Week 18 of Play Through The Bible is the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. This week we are starting something new! Instead of a craft for day 1, I will have a very simple small world you can set up for your child to use to play out the story.

If you’ve never heard of small worlds, you can read more about them here. Small worlds can be very elaborate set-ups, but, true to form here, we are going to keep things really simple. You can have your child help you prepare the small world or you can set it up for them. I set our small world up in our lego table so that K could come and go from it throughout the week. It was a great addition to our week!

If you haven’t read the introduction to this series yet I recommend going here. For all the plans in one place, go here.

Week Eighteen – Jesus Feeds the 5,000

Focus Point

Jesus uses a little boy’s lunch to feed lots of people.

Story Time Tips

We read “A Tasty Lunch” starting on page 168 of The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers and “Lunch to Share” starting on page 244 of The Rhyme Bible Storybook.
The hardest part of this story for K to understand the concept of Jesus turning a small amount of food into a lot of food. We just kept talking about it as we read the story and did the crafts, focusing on Jesus feeding lots and lots of people.
This was also the first time we really talked about what a miracle is. Trying to explain a miracle to a three year old was a good example of child-like faith. It is hard to explain that a miracle is God doing something that seems impossible to someone to doesn’t yet know impossible!

Activity

Gather some balls (to use as pretend bread and fish) and a basket. Put the balls in a pile and set the basket up a ways away. Tell your child that they have to gather all the fish and bread (the balls) as fast as they can and put them in the basket. We decided to take our game outside!

Ready, set, go!

Discussion

Parent: “When Jesus said to feed the people, who gave him some food?”

Child: “A little boy.”

Parent: “Did the little boy have enough food for everyone?”

Child: “No.”

Parent: “What did Jesus do?”

Child: “Broke the bread and gave it to all the people!”

Daily Craft

Day One – Feeding the 5,000 Small World

Materials Needed:

Peg dolls (we made ours here)
Extra figurings for the crowd (we used our extra peg dolls)
Paper plate, colored green
13 milk jug lids (for the baskets)
Bread and fish cut out of construction paper

Day Two – Jesus Feeds the 5,000 Coloring Page

http://www.sermons4kids.com/feed_5000_colorpg.htm

Day Three – Fish and Bread in a Basket

Materials needed:

Bread, fish, and basket printout (from Crafting the Word of God)
Markers
Glue stick
Scissors

First, color the printouts.

Then cut them out.

Glue the fish and the bread to the back of one of the baskets.

Glue the other side of the basket onto the back.

All done!

Day Four – More Fish and Bread

Materials needed:

Orange and brown construction paper
Two paper plates
Yarn
Scissors
Marker
Hole punch

The idea for this craft came from Growing Kids Ministry.

First, cut out two fish from the orange paper and five loaves from the brown paper. Numbering them sneaks in a little number practice.

Cut one of the paper plates in half, line them up, and punch holes around the bottom.

Use the yarn to “sew” the basket together.

Tying it off on both ends.

Put your fish and bread inside the basket.

Now you have a nice basket full of fish and bread!

Day Five – Jesus and the Crowd Fingerprint Scene

Materials needed:

Draw a little hill on the green paper.

Put some paint on one of your fingers (we used brown)…

Press your finger down on top of the hill to make Jesus.

Use the other paints to make a bunch of little fingerprint people.

Using the pen, give the people some arms and legs.

Write on the picture “Jesus Fed All The People” and you’re all finished!

Extra Resources

We didn’t find anything extra this week. Do you know of any?

I hope you enjoyed week eighteen of Play Through The Bible. I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or use the hashtag #playthroughthebible on Twitter or Instagram!

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