This week for Play Through The Bible (week 16!) we learned about the story of Jesus’ Baptism. The concept of baptism is a difficult one for little thinkers, but we tried our best and K really enjoyed this week’s activities.

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

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Week Sixteen – Jesus’ Baptism

Focus Point

Jesus obeyed his father, God, and was baptized.

Story Time Tips

• We read “Jesus is God’s Son” starting on page 208 of The Rhyme Bible Storybook and “John the Baptist” starting on page 150 of The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers.
• Like I mentioned earlier, the concept of baptism can be tricky for a toddler/preschooler to understand. Like many things in the Bible, it is full of symbolism and metaphor, ideas that don’t mesh well with a concrete thinking 3 year old! Times like this can be frustrating when you want to help your child understand, but it’s just not happening. However, I had to remind myself that the purpose of these early lessons are just to introduce the ideas. So, I tried my best to give a simple explanation of the story and then just left it with a simple “Jesus was baptized.”
• We talked a lot about how John wore a camel hair coat and ate bugs. K thought this was very interesting. I did not offer up an explanation for this strange behavior, and he did not ask!

Activity

Bring along some small plastic figurines to bath time and use them to play out the story or just to talk about baptism more in general.

Discussion

Parent: “Who told people that Jesus was coming and baptized people?”

Child: “John the Baptist.”

Parent: “Was Jesus baptized?”

Child: “Yes!”

Parent: “What animal to God’s spirit appear like at Jesus’ baptism?”

Child: “A dove.”

Daily Craft

Day One – Jesus’ Baptism Coloring Page

http://www.coloring.ws/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.coloring.ws/bible/jesus/baptism.gif

Day Two – John the Baptist

 

Materials needed:

• Yellow, brown, and tan construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Brown yarn

It is kind of hard to see in this picture, but use a pencil and outline a circle for a head and a coat shape on the tan and brown papers.

Cut your outlines out.

Cut some of the brown yarn into small pieces. This is going to be your furry camel hair for John’s coat.

Glue down the circle and coat cutouts onto the yellow paper.

Put some glue on the coat and cover it with the yarn.

Add some details like hair, a face, and feet.

All done!

Day Three – Dove

Materials needed:

• Paper plate
• White scrap paper
• Glue stick
• Scissors

 

Trace out a simple shape of a bird on your paper plate.

Cut it out.

Cut your white scrap paper into small pieces…

…like so. These are going to be your “feathers.” If you have real feathers feel free to use those, but that is not a craft supply we normally have on hand.

Cover your bird in glue.

Put your “feathers” on your bird.

Add some eyes if you’d like. I thought about cutting out a beak and gluing it on, but K was happy with what we had, so I just left it.

Day Four – Baptism

Materials needed:

• Jesus’ Baptism coloring page (we used this one)
• Paint
• Paint brush

Since we are going to be using these guys for tomorrow’s craft, I went ahead and cut them out before he painted them. That way there would be no chance of being upset at getting his picture cut into.

Paint away! Be sure to save for the next craft.

Day Five – Baptism #2

Materials needed:

• Jesus and John the Baptist cut-outs from yesterday
• Green and blue construction paper
• Glue stick
• Scissors

Cut out a wide strip of the blue paper with wavy edges. This will be your river.

Glue the blue paper onto the green.

Glue on John the Baptist.

And glue on Jesus.

That’s all!

Extra Resources

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

 

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I hope you enjoyed week sixteen 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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