Preschool Instant Lesson: Picnic Time

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LESSON 19: Picnic Time!

Activity: Fishin’ for Food (This should be done for Snack Time)

Materials:

o Bathroom Cups, 2 per child

o Fish Crackers

o Peanut Butter

o Veggie Sticks (carrots, celery)

Give each child two dixie cups, one with fish crackers, and one with peanut butter in it. Place a bowl with carrot and celery sticks in it on the table. Dip the end of the veggie sticks into the peanut butter and then go fishing for crackers. The peanut butter makes the crackers stick to the veggie stick. Kids love to see how many fish they can catch at once! Tell them that the Bible story today is about a little boy who shared his lunch.

Lesson: A Little Boy Shares His Lunch

Materials:

o A Copy of the Bible Story about Jesus Feeding the 5000

As you tell the story, lead the children in doing motions to act it out.
Songs:
Sing some of the children’s favorite songs together. Include songs about Jesus, like Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children!

Freezedance:
Materials:

o Music (cassette or CD and player)

Play music and encourage the children to move about the room freely, doing all kinds of motions, then, when you stop the music, they should freeze in place!

Playdoh Fish
Materials:

o Playdoh, at least one container per child

Give the children each some playdoh and let them work to
create all kinds and colors of rainbow fish. Encourage them to
make fish and bread with the playdoh and practice telling and
retelling today’s story J

STORY:

Moms and dads, children, and grandpas and grandmas (raise each finger, as if you’re counting) loved (cross arms on chest) to listen to Jesus (point up). Jesus (point up) told wonderful stories about God’s love (cross arms on chest). People came from near (place fists together in front of you) and far (move fists away from each other and point away) to hear (cup hand to ear) Jesus (point up) speak.

One day over 5,000 people had gathered to hear Jesus (point up) on a hillside (use hands to make a hill). By the end of the day (tap wrist, like you’re concerned with the time), they were getting hungry! (rub tummy) But they didn’t have fast-food restaurants in Jesus’ time. They didn’t even have refrigerators or grocery stores.(shake head no) People grew their own fruits and vegetables and meat.

Jesus (point up) noticed that the people were hungry. (rub tummy) Jesus (point up) cared (cross arms at chest) about the people, so he told his disciples to give them something to eat. (pretend to be giving something) The disciples said, Jesus, we don’t have enough food. We’d have to work for a whole month to earn enough money to buy bread for all these people! (shrug shoulders)

The disciples did find one little boy (hold up one finger) who had some food-but it was only five small loaves of bread (hold up five fingers on one hand) and two little fish! (hold up two fingers on the other hand.) Jesus looked up to heaven and thanked God for the five loaves of bread and the two fish. (fold hands and bow head as in prayer)

Then the disciples started passing out the food. (pretend to be handing out food) First they passed out the bread. Then they passed out the fish. It took a long time to pass out food to all those people. They thought for sure they were going to run out, but they just kept passing and passing. There was plenty of food for everyone. The people ate, and ate, and ate, and ate-’til they were full! (pretend to be eating, and to get very full)

There was so much food, they even had leftovers! The disciples walked around with baskets and picked up all the leftover pieces of bread and fish. (pretend to do this) The disciples picked up 12 baskets full of leftover bread and fish! Jesus cares about us just as he cared about those 5,000 people. We can trust Jesus (point up) to make sure we have food to eat. We can thank Jesus for everything he gives us-even leftovers!

Let’s say thank you to Jesus together now. Jesus, thanks for taking care of us and giving us enough food to eat, so much that we even have leftovers. Help us to share what we have with others. Amen.

Activity: We Can Share, Too!
Materials:

o Two copies of the poem below per child (on index cards)

o Stickers

Give each child 2 of the cards with the poem on them. Read the
poem to them. Give them stickers to decorate their cards with. Encourage them to share the cards with 2 people this week. When they give the card to someone, they should tell them it’s a pass-it-on card. They cannot keep it for themselves, they must pass it on to someone else, instructing that person to also pass it on etc. Tell the children that when we give to others the good feeling just keeps coming back over and over.

POEM:
I give this little card to you
To brighten up your day
To do the same for someone else
Just send it on its way
Activity: How Many?

Materials:

o Plastic Eggs, numbered 1 – however many kids you have. For example, for 10 kids, have 10 eggs numbered 1-10.

o LOTS of jellybeansJ

Give each child a plastic egg with a number on it and have them put the right number of jelly beans or other candies in the egg. Place the eggs in the egg carton, in order, and then break each one apart to see if the right number of jelly beans or candies is in each one. Count them out loud together.

by Angela Simmons