Printable Bible Story Lesson Plans
- mel96066
- Jul 15
- 5 min read
My Word of the Year is PURSUE and I've been actively pursuing the completion of Printable Bible Story Lesson plans for you to use in your church or private school this fall. I've finished six stories that, if done rotation style, will likely get you through a program year when you add things like Christmas program prep, Cross+Gens, holiday Sundays off, etc, in.
So, lets talk about them! The first six Stories to be released are Days of Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Daniel and the Lions' Den, David and Goliath, and Moses and the Red Sea. These will work for four-year-old through 5th grade students (although I've discovered middle school students to love some of these Story engagement opportunities, too).
The lessons are PDFs for you to print. Each Story has a principal emphasis relatable to students' lives today to create faith with a pulse. How does that happen? Through four easy-to-use station guides. Each lesson includes Godly Bible Play, which engages the Story through a Scripture based activity, Godly Crafting, which focusses on craft creation, Godly Tech & Titles, which uses media and books, and, finally, Godly games, which reiterates the learning of the Story through purposeful recreational play. The station guides have EVERYTHING to make teaching the lesson easy. From the welcome, to the presentation of the Bible Story, to the questions to ask the students, to instructions for the engaging station plan, to what to do with extra time, right down to the words for the final prayer...it is all there. You can make as many copies as you need of each page to empower your leaders to be successful. This makes for no stress and no outside prep for volunteers, which strengthens both willingness to participate and retention.
So, how do these work? This is where you get to choose what would work best in your context. You could use the lesson like traditional Sunday School/Private School teaching and do one lesson every one or two weeks. The advantage to this particular curriculum opportunity in that case is you could pick perhaps two of the four station activities and merge them to create diversity within the Sunday School design. We know schools use multi-opportunity learning designs to keep students engaged in the educational process. Growing in faith formation should be no different. It keeps Bible learning fresh and exciting to keep student interest high. The intro and ending prayer is the same for every station, making a pick-your-own design easy.
Rotation design is another option. This means doing one station per week, staying with that Bible Story for four weeks (though I do have a Faith Formation with {Peanut-Safe} Food option that could provide a fifth week with three of these stories, if desired. The final prayer just wouldn't be the same on that printable so I'd suggest substituting the Bible Lesson beginning and final prayer so it keeps continuity. Students build the Story in these food lessons.) What does the multi-week design look like? If you are a very small group, you could do one rotation for your whole student group per week. When running this in a large congregation, I had all four stations going at once and ages were on a schedule for which rotation station they went to that week, obviously using many rooms. Hearing the same Story over a period of weeks allows students to go deeper into the Story, explore it more fully, and better be able to recall and retell details that both help them understand their God as seen in those moments in Scripture, and wider, their Lord's nearness as they experience similar emotions, questions, etc in their life today. Since with a rotation design students won't get every Story every year, the typical goal of the rotation model would be to plan the Stories so that students will get all the Bible Stories you wish to teach once within their Children's rotation experience.
When I recruited for rotation volunteers, I could ask based on what I knew those people loved. Think crafting is fun? "Do want to lead craft based Bible learning?" Like games? "Want to play fun games with kids so they better the Word?" (I discovered dads to have very high interest in the latter). In a church, it is a great way to get both male and female volunteer leaders involved because it fits their own passions, increasing their personal satisfaction while benefitting the students. If you are in a space running just one rotation per week, those station volunteers are only committing to once a month. If you are running every station per week, as I did, setting up teams for each station to provide scheduling flexibility is helpful.
Beyond that, in today's age when we often don't have every family in church every Sunday, rotation increases likelihood that each child will get to learn and participate with the Story during its teaching.
I've done all these stations and seen kids have a blast. I've had parents tell me stories of seeing their child holding their prayer pillow while they prayed at night and repeating words they learned when facing fear when they were scared themselves. This, in my eyes, is faith with a pulse. To tell students a Bible Story and create a small take home is one thing. To create space for them to engage with it in meaningful, exciting way is another that expands students' awareness from a Story of old to that of a faithful Lord who has been present for people before and is equally so when we experience aligning feelings or circumstances today. This promotes confident faith in a complex world.
Some lessons have additional printables to be used in specific stations or with free time. A list of physical items for each station is included so that you can get the amount needed for your specific group size from a place of your choosing.
I'm busy pursuing the completion of more Bible Story Lessons, but wanted to let you know about the new products because, as I type this, EVERYTHING in the Store is 25% off for my Christmas in July sale (inspired by my husband and I's 25th anniversary). Now is the time to stock up and save on Bible Story Lessons, Cross+Gens, bulletin board features, special activities, and more as you plan for your faith formation year. But, if you have a specific Bible Story you'd like to see me do soon, please message me and let me know so I can put it on my list :)
Enjoy what is left of summer. And, God's peace,
xx Melissa Nesdahl
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Other Kick Off prep items you may enjoy for your Church or Private School-
"You Are Worthy" Pumpking Prayers Cross+Gen (if you've never done a Cross+Gen before you've got to start with this one. It's a blast!)
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