Bible stories, crafts and creative ideas for toddler groups, children's ministry and families
Collect together resources that can help you
Go Teach and Scripture Union have some great resources that will help you tell Bible Stories in Toddler Group. Children’s Story Bibles and Bible Story books written for young children can be a big help too. They will give you ideas of how to phrase things and how to put a simple story together. You don’t have to buy loads – just slowly start collecting resources that you find helpful.
Practice what you are going to say
Tell your story to yourself. Practice it. Practice using any puppets or props. Get a feel for how it sounds. Don’t aim for knowing it word for word – you want to know how the story goes and be so comfortable with it that the telling is fresh and spontaneous when you tell it to toddlers. Practice will help you to know how well you know the story and how long it will be. Learn your opening sentence, know how you are going to finish – let the rest of the story flow.
Know how you are going to finish your story
Every story needs to reach a satisfying conclusion. It needs to end in way that is clear. Any problems in the story need to be solved. Zaccheus met Jesus! Jonah went to the town of Ninevah. The Wise men found Jesus. Think through how your story will end and have a final sentence. And when your story is finished – it’s finished.
It’s nearly summer! This term we are thinking about the things that our Good God has given to us. This idea is borrowed from a Toddler Group scheme from Christ Church Dunstable. Last week we thought about the world. We had a globe (that lit up!) and lots of pictures. All the pictures were freely available from the internet. I just used Word and then inserted pictures from the web. No problems with copyright!
This week we are thinking about how God has given us family and friends. Last weeks pictures will be used again and the people added. Then we will wave at our friends, smile and shake hands. For song time we’ll include Row, row, row your boat’ that needs a friend to row with.
This week at Toddler group we learnt that God made the sun, moon and stars. I put on my sunhat and sunglasses for the sun and we pretended to be asleep when we thought about the moon and stars. God made these things just by speaking and they were very good! (we all do thumbs up).
Our craft was making a paper plate sun and a paper plate moon surrounded by stars. We used pre-cut card stars (charity shop find) and pasta shapes, silver and yellow tissue paper and PVA glue. The moon and stars were glued onto black card. The chidren and parents are free to use the craft materials as they like so we have some suns covered in stars 🙂 It’s all about the fun of making rather than the end product.
Our songs were all part of the theme too. These laminated posters are displayed during the session to advertise our song and story time!
Journey To Bethlehem is a series of Bible Stories that take us from the very beginning of the Bible up to the first Christmas. There are six stories in the series with ideas for visual aids and crafts. We have used these stories several times in the half term leading up to Christmas in our Toddler Group.
The stories are
We start with creation and everything being made good. Next week the fall and things no longer being good and then onwards to Jesus being born. God’s Saviour sent for us.
The Creation story is going to be told using an idea that I found here – It Happens in a Blink.
Here’s some of the paper plates in close up. I had a lot of fun making them. You need sturdy paper plates! I decided not to have a blank plate for day seven. I did see an idea that included lots of zzzz for resting but God didn’t go to sleep, he just stopped making because everything was complete and perfect. He doesn’t need to rest in the way that we do. He never slumbers or sleeps 🙂
We are going on a journey – all the way to Bethlehem!
Let’s begin. Everything was very quiet and then God began to make things form nothing! He just spoke and things began to happen..
As I tell the story we will count the days together and name what we can see on the plates. After each day we will say ‘it was all very good’ and do a thumbs up. This will be our action for this weeks story.
We have started our journey to Bethlehem!
You can find all the stories in this series here on the blog with a different paper plate for each story. (You will see that the snake is not a paper plate – but if you don’t have a pre-cut spiral a paper plate would be fine. Just decorate and then cut into a spiral shape) The links to each story are with each picture.
As you go through the weeks display the paper plates until in week 6 they are all displayed 🙂
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Young children have lots of discoveries to make. It’s fun to help them discover their senses. There are different activities that can show them that they can smell. Of course they already knew that! We can help them know what the smells are that they like or dislike. Sometimes a smell gives us a warning – the toast is burning! Sometimes a smell can make us hungry.
There is a bible Story that you can tell to illustrate that we can smell here. There is a different retelling in the Go Teach Toddler book that we are using this half term.
For a craft for this Bible Story make a perfume bottle
You need – paper plate cut into a simple bottle shape (we are going to use the reverse side so the bottle looks more 3D)
Coloured paper that has been sprayed with perfume. I used tissue paper circles that I bought from Tiger.
Glue stick
Crayons to add decoration. (optional)
Beforehand cut out the bottles, spray the paper and make an example.
I have been cutting some herbs from my garden for the children to smell – these herbs are child friendly – sage, lemon balm, thyme and lavender. The lemon balm is a strong scent in particular. If you don’t have herbs in your garden you could use the fresh herb pots that supermarkets sell. Just a few would be fine.
Playdough can be given a scent. I’ve used vanilla extract (expensive) in one dough and mixed spice in another. Take a look at my pinterest playdough board for some really good ideas. I like the sound of lemon dough. 🙂 there is a recipe for that on the board.
My favourite smell is fresh coffee but sadly at our group we only serve instant!
In our series of Bible stories that include animals we told the very short story about Elijah being brought food by ravens.
1 Kings 17
2 And the word of the Lord came to him: 3 “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. 6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. 7 And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.
To put the story in context we had King Ahab and Queen Jezebel in the story bag and explained that they were a bad king and a bad queen who were horrible to people.
Elijah was also in the story bag.
At the beginning of the story thse three are introduced to the children.
Story
Elijah went to see King Ahab. He had a message for him from God. ‘King Ahab, God has said that there isn’t going to be any more rain for the next few years’.
There was going to be no more water for King Ahab or Queen Jezebel. There was going to be no more water for Elijah.
But God told Elijah what to do. Go and hide in the valley. I will send ravens to give you food. You can dink water from the stream.
Elijah did what God said. He went to the valley where the stream was.
When he woke up in the mornings the ravens came and bought him bread and meat for breakfast. (take ravens from story bag)
When it was getting near to going to bed at night the ravens came with bread and meat for tea.
God took care of Elijah. God is able to look after you too.
The ravens were made from paper plates.
This half term we are thinking about animal’s in the Bible. So we made a start with the story of Jonah. I had seen a tent made into the big fish on Handsonbibleteacher.blogspot.co.uk so thought I would have a go at making one – my attempt doesn’t look as neat – I think my pop up tent was a little too square – but you have to use what you have! Jonah is made from a Pringles carton – I saw that idea on Pinterest. It’s originally from this blog Preachmanswife.blogspot.co.uk
Story
Say hello to Jonah! Jonah was given a job to do. God told him to go and tell the people living in Ninevah that God loved them.
‘No, I won’t’ said jonah. ‘I don’t like the people who live in Ninevah’
so Jonah packed his bag and went the other way. He walked to the boat (make walking sounds by tapping hands on knees) and he bought a ticket and off he went.
Jonah was tired (yawn) so he went inside the boat and settled down for a sleep. (put hands on side of head as if sleeping)
Do you think God knew where Jonah was? God knows everything. He knew that Jonah was on the boat.
God sent a storm. the waves got bigger, the wind blew, the rain came down. The sailors were worried. ‘Someone has done something wrong’, they said ‘and God is angry.’
They went to wake Jonah up. ‘Wake up Jonah!’ (ask children to repeat this)
Jonah opened his eyes. ‘Oh dear’, he said ‘this is my fault. You must throw me into the sea.’
‘No!’ the sailors said.
But the storm got worse and in the end they had to throw Jonah into the sea. Splash!
The storm stopped.
Jonah sank down,down, down into the water. But God loved Jonah and he had somthing there to save him. A great big fish swam up and swallowed Jonah. He was safe. (Place Jonah inside the big fish)
Jonah knew he had done the wrong thing and he talked to God. ‘I am sorry’ he said.
Could God hear Jonah? Yes, God hears when we say sorry to him.
God sent the great big fish to the beach and it gave a big hiccup and out came Jonah. (take Jonah out of the big fish)
God said,’Jonah go and tell the people of Ninevah that I love them.’ This time Jonah did what God said.
Jairus’s daughter is a story from Luke 8: 40-56
Meet Jairus!
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.
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.
I like to use a story bag at toddler group story time. I find it holds the interest of the children and adults better than a picture. My mum is a great knitter and made some Bible characters for me.
If you are able to have a go at making some then the pattern is here. They are a good size and can be adapted by adding different clothes. A lovely reader of this blog asked about the pattern so as well as replying in the comments I thought I would share the info here too.
Happy knitting 🙂 and even happier storytelling
I made this to use with under fives to tell the story of Zacchaeus. He moves up the tree which is great for keeping the young children interested. We are doing the story as part of our Bible Alphabet series. It’s from Luke 19:1-10.
The tree is a Pringles container covered in brown construction paper with large leaves stapled around the top. It’s important that the brown construction paper is taller than the Pringles container by about 4cm so you have space to staple on the leaves. Also leave the lid on so that Zacchaeus doesn’t fall inside while you are telling the story! The leaves were made from construction paper and lightweight card in two contrasting greens.
You can slide Zacchaeus up the tree trunk by blue tacking him to a piece of brown construction paper that has been folded and wound round the tree trunk and stapled to make a circular collar for the tree. This should be tight enough to stay in place but slide smoothly. When Zacchaeus has climbed the tree take him off the brown slider/collar and blue tac him in the leaves.
Here’s a link to a craft idea and a short video of the story.
The well known children’s song ‘Zacchaeus was a very little man (or very wee man) is great to sing. There are lots of versions on the web; some have music to sing along to and others also have animation.
We made an Easter Garden for our Toddler Group Story Time. A very simple but effective visual aid. Older children could make their own.
You need
Tray or baking tin (I used a baking tin)
Foil to cover the tray/tin
Potting compost
Moss (if you do this ahead you could plant seeds – I wasn’t that organised)
Small stones for the path
Twigs for trees (we didn’t add the crosses as the children are so young.But we did talk about them in the story)
Air drying clay for the tomb
Large stone to put by the tombs entrance
Air drying clay rolled into balls to stick the twigs into to secure them. Cover the balls of clay with compost.
This would be a great activity to do during the Easter holiday. You could have a competition to see who puts the most effort into making their garden.
One of the homes Jesus visited was the place where the paralysed man was healed. Luke 5:17- 26. If you look very closely you can just see crowds of people in the model of the house. To tell the story to young children you could use lego duplo figures.( Of course avoid the clearly identifiable charcters such as Bob the Builder) The mat is brown paper and material – chosen because it has to be rolled up. It fits really well in the duplo figures hand.
If you didn’t want to use duplo for telling the story you could let a small group play with the figures and model afterwards to retell the story to you.
