The Boy’s Lunch: Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
STEM Rotation
SUPPLIES
LESSON
STARTER DISCUSSION: Ask the kids what’s the highest number they can count to? Then ask, what’s the biggest number they know?
Read the BIBLE STORY: John 6:1-14 (NIRV)
COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:
- When Jesus saw the large crowd of people coming towards him, what did he want to buy to give to the people? bread
- Did the disciples think it was possible to buy enough bread for all the people? no
- Who offered to share the food they had with everyone? a boy
- What did the boy have with him? 5 barley loaves and 2 fishes
- What did Jesus do before he shared the boy’s food with everyone? gave thanks
- How many people were in the large crowd? 5,000 men, plus women and children
- How many baskets of food were left over? 12
STEM ACTIVITY: EXPLORING THE NUMBER 5,000
5,000 is a hard number for children to fully comprehend. This activity will help them to visualize how large 5,000 really is, and thus how many people (men) Jesus feed with 5 loaves and 2 fish.
- Tell the kids there are about 5,000 grains of rice in the baggie. Explain that each grain of rice represents one person (man) that Jesus fed with the boy’s lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fish. So all the grains would be the entire group (or at least all of the men present that day).
- Give each child and yourself a grain of rice from the baggie. SAY: “This grain of rice represents you - one person. How many people are we out of the 5,000? Can you imagine if we all shared this bread and fish with just us - do you think that would be a good meal?”
- Divide the food up among yourself and the children as equally as you can.
- Ask the children to take a grain of rice for each member of their family (household). SAY: “Would you want to share the bread and fish I gave you as a meal for your entire family? What if all our families were together to share the meal?” Have each child divide their food up among how many family (household) members they have.
- Look back at the baggie of rice… point out how many “people” are left in the baggie. SAY: “Can you imagine what it would be like to share bread and fish with all those people? If we had to share the bread and fish with all those people, how much food do you think each of us would get?” Let the children figure out how much food they would get for themselves if the bread and fish were divided among 5,000 people. Once they have their serving, ask them if they would still be hungry if that’s all they got to eat for dinner.
- Remind them that the Bible story says that each person, all 5,000 of them, had enough to eat - meaning they weren’t hungry when they were finished eating - and the disciples collected 12 baskets of leftover food.
- SAY: Let’s see if we can count out 5,000 grains of rice. Have each child count out 10 grains of rice. When they have 10, they can place the little pile of rice inside one of the circles. Have each child keep counting out groups of 10 until they either lose interest or the circles are all filled.
(For this last activity, only go as long as the children stay interested. For example, if they get tired of counting after 1 row of circles, explain they would have to do that 49 more times to get to 5,000. Don’t make them hate the number 5,000 because their teacher made them count out 5,000 grains of rice. 🙂 )
Closing Prayer: God of Miracles, thank you for this story of Jesus, and for the gift of sharing. Help us to be like the little boy in the story who wanted to share what he had with Jesus so that Jesus could share it with everyone. Help us to believe that you will provide us with enough. We love you. AMEN
Inspiration: http://faithsprouts.blogspot.c...5000-people.html?m=1
