Transportation Bible Story

It is sometimes easy to leave the Bible-story teaching to Sunday School…and I am definitely guilty of it. Yes, we read the boys’ Bibles each night before bed. But I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never taken the time to intentionally teach a story using an activity…until now. Our transportation unit provided a great opportunity for this!

If you think about it, there are a couple different transportation-related stories to choose from in the Bible. After all, the definition of transportation is, “a means of travel from one place to another.” So even walking through the desert for 40 years or donkey-riding fit the bill. :)

I decided to use the story of Jesus calming the wind and the waves while on the boat with his disciples.

“Then he got in the boat, his disciples with him. The next thing they knew, they were in a severe storm. Waves were crashing into the boat—and he was sound asleep! They roused him, pleading, ‘Master, save us! We’re going down!’

Jesus reprimanded them. ‘Why are you such cowards, such faint-hearts?’ Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: ‘Silence!’ The sea became smooth as glass.” -Matthew 8:25-26 (Message Translation)

We made a double-sided art project to tell this story.

Here’s what you’ll need: construction paper, paint and a paintbrush (I used tempera for the blue and watercolors for the black–crayons or colored pencils might even work better), two index cards, markers, glue, and a brad.

1. Have your little one paint the blue side. Let it dry.

2. Then paint the “stormy” side. Big Brother used the black watercolors. Let it dry.

3. While your child is painting, cut two boats, a sun, and lightning bolts out of construction paper. Also, use your two index cards to make one “sleeping Jesus” and one “Jesus calming the storm”. My pictures are terrible (and frankly a little scary-looking), but don’t hold it against me. :)

See? I told you it was scary.

4. After both sides are dry, poke the brad through one of the boat and then through the piece of painted construction paper, so that it can rock back-and-forth. Unfortunately I didn’t have any brads on hand and I couldn’t find any at Target, so I just had to make a pocket with the boat by gluing the bottom and two sides.

5. Have your child put glue along the edge of the sides and bottom of the other boat (so that it makes a pocket at the top). Glue the boat and the sun onto the blue side.