Mommy Tip # 10 - Fun way to teach your preschooler the Noah's Ark story.

Since mid April, I have been teaching the preschoolers on Wednesdays at our church and I've learnt that the best way to grab a child's attention is to make a story fun and if you have props, all the better. I generally make my own props and I thought it would be fun to share my little projects with you. They're really easy to make and the visuals really help the little ones remember.

This week we will be doing the Noah's Ark story. Bunny girl has been kind enough to lend me her little Noah and wife figures (we got this cute set of plastic figures - Noah, wife and some animals- for a dollar at the Dollar store 3 months or so ago) and 3 animal pairs, so we have characters for the little story.

Now to make the main prop, you will need these materials:

• A small empty cardboard box ( I used one of the Amazon.com boxes I got books in)
• Orange, white, light blue and dark blue construction paper
• Blue and green tissue paper(the sort you use in gift bags)
• Pictures- I printed out my pictures from the net. Google Image searched cliparts for the Ark, Rainbow, Thunderstorm clouds, Flowers, Trees, 2 landscape pictures for the side panels.

1. First cut off one side of the box and one flap off the top. (Leave one flap on. You will use that to stick the rainbow on. )

2. Stick the orange construction paper on the floor of the prop to act as the path leading to the ark. On the sides you can stick the green tissue paper (i.e.The grass. )

3. On the main upright flap you will need to stick the light blue construction paper first. Then stick your cutout of the ark and then cut out clouds (white paper) and stick them onto the sky. Cut out wave shapes for either side of the ark and stick this on as well.

4. On the side panels you can stick your individual landscapes. Both pictures were a little small, so I had to cut bits of the side to ensure no cardboard stuck out. I stuck trees on the right panel as it looked plain and stuck flower bushes on little cardboard strips and stuck them on either side of the grass, with cellotape.

5. Cut out a little door on the ark, to make the process of going into the ark more visual. (You will need to cut out the door to suit the size of the figures/animals you use. Mine got a little small so with our prop, the giraffes and elephants sadly have no entry into the ark!)

6. Now the rain! I love this the best. Take a thick cardboard strip and stick a sheet of blue tissue paper on one end and allow the other end to hang down. Now stick the thunderstorm clouds on the top (on the cardboard strip end) and then cut the tissue into jagged strips. Make sure you don't cut the cardboard strip. To make the tissue strips look a little more 'rain-like' you can stick cut out dark blue rain drops randomly. (The rain effect is really cool when you talk about God sending the rains for 40 days and 40 nights and you shake that strip in front of the ark. The strips make this cute swish swish noise...like little drops of water falling on a window pane.)

7. Now throughout the story you need to remember to keep the panel flap above the ark, bent backwards. This will only be lifted up after you tell the kids "The rain stopped and Noah and the animals got out of the ark. They looked up and saw the rainbow in the sky, that God had brought out as a sign."
To make the rainbow, you will need to stick the light blue construction paper on the panel, to depict the sky. Again stick some cloud cutouts and finally stick your colorful rainbow.

And there you have it. A really simple but beautiful prop to narrate the story of Noah's Ark.

I'm really excited to get to class this evening. I love watching the kids expressions each time a story unravels. They'll be even happier to see the Animal Cracker snacks after the lesson!

Labels: Mommy Tips

posted by Marina@EBMR @ 3:12 PM