My 2 1/2 boy and 5 year old girl loved this devotional we did this week. We read the story of Jesus calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41) using the Play-and-Learn Bible. After reading the story, we acted it out. The kids have recently been using the pillows in our living room area to build forts and tents. It was the perfect opportunity to ask them to build a boat, and they were very creative with it. We acted out the story, taking turns to play different roles. First, daddy was the wind and waves and as he knelt by the boat, he had a spray bottle in his hand that he would occasionally squirt water at them. The kids were in the boat - one pretending to sleep like Jesus and the other acted as a disciple rowing the boat. The story enacted out went like this:Daddy: pretending to be a storm all around the boat
Child 1: Pretending to sleep in the boat
Child 2: Rowing the boat and gets scared because of the fierce storm (and not to mention getting wet). He wakes up Jesus and says "Wake up! Wake up!"
Child 1: Stands up and says "Quiet down! Sshhhhh"
Daddy: Stops.
Child 1 looks at child 2 and says: "Why are you so afraid?" Do you still have no faith?
Child 2: Still looking scared says: Who is this man. Even the wind and waves obey him.
Child 1: Don't be afraid.
As a family, we took turns playing different roles and reaffirming the lesson of how even nature obeys the words of God and how we don't need to be afraid because God is always with us.
Extra fun: We ended the night by having a game of flashlight pumpkin hunt around the house. We had a cute little toy pumpkin. The kids took turns hiding it using their flashlight, because we turned off all the lights in the house. Then the other kid used his flashlight to search for the pumpkin.
