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Free Sunday School Lesson for Children The following Sunday School lesson for children is a free sample Sunday School lesson. Hide and Seek
Scripture References: The Book of Jonah. Printable Bible Verse Cards: Print out the cards onto card stock, cut them apart, and send one home with each child. Teaching Concepts: Your children will learn about Jonah and how he tried to hide from God. They will learn that they can't hide anything from God. When they do something wrong, instead of trying to forget about it, or hiding from it, God wants them to tell him about it, and to ask him for forgiveness.
Opening Activity 1. 2. Make a book of emotions. Print out the emotions pattern sheet. Cut the pages apart, make a cover for the book, and staple everything together. In class have the children draw a picture from the story of Jonah on the cover, and color the pages.
What you will need: paper, glue sticks, crayons or markers and scissors. What to do:
Copyright Notice - Even though this is a free lesson it is still copyrighted. It is for personal use only. It may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for local church, school, or home use. It is illegal to copy this material and publish it on another web site even if you include the copyright notice. You must have permission to copy the material. To request permission to copy this material for any other use contact me by email. Preparation: Print out the emotions faces (Face Pattern 1, Face Pattern 2, and Face Pattern 3.) Cut them out and color the faces (or print them on different colors of paper). Glue the faces to separate pieces of paper or glue a craft stick to the bottom of each face so that you can hold them up. Have them ready to show the class during the lesson. The Lesson Have you ever played "Hide and Seek"? It's a fun game isn't it? It's fun to try and find a really good hiding place and see how long it takes someone to find you. It wouldn't be very fun, though, if every time you hid somewhere the person looking for you knew exactly where you where, would it? Our story today is about a man who tried to play hide from God, only he wasn't having any fun. This is how it happened. One day God told Jonah that he had a special job for him to do. God told Jonah that he wanted him to go to the city of Nineveh and warn the people there that he would destroy them and their city if they didn't stop being bad. How do you think Jonah felt when God told him that? (Let the children respond and then hold up the sad face). (Instead, you could have the faces all lined up and have one of the children come up and pick the one that best describes what Jonah felt like at this point and throughout the lesson .) Jonah wasn't happy to hear this. He started to pout. Can you make a pouting face? Jonah was also mad that God had asked him to do this. (Hold up the mad face.) Can you make a mad face? He probably said to himself, (Make a pouting face and fold your arms together as you say what Jonah might have said.) "What? God wants me to go to Nineveh? This must be some kind of mistake. Those bad, bad people? There is no way I'm going to Nineveh. I wouldn't make it out of that city alive." He was scared (Hold up the scared face.) of that city and the people who lived there. Can you make a scared face? Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah decided that he would go as far away from Nineveh as he could. He hoped God would pick somebody else to go and warn the people. (Hold up the hopeful face.) Can you make a hopeful face? Jonah got on a ship that was going to the farthest city he could find. He was really tired, and once he got on board, he went to the very bottom of the ship to hide, and curled up to take a nap. (Hold up the tired face.) Can you make a tired face? Soon Jonah found out that he couldn't hide from God and that God doesn't forget about anything. God knew exactly where Jonah was. God wasn't happy with Jonah at all. He caused a huge storm to come up. The sailors were afraid that their ship would sink (Hold up the scared picture again). They started throwing everything they could get their hands on into the sea to lighten up the ship. They all started praying to their Gods to save them, but the storm kept getting worse. Finally when they realized that Jonah wasn't helping, they went and got him and told him to start praying to his God. But Jonah knew what the problem was; and he knew that there was only one thing to do. God wouldn't stop the storm until Jonah obeyed (did what he asked him to do) him. So Jonah told the sailors to throw him overboard. As soon as Jonah hit the water the storm quit and all was calm. The sailors were so surprised that the storm had stopped. (Hold up the surprised face.) Can you make a surprised face? Jonah began to sink into the sea, going down farther and farther into the depths. But God didn't want Jonah to drown, he just wanted Jonah to obey him. God sent a huge fish to swallow Jonah and take him down to the bottom of the sea. How do you think Jonah felt now? (Hold up the scared face.) He must have felt very scared and alone. He prayed and asked God to forgive him for disobeying him. He probably felt ashamed for not listening to God. (Hold up the ashamed face.) Can you make an ashamed face? Finally, after three days of being in the dark, stinky, belly of the fish, the fish came up to the top of the sea and spit Jonah out on the shore. How do you think Jonah felt then? He was probably happy and surprised to be out of the fish. (Hold up the happy face and surprised face.) He was also probably a little embarrassed by the way he looked. (Hold up the embarrassed face). Can you make an embarrassed face? Then Jonah obeyed God and went and told the people to stop sinning. They believed Jonah, and God saved them. Jonah sure did cause a lot of trouble for himself didn't he? You know, when you think about it, we're not so different from Jonah. We may never run away and hide at the bottom of a ship and get swallowed by a huge fish, but sometimes we do try to hide from God when we are scared, ashamed, embarrassed, or just don't want to do what he says. Have you ever done something wrong and then tried to cover it up or go hide in your room and hope that your mom and dad wouldn't get to mad when they found out? If you did, you were acting just like Jonah. It doesn't do any good to hide does it? Sooner or later you have to face up to what you did. You may be able to hide things from your parents and friends, but you can't hide them from God. The Bible says, "Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done." When you are scared about something, instead of running away and hiding, God wants you to come to him and ask him for strength to face up to your fears. And when you do something wrong, instead of trying to forget about it, or hiding from it, God wants you to tell him about it, and to ask him for forgiveness. The Bible tells us that, "If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong." 1 John 1:9 So instead of trying to hide your sins from God, tell God what you did wrong and he will forgive you. Copyright Notice - Even though this is a free lesson it is still copyrighted. It is for personal use only. It may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for local church, school, or home use. It is illegal to copy this material and publish it on another web site even if you include the copyright notice. You must have permission to copy the material. To request permission to copy this material for any other use contact me by email. Prayer Father, Thank you for sending your son, Jesus, to die for our sins so that when we do something wrong we can come to you, confess our sins, and be forgiven. We thank you because we don't ever have to hide from you and be alone and lost in our sins.
Games and Activities 1. Sing a song and act it out- Young children will love this game. As you sing the following song, have the children act it out one at a time. Set up a big appliance box in the front of the room that looks like a whale. Set up the box so that the children can enter it from one side. Add a fin to the top and back of the box, and maybe a blow hole with water coming out. Draw eyes on the sides. Cut out teeth and have them hang down from the top of the entrance to the box. As you sing the following song have a child enter the box. At the end of the song the child who is in the box pretends he is being spit out of the fishes mouth, and another child enters the box. Keep singing it until all the children have had a chance to be Jonah.
3. Review the story with a toss game - Before class decorate a large coffee can . Wrap a wavy blue bulletin board border around the bottom of the can for the water. Glue a whale picture to to the top part of the can. Before you start, give each child a piece of paper (old newspaper or scrap paper). Tell them to pretend that they are sailors on a boat and the waves are crashing up against it. They are afraid the boat is going to sink and start throwing things overboard to make the boat lighter. They ask Jonah to pray to his God to save them. Jonah tells them he is the reason for the storm and tells them to throw him overboard. Tell the children to roll up their papers into balls and pretend they are Jonah and throw him overboard. They should aim for the decorated coffee can and try to get Jonah into the can. (This activity and other ideas were sent in by Marisa Anthony). The children in my Toddler class (age 2-4) liked this - very easy to do. 4. Play "Find Jonah" game. Print out the fish cards and picture of Jonah onto card stock and cut them out. Have the children color them as an opening activity. Write one of the following activities on the back of each card.
5. Big Mouth Paper Plate Fish What you will need: Dinner sized paper plates, paint, googly eyes, hot melt glue or stapler, and scissors. What to do:
Copyright Notice - Even though this is a free lesson it is still copyrighted. It is for personal use only. It may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for local church, school, or home use. It is illegal to copy this material and publish it on another web site even if you include the copyright notice. You must have permission to copy the material. To request permission to copy this material for any other use contact me by email. Jonah Questions 1. What did God want Jonah to do? Crafts 1. Make stuffed fish - Give each child a large sheet of white bulletin board paper or similar paper. Have them fold the paper in half and draw a large fish shape. Cut out both layers so that they have two fish that look the same. Have the children paint or color the fish and then staple all the way around the edge of the fish leaving an opening so that they can stuff the fish with wrinkled up pieces of newspaper. Staple the fish closed and staple a string on it so that they can be hung from the ceiling. 2. Play "Swallow Jonah" Game - Before class make milk jug whales and Jonah bean bags - For directions to this craft and links to other crafts go to Danielle's Place. Have the children stand facing each other and throw the bean bag back and forth trying to catch Jonah in the milk jug whales. 3. Make papar plate fish. Have the children paint or color the bottom of two paper plates and cut out fin shapes. Staple the fins onto one paper plate and then staple the two paper plates together so make a 3D fish.
5. Make a plastic bag fish with Jonah inside - Here's another suggestion sent in by Marisa Anthony -- though not original. What you will need: a picture of Jonah on his knees praying, a Ziploc bags, and twist-ties. What to do:
Copyright Notice - Even though this is a free lesson it is still copyrighted. It is for personal use only. It may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, except for local church, school, or home use. It is illegal to copy this material and publish it on another web site even if you include the copyright notice. You must have permission to copy the material. To request permission to copy this material for any other use contact me by email. Copyright 2000, Carolyn Warvel, Digital by Design All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information or storage retrieval system, except for local church or school use only. This copyright notice must be included on all copies. Requests for permission to copy this material for any other uses should be addressed to Carolyn Warvel, 588 Duran Street, Henderson, NV 89015 or e-mail me at care@daniellesplace.com
Comments We would love to hear your comments about this lesson. If you have done this lesson with your class we would love to hear how it went, if you changed anything, added anything, what age you taught and was it appropriate. Any comments that would help other teachers would be greatly appreciated and posted here for everyone to read. I cut out 24 of the fish and taped Jonah onto the back of 6 of them (during the summer we've only had about 6 children in our 3 through kindergarten class). After the children have colored the fish, hopefully not knowing Jonah is taped to the backside, they will play the game where the children take turns picking up a fish to find Jonah. But I've added a little extra to the game. If they find a fish with Jonah taped to the back, they get to take a small handful of the little cheese flavored fish crackers out of a bowl. And then at the end of the class, each child gets a small bag of the fish crackers to take home. Ann Keeler, St Paul Lutheran Church, TX I first want to say that I love this site, it's such a blessing. I used the Jonah and the Whale story last week and the kids loved it! I teach Sunday School for 4 & 5 year olds. The entire lesson was easy and simple enough for them to understand and they especially loved trying to "find" Jonah. Stacy Linder Talk to the children about how/why we pray -- we fold our hands to
help us become still. We bow our head and close our eyes to help us
become quiet and to help us think only of God. A prayer is how we
talk to God. God I DID THE WHALE AND JONAH YESTERDAY AND IT WAS SUCH A HIT! THANK
YOU AGAIN. PEGGY MITCHELL I first want to thank you for your wonderful site and all the lessons and ideas. I used the lesson on Jonah with a class of about 10 aged 3 to 12 years of age. We were having problems getting anyone to take on the responsibility of teaching a class. I used most of the ideas given in the lesson and for a craft, we made Jonah necklaces out of pony beads. We put on a gray bead to remind us that the people of Ninevah had sinned,. A red bead said that God had told Jonah to tell the people to Stop sinning. A blue bead reminded us that Jonah disobeyed and was thown into the water for his sin. White reminded us that Jonah repented and went to Ninevah where the people also repented. Green represented the growth in the lives of the people. Yellow showed Jonah told the people all about heaven. The kids loved this craft and are still wearing their Jonah necklaces months later.
For more free lessons go to the Free Sunday School Lessons for Children Page. |
Bible
Verse: "Nothing in all creation can hide from him." Hebrews 4:13
Color "
3. 
If
you have a refrirgerator box, cut the flaps off of one end of the
box. If your box isn't very long, you can open up the flap and tape
them open. You may have to use some cardboard on the inside corners
to reinforce the flaps. Tape the other end of the box closed. This
will keep your whale from collasping when the children are playing
in it. Cut a fin from another piece of cardboard and glue it to the
back of the box. You can cut out the mouth shape, but you don't have
too. You can just paint the inside of the mouth black. Cut two triangular
shapes for the side fins and glue them on. Paint the whole thing gray
or black and white.
Play
"What did the Big Fish Eat?" game - This big fish has
swallowed many things including Jonah. Your children answer questions
and then reach into the fishes mouth and pull out a piece of paper
with a picture of something the fish has swallowed. They will be amazed
and entertained by all the different things he has eaten. The child
who pulls out the picture of Jonah wins. 
4. Make an envelope shark and Jonah Doll - Go to 
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