Noah’s Ark - Gen. 6:1-9:17

Teaching Videos

Idea 1

Find your animal partner game

Ask the kids to close their eyes and tape an animal card to their back. (make sure that each animals has a pair).
Once everyone has been given an animal explain the rules of the game. They can’t look at their own back but they can make animal noises to help others figure out what is on their back.
While they are doing this the objective of the game is to figure out what animal is taped to their back and find their partner.

Idea 2

Questions:

Idea 3

Act out the story.

Spend some time as a group getting ready to act out the story. Build an ark out of any materials you have - blocks, tarps, couches etc. You can also make or buy some animal masks.
Choose one kid to be Noah, and other kids to be part of his family and other kids who have masks on to be the animals.
Tell the story in your own words (or ask some of the older kids to tell the story in their own words) while the kids act it out.

Idea 4

Read Noah’s Ark by Jerry Pinkney (a beautifully illustrated standalone picture book)

Questions:

Idea 5

Repeat after me game - God keeps His promises.

Get the kids to chant “God keeps His promises” while doing different activities. They can jump up and down, make snow angels, run across the room, tap their head and so much more.

Idea 6

Read “The First Rainbow” on page 33 of the The Action Bible by Sergio Cariello

Questions:

Why did God ask Noah to build the ark?
What did Noah do to prepare for the flood?
How long did it rain, and what happened to the earth during that time?
What promise did God make after the flood, and what was the sign of that promise?

Idea 7

God keeps his promises.

Have a conversation with the kids about God keeping his promises. Tell them about a time the God kept his promise to you.
It means we can trust Him with everything. Anything He asks us to do, we can always say “yes” because God will always keep his promises.
For older kids ask them what is means when we say “God keeps His promises”
What kinds of promises did God make in todays story?
Have we ever met someone who didn’t keep their promises? How did it feel?
If God always keeps His promises, how does that make us feel?

Idea 8

Set up a relay race for the kids using blank puzzle pieces, gloves and crayons.

Divide the kids into teams, the teams should be lined up on one end of the room and the puzzle pieces should be on the other.
When you yell “go” one person from each team can put on the gloves and run from one side of the room to the other and pick up one piece of the puzzle.
When they get back to the group, they can take off the gloves and give them to the next person who will do the same thing, put on the gloves and go and get a piece of the puzzle.
Once all the puzzle pieces are collected, the kids need to put the blank puzzle together and draw something about today’s lesson. (you might want to clarify that the drawing needs to be legible and each puzzle piece need to have some sort of a picture in it, or you can say that the puzzles will be judged and given extra points)
The winning team is the one that finished first and has the best puzzle.

Idea 9

Give kids their own ark to put animal stickers on it. You can make your own or there are sets available on Amazon.

Here are some formal lessons I used with my group

Large Group

Kindergarten and Grade 1

Grades 2,3

Grades 4,5

Idea 10

Read through “A New Beginning” on page 38 of The Jesus Storybook Bible.

Ask the kids the following questions: Why did Noah build the ark? Why did God send the flood? Who went into the ark? How many chickens were in the ark (this is a bit of a trick question)? What animal did Noah let fly so that he knew is was safe to come out of the ark?