Sunday School — Queen Esther

Lately our Sunday school lessons have been on what I'll call the typical children's Bible stories. It's been a challenge to come up with an interesting way to teach the lesson since I'm sure they've heard the story and know it.

Sometimes the activities in the lesson book aren't conducive to second graders (the lesson plans cover both first and second grade ages), or they require lots of prior planning and work, collecting unusual materials and such. That means that I need to come up with some type of game or activity to help reinforce the lesson.

Last week our lesson was about Queen Esther. Of course since the lesson was for younger children, she had already been chosen Queen when the lesson picked up. I started out by asking the kids some questions to see what they knew about the story of Esther. I figured I'd get something just because there is a VeggieTales movie based on the story.

I was surprised I didn't get much. They couldn't even tell me the names of most of the main characters. Of course once I said the names they all remembered them, which I expected, but they couldn't come up with them on their own. This encourages me in teaching the lessons now — I want to make sure they get the story, even the ones I think they already know. I also want them to see God's hand in the story.

In the story of Esther, her uncle Mordecai raised her. At one point after she was crowned Queen, Mordecai found out about a plot to kill the King, he told Esther, she went before the King and told him (giving Mordecai credit in the record books), and the two men were put to death. Mordecai was not recognized for this good deed at this time.

Toward the end of the story, after the King and the evil Haman had dinner with the Queen the first night (she invited them the next night too), the King couldn't sleep. He had the scrolls brought in to be read, and part of the chronicles read to the King that night was the record of Mordecai saving his life by exposing the two men who wanted to kill him. He realized Mordecai hadn't been honored, and the story goes on from there.

So our activity was to make scrolls to record our Bible verse for the week, Proverbs 3:5,6. Esther trusted God and didn't lean on her own understanding.

We started out with straws. I only have bendy straws, so we cut off the bendy part.

We cut a regular piece of copy paper in half lengthwise.

We taped each end to one of the straws.

We wrote our verse. Some wrote it vertically and some wrote it horizontally.

Roll up one end halfway.

Roll up the other end halfway.

Hold it and twirl the straws to tighten it a little.

Swipe some of Chatty's tiny little black hair rubber bands and don't tell any of the kids what they are and use them to hold your scroll closed.

Quick and easy!

Sunday School — Bartimaeus

I'm teaching 2nd grade Sunday school now.

Until promotion Sunday at the beginning of September the 1st and 2nd graders were combined. I started teaching in the month of August. The week before promotion Sunday I had 14 kids, and a set of twins wasn't there, so I'm happy they found a teacher so the class could be split.

I thought I'd occasionally share some of the lessons I'm doing with the kids. Maybe they'll be helpful for someone else or just for teaching a fun Bible lesson to your own kids.

A couple of weeks ago we studied Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52. Bar means 'son of' and he was the son of Timaeus. He was a blind man that was begging on the side of the road by Jericho.

When Bartimaeus heard Jesus was coming, he yelled for Him to hear since there was always a crowd around Jesus. People tried to shush him, but he just yelled louder. Jesus called Bartimaeus over and He healed him. That's the story in a nutshell.

We started out the class by sitting in the floor instead of in our chairs. We held out our hands like Bartimaeus would have done as if begging by the side of the road. We talked about how it would have been to have been blind and not able to work in those days to support yourself.

I took a little white drawstring bag of stuff to class. Here it is dumped out on my carpet.

I went around the circle and had the kids pick something and tell me what they thought it was before they took it out. Most of them couldn't. Even when they were able to pick something, like the card, I asked them what kind, so they could tell how important their sight would be for the details.

Then we yelled like Bartimaeus. We yelled, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Yes, we really yelled, and then we shushed, and then we yelled louder. Because I wanted them to get it and remember it.

We are very lucky we have a door to close.