the ten plagues

We are nearing the end of our Sunday School year so I thought I would share what we've been up to recently as we make our way slowly through the Old Testament.

This morning we continued our lessons through the ten plagues by discussing flies, boils and dead livestock. I usually use the flannelgraph story board to tell the actual Bible lesson, but this morning I simply retold the interaction between Pharaoh and Moses with some props(like a flyswatter!). Then we worked on some crafty papers to help them see how terrible the plagues would have been for the Egyptians.
They used fabric paint as glue and dabbed some on their paper with a q-tip to stick a mini pom-pom on for a "fly". The boils were just dabs of red fabric paint that I did the night before and they got to stick mini band-aids on the blisters. And the coloring paper for the dead livestock showed cows laying upside down, so they got to add some farm animal stickers to put upside down too. Most of them wanted their nice sticker animals to be healthy and upright. :)

This is the first time we let them handle the glue themselves(last week, we applied the glue for them)and they far exceeded our expectations for staying on task and understanding the idea. The key seemed to be in removing the messy stuff as soon as they had finished their work which inhibited the temptation to make mischief and kept everyone mess-free. No small feat for two, three and four year olds! We are having a wonderful time together and I am so thankful for all the help from other moms who make it easier for me to teach the lessons, especially Vanessa who has stuck with me this whole year. Love you, Vanessa!