‘Noah Built an Ark’ is the third story in our ‘What’s in God’s Big Book?’ series that we have used with under 5’s. We began by making a big book that could be used to hold each page. Take a look here. It is really oversized – you could get away with making a smaller big book (especially if you need to take it on the bus!)

The first story was God made everything. The second First sad day. We now move on to Noah based on Genesis 6-8.

Noah built an Ark Story

In the story bag – Noah, a tool kit, wood, a variety of animals

Say hello to Noah! He lived a long tome ago. All around him and his family people were always cross. They argued, they shouted, they sometimes started fighting! It was horrible. No one cared about anyone else. No one listened to God anymore. They ignored him.

But God saw them! God sees everything. So God decided to wash everything way. He was going to end all the arguing and fighting.

Now Noah was not like everyone else. He did care about what God thought. Do you think God noticed Noah? Yes, he did. And God decided to save Noah.

He told Noah what to do – and Noah started to build! He sawed wood, he hammered, he measured.He sawed more wood! He was making something really, really big! It wasn’t a house. It wasn’t a tower. It wasn’t even a boat. It was an Ark.

It was like an enormous wooden box with rooms inside that would float.

It took a long time.

Then the Ark was finished. God sent some of the animals to go inside. (You can show some here – and maybe make the sounds they would make). Then Noah and his wife and family went inside too. And God shut the door – bang!

They waited – and then it started – the rain poured down. There was so much rain! Soon the whole world was covered in water. Everything was washed away except for Noah and his family and the animals in the Ark.

Days and days went by. Then God stopped the rain. Slowly the water went down until it was finally safe for Noah to come out of The Ark. Noah was very grateful. He said, ‘Thank you God’. And God made a very special promise to Noah, ‘I won’t destroy everything again. While the earth is here, there will always be seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.’ And God put the rainbow in the sky to remind Noah of his promise.

That special promise is for us too! When you see a rainbow in the sky remember that God always keeps his promises.

Noah built an Ark craft ideas

A great craft to go with this story is a paper plate Ark that rocks! If making with under 5’s pre-cut the Ark shapes. You can also make the water using tissue and crepe paper on a blue sheet of sugar/construction paper. There are some great animal stickers that the children can enjoy adding to their Ark. These stickers are often sold on a roll so cut them into singles beforehand. Or use cut outs of animals for the children to colour and glue to the Ark.

We’ve also made a large Ark that you can use during the story and decorate with animal stickers.

Older children can have a go at making the rainbow cloud. We used cloud shaped gift tags and rainbow ribbon.