Joshua and the walls of Jericho with 3-5s

We had a great time yesterday in Sparks!  The children are really enjoying the time to play and respond around the theme of the story and we, as leaders, are able to get to know them a lot better by having time that is less directed.

Here's what we did to tell the story of the walls of Jericho...

First we all decorated some sheets of paper and rolled them into cones.  These were our trumpets for later!

Then we built some walls with mega blocks and acted out the story with little playmobil people.  The children enjoyed moving their little person round and round the walls and then knocking them over!

After that, to reinforce the story, we all marched 7 times round the carpet area, blew our paper trumpets and pretended to be the walls falling down.

We played a game of 'do what I say', with all the children having to do the spoken action such as jumping or clapping.  They then took turns to choose the action.  This helped us to talk about Joshua doing what God told him to do.

When the story was over, children were free to play with the mega blocks and the musical instruments and we could spend time talking to them about how God could do such amazing things!

We spent ages building towers and seeing how long it would be before they fell over.  We also talked about how God can do amazing things in our lives and when we find things hard, he can help us.