Parable of the Rich Farmer

We used Mick Inkpen's Parable of the Rich Farmer/ fool for the story, obviously we usually use props but this is such a lovely version and actually worked well on a large projector screen Via powerpoint. Although I did feel much like a teacher and even commented on this and said come on gather in so I don't feel so teachery to which a group of the older children and adults parroted "Good morning Miss.. good morning everyone" Oh how I laughed.

Building Barns

There were several response activities to explore the idea of building barns for the crops.

The AMAZING box barn!

The brilliant marshmallow and spaghetti barn for the greedy kids to store marshmallow's. No joke we did have to discuss sharing, when one group stored up too many marshmallows. One could question they didn't listen to the story, on other hand it was a real life teaching opportunity which was brilliant.

A favourite game in junior church "make and break challenge" where you race to copy the card building with blocks using tongs.

Jenga building

Duplo building, particularly suitable for little ones.

Building farm building with the Haba farm, and ikea farm across the field.

Planting

Digging around in paper shredding to find pesky bugs (came in one of the boxes for the box barn building seemed a shame to waste)

Digging in the desert

Pretend planting (vegetable label cards, pots, shovels etc.)

Painted tree from fits of the spirit with some invaders. 

 

Story tent

Creative Opportunities

Clay bugs and plants.

Boxes for decorating and storing more important things than riches (we had hearts to represent love and stimulate discussion)

Hama hearts (unused, I loved these as a child maybe not displayed nice enough or too much else)

Icing bugs

Fruit/ veg printing

There were some profound elements to todays session responses including the mention that maybe this barn was built so pointy to point to God. Concluded by this picture below, some decided that the "death" picture actually had a cross to remind us of Jesus and point to God. WOW! Can't argue with that, adults have a lot to learn from kids and Jesus told us that why don't we listen.