Session 2: God Saves His People: That means me!

• lesson 2B
• lesson graphics

Objectives: By the end of this sessions participants should be able to...

• Describe the Exodus by role-playing the story.
• Identify a Holy Saturday hymn about the Exodus
  dentify Jews, Muslims, and non-Orthodox Christian groups as other people who remember the Exodus as part of their story, as the Orthodox do.
• Depict the Exodus by creating a mural to include the main elements of the story.

(Note: Groups with less time should choose between doing #1 or #4 here--the procedures are more fully described below--but will not have time for both.)

Useful Texts for Leader Reflection preparation(Scriptural, Liturgical, Lives of Saints, etc.):materials:•          

One 12 by 18 piece of construction paper or oaktag cut into ten variously-shaped puzzle pieces

• Small rewards, such as Swedish fish candy or something similar; food/drink for snack
• Video entitled “MOSES’ or any half-hour video of Moses life, including the Exodus and Passover, that you nave previewed and would like to use with your students
• Items per student for the “lamb” project: soft, white pillow filling, tiny pink felt tongues, one black 1/4 pompom, 2 pink felt ears, 2 small “jiggly” craft eyes, 2 long white pipe cleaners
• Elmer’s Glue, sandwich-size plastic bags, pencils, pens, erasers, markers
• Students’ memory boxes and cloth-bound personal books
• Chalkboard, chalk, butcher paper, fine-tip black Sharpee pen
• 3 yards of blue cloth, cut and reattached with Velcro according to instructions (attached)
• Outline drawings of people and objects from the Exodus story (attached)
• Costumes (perhaps from the parish’s Christmas play?)
• 2 or 3 children’s jump ropes; spray bottle of water (optional--hide until ready to use)
• Story of the Exodus in a children’s Bible that you like to use
• Copies of the Holy Saturday hymn “For gloriously has He been glorified” sung in connection with the Exodus reading. Check to see if you a tape of someone chanting and singing for students to listen to with which to sing (if you can have such a tape made, it is probably preferable to having just the book).

A: Younger Children

Introduction:

Welcome the students back, pray together, and review the previous session’s work.

Hold up one or two willing students’ personal books and display the pictures and pages. Tuck it back into the students’ memory box.

Say, “Today we will be adding more to your book and to your memory box by learning about the Bible story of the Exodus. To do this we’re going to put a puzzle together.”

Puzzle
Ask students to tell you what things they know about the Exodus, or what people took part in the event. Write correct answers on the puzzle pieces, but be selective and reject any answers that are too simple (i.e. “It’s a story about God”.) Reward only really exact answers, and challenge students in a fun way. Offer Swedish fish or small rewards for correct answers, and if they come up with answers very easily make them spell words or names correctly to get the reward.

Build the puzzle as you get correct answers, but don’t worry if you have to stop before all ten are completed--they will get filled in later. If you need to, supply answers as you go, but once again, don’t be afraid to stop before the ten pieces are filled in.Introduce the video, saying that God asked Moses to do some really tough things--like carry around a stick that turned into a snake. (yuk!).  

Video
Watch the video together. Be prepared to go over any points that may need clarification after you have watched it. Often these type of videos can have inaccuracies. Be sure to compare the video with the Biblical text. After you have watched it, complete the puzzle and “celebrate” its completion by giving Swedish fish to everyone.

Discuss the fact that many groups of people, not only Christians, consider the story of the Exodus to be their story. Muslims, Jews, and Christians other than Orthodox (Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians etc. etc.) all know and love this story. Why is this so? Because the Exodus is the story of God taking care of His people and saving them from the evil of the world. All believers in God are grateful to Him for protecting them and being with them.

Act it out
Tell the class that you are going to act out the story. Have them think what characters should be included (Moses, Pharaoh, Israelites, Egyptian charioteers, etc.) and assign parts. Talk about what the various characters will do. (There don’t need to be speaking parts--as you, or a student narrator, read the story from the Arch Books or Bible they will act out their parts.)

Some tips:

Let the head charioteers hold jump rope reins; have adult helpers “part the seas” by pulling on the velcro and parting the blue cloth; use a previously-hidden spray bottle of water and have soldiers “die” if it hits them, or throw the blue cloth over soldiers and have them “drown” that way. (Note: Change roles and act it out again if children are enjoying it.)

At some point either during and/or after this activity, sing the Holy Saturday hymn. Tell the class that we sing this hymn every Holy Saturday to remind us that God has always loved and been with His people, just as He is with us in every situation, good or bad. Review the words of the hymn.

Snack break

Using the signs with group names, have children go to their small groups with teachers. In the groups, talk about the significance of the lamb in the Passover portion of the video. (The Passover lamb is sacrificed to save the people. Jesus, the lamb of God, sacrificed His life to save us. We are saved from the everlasting power of death by His sacrifice. So for us, like the Israelites of old, death has passed over us.)Pass out plastic bags with a set of materials to make a lamb to each student. (See directions attached.) When they have finished, let them play with the lambs for a few minutes and review the reason why they made a lamb today. Have them store the lambs in their memory boxes.

Have them fill in the page in their memory books for this session. (Note: The first fill-in, “The Exodus took place in ________“, should be completed with the word “Egypt.”) Give students any help they need to complete the page.

Mural
Work with the group to draw, color, glue pieces to the roll paper for a mural of the Exodus. Teacher can sketch large areas of land and sea as students work on smaller pieces. Label each mural with the group’s name, and display the finished murals, stretching the project over another week if you need to have more time to finish. As you work, emphasize that the story of the Exodus is not only about the people who were actually there at that time, but it is about all of us who love God and live under His guidance and protection.

Close the session with a prayer.

B: Preteens

Begin with a prayer.

Ask the participants if they -have ever been on journey. Can they tell what the definition of a journey is? Have they ever experienced an exodus of a sort? Can they define what the word means? Is an exodus different from a journey? The same? Why? Write down suggestions on butcher paper as students are discussing their ideas

Read the story of the Exodus from a Children’s Bible, or use the section retelling the story from the movie “The Bible. ”Discuss what they were thinking and/or feeling during the reading or movie.Ask the participants if they know where in the world this was all taking place (geographically speaking).

On an overhead, show an outline of the area. Using a piece of plain white paper, they may copy it, or teachers can pass out copies for a closer look. They may color it in, label the important places etc. (The participants may now, using a tea wash, “age” a new piece of white paper.

Tea Wash Map:
Soak about six tea bags in a quart of warm water. Use paint brushes to lightly wet the papers with the tea water.While the paper is drying, lead a discussion about our “journeys” to the Orthodox faith. What are the initiation steps for us? Discuss how we leave our old selves, and become new people. How does our Baptism compare to the Exodus? What is the same? What is different?

When the discussion is over, the participants will then draw a “map” of their journey into Orthodox Christianity. Ask them how they think they will do this? What can they draw on their newly dried maps? How can they symbolize these important sacraments? Teachers and aides can help students with suggestions, and encourage all ideas. These should be personal renditions, with meaning for the individual child.When the maps are done, they can be folded, creased and rolled into a ball to simulate age, or left alone according to the individual wishes of each child.

Journals
After this is all done, each participant should write about their experiences for this session. They will be given a list of “Think and Write” prompts to encourage their writing.
(See attached list.)

Collect all the journals, as the teachers will be writing responses to each child’s writing before the next days session.