Recharging Our Batteries
Group Activities

Sermon Title: "Following God's Directions"

Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-14

INSTRUCTIONS RELAY:

Divide the children into at least 2 teams or more. Have a basket of instructions written on little pieces of paper. At the GO starting whistle, the first team member of each group will run to the line and take one slip of paper with an instruction written on the paper. The player will quickly DO what the paper says as they run back to their team and tag the next player, who will run to the "direction basket" and will also do what the paper says to do. The children will love to watch what everyone is doing and no one will be doing the same direction at the same time probably. IDEAS for the DIRECTION basket slips could be hop on one foot to your team line, jump, walk like an elephant, tap your head and rub your tummy as you run to your team, crawl quickly to your team, walk backwards to your team line, etc.

SCAVENGER HUNT:

Divide the children into teams and give them directions to find a BIBLE (our BOOK for directions)! The children will have to go to DIRECTION 1 in order to find out what the next direction is. The teacher will have this all set up before classtime. (Directions could be to 1) Go to the pastor's pulpit. When the teams get there, they will take a slip of paper with a new direction and read it together as a team and then go to the next place which could be a tree, or a room, etc; Continue to have children HUNT for directions in several more places and the final place will be the DIRECTION BOOK and each team will bring a BIBLE back to the classroom!

DIRECTION BOARD:

Divide the class into 2 teams. The first player on each team will go to the chalkboard or a poster board for each team and follow the teacher's direction for a drawing. The next player will go to the board and do exactly what they feel the teacher told them to do to the drawing and continue until the drawing is complete. This is more fun if the two teams have a poster board facing AWAY from each other so they won't see the finished product or won't copy from each other's DIRECTION PICTURE until the end. IDEA for the drawing: The teacher could have an idea of what could be drawn, such as a house, a church, a pastor, a toy, etc, and then each child would be given one part of the drawing to do, such as (for a pastor or child)..... Team player one - draw a big circle; next player - draw an oval connected to the bottom of the circle; next player - draw a long oval or rectangle on the right side of the oval; next player - draw a long oval or rectangle on the left side of the oval; next player - draw a rectangle at the very bottom of the oval, etc and continue giving SPECIFIC directions and see what the drawing looks like after each team player has followed the DIRECTIONS and the children will see how well they followed the directions to make it look like the Pastor or a child.

DIRECTION BOOKLET:

Give children supplies to make several pages of a mini "DIRECTIONS booklet". Staple or tie the pages together with yarn at the top of the pages. Give children one direction to write or draw on each page. Use ideas and words from our Bible lesson today such as Elisha, Naaman, follow God's directions, pictures, etc. Let children decorate their booklet with stickers.

NAAMAN PICTURE POSTER:

Give each child in the classroom a part of the picture to color, such as one child could color some water, another child could draw Elisha, Naaman, the little girl, the sky, words on the picture about following GOD's directions.

PLAY ACTING:

Let children follow the teacher's DIRECTIONS for putting a skit together for today's Bible lesson. The teacher can designate someone to be Elisha and will tell "Elisha" what to do and see if the child can follow those directions. Then have someone be Naaman and the little girl, etc. Let children take turns following the directions and being able to do the skit in different ways!

PUDDING FINGER PAINTING:

Let children put a finger or more into some chocolate pudding and finger paint a picture about today's lesson! Have a wash bowl or toweling or wipes for the clean up!

PUDDING TREATS:

Give children pudding cups for their snack for today. Toppings could be provided if desired, such as chopped nuts, coconut, M&M's.

DIRT PUDDING:

Let children sprinkle crushed up chocolate cookies over the top of a bowl of pudding and add some gummy worms, for a fun dessert to share.

SING A SONG:

He Is Able, God is Good to Me and Jesus Loves Me

Song: "God Is So Good"

Words and Music (pdf)

MP3 Accompaniment Track

Song: "The B-I-B-L-E"

Words and Music (pdf)

MP3 Accompaniment Track

These songs are in the public domain and may be reproduced for ministry purposes.