Celebrating Epiphany

I love using Grapevine Studies in our home as part of our homeschool curriculum and personal Bible study.

I was recently asked to lead the children’s program during our new Wednesday family nights at church. I immediately thought that I could incorporate stick figuring through the Bible! I contacted Dianna and received her blessing. I do love her!

 For our first lesson, I chose to teach on the Three Kings, or Magi. Epiphany had just been last Sunday and I thought this would be a fun topic. The adults “de-greened” the church (took down all the holiday decorations) while I kept the kids occupied.

I began with a story about the “other” wise man that follows a lost fourth Magi through the crucifixion of Christ. It is so beautifully written and illustrated and I got all choked up in front of the kids!

I showed the kids pictures of the gifts the Magi brought baby Jesus. I brought some frankincense essential oil to let the kids apply to their wrists. They thought that was the coolest thing ever.

I divided the white board in the classroom into 4 quadrants and taught the lesson from the Bible and Grapevine Studies text. The kids weren’t sure about it all at first.

I had the kids at two tables. I taught students ranging from age 3 to 10. The three older girls were “helpers.”

One table ended up being almost all girls. I had one helper at this table. Katie and Tori knew what to do!

The three older girls were primarily in my classroom as “helpers.” They sheepishly asked me for pages to do while I taught the lesson. I think that is the perfect testimony to how great Grapevine Studies are! The big kids wanted in on the fun too!

The other table got the boys and two helpers.

Those boys really enjoyed drawing their stick figures. I know this was a new concept for them. That’s my Bubba there with his new Traceable page too!

Katie modeled what to do with her Traceable page. She loves this new concept! It helps her focus.

I gave the boys different pages according to their ages and abilities. One Traceable and one regular page.

For this lesson, the Traceable page only has two scenes whereas the older kids had four scenes on their pages.

I handed out some take home Bible verse pages about the Wise Men. After the lesson, we did this really fun 3 Kings paper chain craft. I prepped it all by tracing them out and all the cutting. The kids just colored them. It saved time and was still fun. Most didn’t even finish and had to take them home to complete them.

I’m pretty excited about using Grapevine Studies to teach the Bible to these kids every Wednesday night! I can’t wait to gather materials for my weekly themes.