Homes Jesus visited – the crowded house is a short video story for young children to enjoy. It is a retelling of a Bible story from Mark 2:1-22
Take a look at the other videos in the series by vising let their light shine’s You Tube channel where you will find stories for young children and some short videos about telling stories.
The Crowded house craft ideas
Here’s a link to an easy craft based on this story
Here’s a craft using an envelope. This is better suited to older children (we made it with reception age – 4/5 year olds) To make you need…
Blank square envelope
Face stickers
Man on a mat
Yarn
Tissue paper for the bricks (or colour these with crayons)
Turn the envelope into a house by adding windows and a door. Add faces to the windows so the house is full. Add yarn to the man on his mat and colour. The children can enjoy making this craft and suing it to retell the story.
Homes Jesus visited – the crowded house craft step by step
If you would like to use the man on the mat visual go to Teachkids.eu by clicking this link. Download Little kids can know God through his miracles. It’s a free download. Then go to page 79 where you will find the man on the mat. There are lots of other things in the download too!
I’ve had a go at making a short video to share with our toddler group parents. If you like it and want to use it feel free! I’m still learning how to do this so any hints and tips welcome 🙂
The pictures are from Free Bible Images. The words are my own.
Man with four friends craft is ideal for young children to make with minimal help. Sometimes it’s nice to make a craft that you can also use for telling and retelling the Bible story and this craft does just that as you make the man and his mat!
The story is from Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12 and Luke 5:17-26.
Man with four friends story idea
Our story begins in a house with a flat roof and some steps up the side. It had windows and a door. I wonder what could be happening in this house? We are not told who lived in this home, (show the house) but when Jesus arrived lots of people went to the house to meet him. They squashed themselves inside. There was hardly any room. The house was full!
In another part of town there was a man who couldn’t walk. He lay on his bed. (show the man on his bed) He needed the help of his friends everyday. Let’s count the friends together as they come out of the story bag – 1,2,3,4
His friends wanted him to see Jesus.
So, they picked him up and carried him to the house where Jesus was – carefully, carefully they carried their friend through the town to the house where Jesus was…
…they believed Jesus could help their friend.
When they arrived at the house they could not get in the front door because of the crowd. They didn’t give up!
They carried him up the outside stairs and onto the roof – slowly, slowly – carefully, carefully…
…they made a hole in the roof, then – slowly, slowly, carefully, carefully they lowered him down in front of Jesus!
When Jesus saw that they really believed he could help the man he said, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Some people in the house didn’t believe that Jesus could forgive the wrong people do. So, Jesus said to the man, “So that you can be sure that I can forgive sin, get up, pick up your mat and go home.” Straight away and really quickly he got up, rolled up his mat, and walked home!
All the people in the house were amazed!!
‘We never saw anything like this!’ They said to one another.
All you need to make the man with four friends craft..
For the craft we made the man’s mat by decorating sugar paper with large pieces of tissue paper and then we made a man – on one side he was happy and on the other side he was sad. We used fabric for clothes and wool for hair.
People shapes – if you can get skin coloured shapes rather than bright white
Yarn for hair
Fabric for clothes
Crayons
Sugar paper for the man’s mat – you want to be able to roll and unroll this
Tissue paper
When telling the story I pretended to carry the man up the steps to the roof of a house and then lower him down to the feet of Jesus. The paper mat was rolled up as part of the story too.
The people shapes are from Baker Ross via Amazon. This is an affiliate link – if you click and purchase you won’t be charged any extra but I will receive a small commission to help fund the blog – so a big thank you if you support in this way. It’s much appreciated.
This is a short video of this story for young children to enjoy!
Mary and Martha are two grown up sisters that we meet in Luke 10:38-42 . They live in Bethany. They are mentioned three times in the Life of Jesus. You can also read about them in John 11 – when their brother Lazarus is bought back to life – and in John 12 – when Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume.
You could tell all three of these stories over three sessions or pick a couple. It’s good to include stories about women in our groups as so many of the listeners are women and a lot of Bible stories are about men! I always try to be mindful of this when I’m planning which stories to include.
Mary and Martha story idea
In the story bag I had the three main characters – Martha, Mary and Jesus and some pots and pans, a wooden spoon and a cloth. You could have an apron or a duster. As you introduce the characters take them from the story bag and say ‘hello’
‘Mary and Martha were two grown-up sisters. One day Martha invited Jesus to come to their home for a meal.
Jesus was very happy to go to Mary and Martha’s house.
When he got there Jesus sat down and began to talk about God. Mary so wanted to listen to everything that he had to say. She sat down and listened.
But Martha had a lot to do! There was tidying to be done. There was the cooking to be done. Pans needed stirring!(Use the props from the story bag – encourage the children to mime the actions too) Food needed chopping! Plates needed wiping! Water needed pouring! She was busy, busy, busy! (Can you say that with me? She was busy, busy, busy!)
Mary sat still and listened to Jesus.
Martha was not happy!
She said to Jesus, ‘ Lord, don’t you care that I’ve been left to do all the work by myself?! Tell my sister to help me!’
But Jesus didn’t do what Martha said. Instead he said to Martha, ‘You don’t need to worry so much about all the things that need to be done. You need to listen to my words too.’
Today we can listen to the words of Jesus by listening to stories about him and reading the Bible.’
Craft Idea
Make people collages – you could add the words, ‘We use our ears to listen’
To tell the story I used some simple pictures. I introduced ‘Jairus’ first and asked the children to repeat his name and say hello.
The pictures I used were a selection of symbols and a photo of a house that I made from a shoe box, and one phrase. I realise that the children weren’t necessarily going to be able to read this but the adult listeners are there too! Plus is a useful prompt for the storyteller 🙂 They are all held together with string and so make one large visual aid by the end of the story.
Jairus’s daughter story idea
In our story today something very sad happens but it has a happy ending!
Jesus was very famous and lots and lots of people crowded round him to see him. But one man in the crowd really needed Jesus’ help. He needed Jesus to come to his house straightaway.
This man’s name was Jairus (can you say that?). He was very sad.
He knelt down in front of Jesus and pleaded with him, ‘please come to my house and help! Mt daughter is dying and I need you to come and see her, lay your hands on her and make her better.’
What would Jesus do? He went with Jairus to go the house.
But on the way there Jesus stopped to help someone else and things were taking too long. Jairus knew they needed to hurry but Jesus had stopped walking!
Some one came from Jairus’ house, ‘Don’t bring Jesus back with you. It’s too late. Your daughter has died.’ It was such sad news.
Jesus heard what they had said. He looked at Jairus and told him, ‘Don’t be afraid. Just believe.’
They carried on to Jairus’ home and they went inside.
Jesus held the hand of the little girl and he said to her, ‘ Little girl, arise’
What do you think happened? The little girl got up! She began to walk around.
‘Get her something to eat’, Jesus said to her family. Can you imagine how happy they felt! They were amazed at what Jesus had done.
Jesus was able to bring the little girl back to life because Jesus is God the Son.
Simon’s Mother in Law was ill in bed with a fever. This is a simple craft/story telling prop idea for the story of her being healed from Mark 1:29-31.
The bed is made from an egg box and the people from cardboard rolls. If you wanted to make larger people you could easily use Pringle cartons (instructions in this post) or similar and a shoebox for a bed.
Simon’s mother in law story
‘Jesus had met some fishermen by the lake of Galilee. Do you know what fishermen do? Yes, that’s right, they catch fish!
Their names were Simon and Andrew, who were brothers and James and John who were also brothers.
Jesus called them to be his followers.
One day Jesus went to the home of Simon and Andrew. Even though they were grown ups they lived in the same home with their families. Their friends James and John were there too.
It’s really nice to have friends visit us isn’t it? But things weren’t happy in this home… everyone was sad.
Simon’s mother-in-law was very poorly. She had a temperature and had to stay in bed.
When Jesus found out that she was poorly he went to see her. He cared about her. He cares about you and me too.
Jesus held her hand and helped her get up – and she was better!!
Now I couldn’t have done that. And you couldn’t have done that. But Jesus could because Jesus is God.
Simon’s mother-in-law was so happy to be well. The first thing she did was to start looking after her friends and she made them something to eat.
Everyone in the house was happy!’
A video of this story
There is a craft idea for this Bible Story in this post. Take a look!
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