Arts, Crafts and Drawing

Allowing children to express themselves through art, crafts, and drawing can enhance their learning experience. This can be done before, during or after the Bible lesson for the day.

God is creative, so it only makes sense that His children love to create.

Colour Pages and Pictures: 

Don’t get stuck in a rut of passing out pictures to colour each week. Click here for a list of new ways to use the basic, line drawing, colouring-book type of picture.

Crayon Resist Pictures:

Draw a picture on a white paper using a white crayon before class begins.  When you paint on the paper, the paint will not adhere to the crayon wax.  A “hidden” picture appears.  Click here for written and video instructions.

 Draw and Tell: 

Full instructions for using this idea for a visual aid are found at Draw and Tell Visual Aids Made By Children, but it is also a great art activity.  Before class, plan how you will divide the story into “scenes”.  Mark off that many numbered squares (or any shapes) on paper so that children will be able to draw the appropriate number of scenes. Or print a template from the visual aid page.   In class, as you tell the story, ask the children to draw something in each box.  For example:

• Scene 1-Joseph lived in Egypt, so draw a picture of something you might see in Egypt (like pyramids or mummies). 
• Scene 2-Joseph was Pharaoh’s special helper and wore Pharaoh’s ring (draw a hand with a ring on it), etc.  You will need to do a trial run before class so that you will be prepared for this.  For fun, you can do this same exercise on a chalkboard, on big sheets of newsprint, on the footpath/sidewalk with chalk, in the sand or with any other surface or materials at your disposal.
  

Marble Painting:

Place paper in a tray and then dot the paper with paint.  Move the tray so the marbles roll around in the paint to make colourful marks on the paper.  This can be adapted to many stories.  Marble painting instructions are here.

Painting Pictures:

Children love to express themselves by painting pictures.  They could paint a scene from the story or any character.  I like to use “Tempera Paint” because it is washable when it gets on clothing.  Buy paint from a craft or office supply store, or make your own.  There are lots of paint recipes online.  Here’s an example at fun.familyeducation.com.

Play Dough:  

There are lots of ways to use pliable dough.  You can purchase Play-Doh or make your own.  There are a number of recipes online.  Here’s a selection from teachnet.com

• Before class, decide what characters and props you might need to tell the story (for example, a man, two women, a brick wall, a road, etc).  As children arrive, you can ask them to help you make these characters and items.  Set them aside so they will be ready for storytime.  You now have a visual aid.
• As an application to the bible story, have the children make characters to act out the lesson learned.
• As an application to the bible story, have children roll out a “pancake” for a face and add various facial features.  You could tell them a situation, and they could make facial features to show what the person is thinking.  For example, you could talk about a playground situation where someone was saying mean things.  Ask one child to show the face of the mean child and another to show the face of the child being talked to.  Other children could make their faces and say what other children might add to the situation (good and bad).  Just use your imagination.  There are endless applications.

Relief Map:

Provide a map showing the geographical area in the story (or older children can research their own).  Use salt dough to make a map of the area.  Include hills and valleys as in the map.  Here is an example at kidworldcitizen.org

Yarn Picture Outlines: 

Use a simple pre-printed colouring page or let children make their own by outlining the lines of the picture in glue and then applying yarn.