What does that mean? What are some examples of that?)
• Did the sheep do something really bad and was too embarrassed to stay with the shepherd, er...God, and decided to run away to hide from God?  (Have you ever done something bad and tried to hide it or hide yourself?)
• Did the sheep think it didn't need to stay close to God? What makes a person think they don't NEED God to watch over them?

(The scripture doesn't say why the sheep became lost, but these questions and answers will help define how a person can become "lost." No matter what the reason, the important surprise in the story is that the shepherd came looking!)

Ask: What is God's response to the sheep becoming lost?

• Does the shepherd, er...God, get angry and forget about the lost sheep?
• Does God give up after looking for a while?
• Does God find the lost sheep and scold it?
• What does God say to the other "found" sheep when he brings the lost sheep back to the flock?  (What does God's response tell you about God's love for us?)

More Puppet Practice!

Invite students to show you what "lost" looks like with their puppet. Ask them to show you "embarrassed by your sins, the things you have done that are bad."

Now have everyone try to "hide from God" while one student uses the God-Shepherd puppet and looks for the sheep. Have him or her find and collect the sheep back into the fold.

Now have the sheep and God-Shepherd show you "rejoice."

Ask: Why would anyone ever want to "hide" from God. Is that even possible?

How to tell if you are a lost sheep!

Say: Being lost doesn't always mean that you don't know the way home or that you got separated from your family in Disneyworld. There is another kind of lost that we are talking about, too.

Write the following list on the board and invite students to act items out as you say them:

"You may be a lost sheep when you feel:"

• lonely
• friendless
• like nobody cares about you
• like giving up on life
• ashamed of something bad you have done
• not good enough to be accepted by God and others
• like you aren't welcomed in church by the other sheep

Say: It's normal for sheep to feel these things at some time in their lives. You are not perfect, and the sheep/people around you are not perfect. We all make mistakes, get lost or embarrassed because of our sins, and we stray from God.

Ask: What does the Parable of the Lost Sheep tell you to look for when you feel this way?

Using the God-Shepherd puppet, talk about ways that God comes "looking for us."  God's Holy Spirit can come to us in our distress, when we cry out, and help us to feel God's presence, love, and acceptance. God's PEOPLE can and should do those things, too!  (We are the Body of Christ, after all.)  It is our job as God's sheep to watch over the other sheep, too—to see when our friends or a family member or someone in our class is hurting, feeling lonely, or sinning, and let them know we love them no matter what.

Do: Have the sheep puppets turn to their neighbors and practice greeting one another: "Welcome to the flock, friend! I am glad you are here today."

Rejoice! A lost coin is found

Say: Remember that I said we would be looking at two parables. There is a "lost" parable in Luke 15 where a coin gets lost instead of a sheep, and the searcher is a woman instead of a shepherd.

Do: Before reading verses 8-10, have everyone turn their sheep sock into a ball and lay them on the floor in front of them.

Say: Listen carefully as I read the passage. When you hear the word "rejoice," you are to toss your sock ball high into the air and catch it.

Read Luke 15:8-10. If any of the "rejoicing" sock balls are not caught but hit the floor, tell the students you have to read the parable again. (If by odd chance they all catch their sock balls on the first try, read it again and tell them to "rejoice higher!")

Say: It’s fun to Rejoice! Finding the lost makes God very happy. It's what God does. He doesn't get angry about the lost coins, just like he did not scold the lost sheep. He throws a party. Think about the best party you have ever been to. God’s party will be even better!  Let’s pray, and thank God for finding us when we are lost, for rejoicing when we are found, and for loving us no matter what.

Close by unrolling the sock puppet balls and have a Sheep Dance Party.

Send the students home with their sheep puppets. Remind them to share with their families the stories Jesus told of being lost and found and rejoicing.

Adaptations

For Younger Students:

Have the students put the socks on their dominant hands and the teacher and helper(s) mark the dots for the eyes, nose, and fur tufts rather than the students doing it. Help the students tie the fur tufts (or do it for them). You may need an extra helper to do this if the class is large.

For non-readers, the teacher will need to read the Bible passage. Have the sheep repeat key words and phrases.

For Older Students:

Offer older students more permanent marker colors to create more elaborate sheep faces on their puppets.

Ask the students to suggest items for the "You may be a lost sheep when you feel" list. Talk about "lost" suggestions which use "lost" as a verb: "I lost my faith in God," "I lost my sense of right and wrong," "I lost my feeling of self-worth."

Remember that even older children will often feel safer sharing deep feelings as a puppet or character rather than as themselves; puppets offer a safe way to talk about difficult subjects, such as wondering if God can really love them.

For Those With More Class Time:

Make more sophisticated sock puppets (either glue on felt features or sew on buttons for eyes and nose).

Interview the sheep puppets. For example, “Tell me about the time you got lost. How did you feel? How did you feel when the shepherd found you? What did you enjoy most about the party the shepherd had? How can you help your friends not get lost like you did?"

Have the sheep practice retelling the parable so the students can share the story at home.

For Early Arrivals:

Students who get to class early can get a head start on making their puppets, and then they can help others as they arrive.

For At-Home Use:

Sock puppets are a wonderful at-home family activity. Families can either use mismatched socks and found objects to make their puppets or buy (or be given) new socks and “fur tuft” supplies.

For a Shorter/Simpler Lesson Plan:

If time is short, have volunteers make all of the puppets in advance.

If the budget is tight, make one set of puppets for all of the classes to use rather than sending sock puppets home each week.

Notes and Sources

Sock puppet making help:

• This is the method we used: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Sock-Puppet
• Here is another no-sew way to make sock puppets; but this method uses glue, which will need to dry before the puppets can be used: https://masandpas.com/sock-puppets/

Written by Amy Crane, Catherine Curtis, Neil MacQueen, Carol Hulbert, and the Rotation.org Writing Team
Copyright Rotation.org Inc.