The Story of Ruth

This quarter (starting last week) I am teaching the 3 year olds class at our church on Wednesday nights with my husband and one of my best friends! For those of you that did the math...this is Grayson's class, and man did we feel it last night. Last week, he did great! He listened and followed directions like the amazing 3 year old he is. This week, not so much!  Let me ask...have you ever given a consequence that involved taking away a privilege that didn't exist in the first place...well, that's what we did! Little man lost the privilege of getting a non-existent shake with his name on it from Sonic after church last night.  I'll let you know if it makes a difference next week.

Anyways...we are going to backtrack to last week (I'll try to post this week's lesson during the weekend). We taught the story of Ruth. I checked out a lot of fun ideas on Pinterest and here is what I came up with...

{ARRIVAL} 

For the first 10-15 minutes of class the children come in and play with toys that are laid out on the table. It is a great time to reinforence how God wants us to treat our friends. It also gives me time to talk to the little ones about their day, welcome visitors and finish up prepping any materials.

{INTRODUCTION} 

We then met on the carpet to discuss why we come to Bible class and sing and talk about our bibles.  We open our class with a prayer...I modeled a prayer this week and we will do a Circle Prayer together for all the following weeks.  I, then, read the story of Ruth in The Beginner's Bible.  We discussed and asked questions during and after reading the story.

{CRAFT} 

The children then went to a table to color the printable while I walked around singing "The Story of Ruth" that was on the page...they were singing along in no time.  As they finished coloring, we talked about the grain that Ruth gleaned and the children were able to to glue on some "grain" or oatmeal to their page.

{GAME} 

We played the game of Harvesters and Gleaners!  I placed the large and small pieces of grain on the ground.  The children were divided into harvesters and gleaners.  They were able to harvest or glean while I was singing "The Story of Ruth" song and they had to freeze when I stopped.  We played this for a little while and they had a great time.

{CLOSING} 

I threw out a quick statement to review how Ruth worked hard to please God and he gave her many blessings.  Then, for the last 5 minutes some of the children continued to play the game while others participated in free play...an hour is a long time for 3 year olds, so they earned it!

You can download the printable and grain visuals by clicking below!