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This is the 2nd lesson in the series of lessons on the 23rd Psalm. To view a list of all the lessons in this series go to the 23rd Psalm Bible Themes Page.

He Makes Me Lie Down - Psalm 23:2
Written by Carolyn Warvel

Bible Reference: Psalm 23:2

Printable Bible Verse Cards -  Print out onto card stock, write the Bible verse on the cards and make copies. (Larger file or small file)

Teaching Concept:  God knows what is good for us even if we don't. Sometimes it seems like God isn't listening to us or answering our prayers like we want him to, but God knows what is best for us. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it.

Early Arrivals Activity

1. Work on "He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures" Activity Sheet

What you will need: Paper, flower stickers or foam flower stickers, crayons, glue, uncooked white rice, green food coloring, and Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol).

What to do:

1. Before class prepare the rice. Add a few drops of green food coloring and about a 1/2 teaspoon of rubbing alcohol to two cups of rice. Mix them together to dye the rice. Add more food coloring or alcohol if needed. Spread the dyed rice out on paper towels to dry. Print out the activity sheet and make copies.

2. In class have your children color the picture and then stick or glue on flowers. You can buy fun foam flowers from Oriental Trading Company. Type in 48/13380 in the search box at the left to find them. Or you can use silk flowers Oriental Trading sells Iridescent Fabric Flowers (type in 48/2126 or 34/927 in the search box) for $3.95 for 300. Or buy flower stickers at your local store.

3. Once your children have colored and glued on all the flowers they want, they can add the green rice for grass. Show your children how to spread a light coating of glue over the areas they want to add the rice. Then sprinkle on the rice to finish.

2. Work on "He Makes Me Lie down in Green Pastures" Coloring Sheet - If you don't want to use flowers and rice for the craft above, this picture also comes as a coloring sheet. The flowers and grass are already drawn in. All your children have to do is color or paint them.

The Lesson

Preparation: Put your sheep puppet in a duffel bag or sack before class. Draw a picture of a sheep that Woolie can bring out.

Woolie Learns What a Good Shepherd Is

I've invited our special guest back again today. I wonder where she is. (Look around and call for Woolie and then look in the duffel bag.)

Teacher: Woolie what are you doing in here? Where you sleeping? (Pick Woolie up and have her stretch.) Woolie it is time for Sunday school. You don't want to sleep through Sunday school, do you? (Woolie shakes her head no.) Woolie, why are you so tried? Didn't you get enough rest?

Sheep: (Woolie shakes her head no.) She brings out a picture of her friend.

Teacher: Oh, that is your friend, Fluffy. Did you stay with Fluffy's flock last night?

Sheep: (Woolie shakes her head yes.)

Teacher: Oh, that explains it. Fluffy doesn't have a good shepherd like you. Her shepherd lets her stay up all night long if she wants. The sheep in her flock are very noisy, fighting, and upset most of the time. (Woolie shakes her head yes and starts to fall asleep. Make her head gradually fall forward.) Her shepherd forgets about the sheep and doesn't care that they are fighting and upset. Aren't you glad you have a good shepherd Woolie? Woolie? Woolie, wake up!

Sheep: (Woolie wakes up and shakes her head.)

Teacher: I said, "Aren't you glad you have a good shepherd?"

Sheep: (Woolie shakes her head yes.)

Teacher: Well, we'll let you go to sleep now. Thanks for coming by. (Put Woolie back in the bag.)

Last week we talked about how David wrote a poem called the 23rd Psalm. It tells us that God is a lot like a good shepherd who takes care of his sheep. Does anyone remember where we find the 23rd Psalm in the Bible? Yes, it is near the middle of the Bible. (Let a child come up and try to find the 23rd Psalm in your Bible.

In the second verse (Open your Bible to Psalm 23:2 and read the verse.) It says, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters."

Makes Me Lie Down

Has your mom ever made you go to bed when you really didn't want to? I bet most of you have to go to bed before you really want to. Is your mom being mean to you? No, she makes you go to bed because she loves you. She wants you to get lots of rest so you won't be tired the next day. She knows that if you don't get enough rest, you can get sick a lot easier and you can't concentrate as well, and you get into more fights because you are tired.

A good shepherd makes his sheep lay down and rest because he knows that they need rest just like we do. He watches over them and keeps them safe so they can be at peace and get lots of rest.

God is a lot like a good shepherd. Sometimes we want things that are not good for us or that God thinks we don't need right now. Have you ever wondered why your prayers don't seem to get answered sometimes? Sometimes we ask him for things that he doesn't want us to have right now. He may say, "no" or he may say, "wait".

Leads Me to Safety

A good shepherd leads his sheep to places that are safe. He doesn't just let them wonder where they want. He shows them where it is safe to get a drink of water. He doesn't take his sheep to a rapidly moving streams where they might fall in a drown.

God is our shepherd. He is a good shepherd. He knows what is good for his sheep. He leads us through his words in the Bible. He gives us good advice about how to live. He also leads us through prayer and his Holy Spirit. He knows what is good for us. He may even let us go through some hard times because he wants us to learn to depend on him. But we can trust him that he makes everything work out for the good because he loves us.

Prayer

Father, We thank you for being a good shepherd. Help us to trust you and depend on you. We know that you love us and want the best for us. Amen

Crafts and Activities

1. Work on "He Makes me Lie Down in Green Pastures" Sheep Craft - Go to Paper Plate Crafts Pageon Danielle's Place for directions for this craft.

2. Make Still Waters and Green Pastures Crackers - Have your children ice half a Graham cracker with green icing and the other half with blue icing and then sprinkle green coconut on the green icing. Lay a Teddy Graham or marshmallow "sheep" in the "green pastures". Sent in by Nancy Foss (Picture sent in by Sylvia)

3. Play "Lay Down the Sheep" - Before class blow up ten balloons and draw faces on them for sheep. Roll up several layers of newspapers to make a "Shepherd's staff" and tape them closed. Spread out a green blanket or green paper at each end of the room for the "green pastures". Place the balloon sheep in the middle of the room on the floor. Pick two children to be the shepherds and give them each a "staff". Designate them each a pasture at one end of the room. Before each round remind the children that their sheep need rest and they should make their sheep lie down in the green pastures. On the word "go" the "shepherds" try to get the sheep onto their pasture to lay down. Players can use any of the sheep that are not on the green pastures. But any sheep that is on the "green pastures" can not be touched by the other shepherd. The game ends when all the sheep are laying on the "pastures". The shepherd who has the most sheep laying down on his "pasture" wins the game. (Sheep balloon picture sent in by Sylvia)

Comments about his activity - We have one child that is terrified of balloons and adapted this game using white plastic shopping bags stuffed with styrofoam peanuts and/or shredded paper. They don't float or guide as easily but it eliminated the fear and all children did play. Other possible substitutions might be white styrofoam balls or aluminum foil balls (made by crushing foil into ball shapes, adding layers of foil until the size of ball desired is achieved). For the "staff" use empty wrapping paper tubes or reinforce 2 paper towel tubes to make the stick/staff. Sent in by Dian Dodson, Missoula, MT.

4. Review the Bible verse - Before class prepare the Psalms 23:1-2 Verse Cube Black and white pattern or Color pattern. Print out the pattern onto card stock. If ou are using the black and white pattern , color two blank sides green, and the other two blank sides blue. In class have the children roll the cube. If a green side is facing up, the child should say the first part of Psalm 23:2 verse, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures." If a blue side is facing up, the child should say the second part of Psalm 23:2, "He leadeth me beside the still waters." If the picture of the sheep is facing up, the child should say Psalms 23:1. You can also give each child a small cookie when they say the verse.

If you have very young children, you may want to make the verses easier to remember. They can say something like, "still waters." or "green pastures." You can then say the complete verse for them.

Songs

1. Psalms 23:2
Sing to the tune of "Up on the House Top"
© 2004, Nancy Foss

He maketh me lie down
In green pastures,
He leadeth me beside
Still waters,
Psalms 23:2 tells this story
Snap you fingers and tap your toes.
Snap, snap, snap, tap, tap, tap,
Snap, snap, snap, tap, tap, tap,
Oh, Psalms 23:2 tells this story.
Won't you come listen and learn.

Copyright © 2004 Carolyn Warvel
Contributing writer Nancy Foss
Danielle's Place of Crafts and Activities
http://www.daniellesplace.com

All rights reserved.   No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information or storage retrieval system, except for local church or school use only.  You may not copy this lesson or part of this lesson and place it on another web site even if you include the copyright notice. This copyright notice must be included on all printed copies. Requests for permission to copy this material for any other uses should be addressed to Carolyn Warvel, 588 Duran Street, Henderson, NV  89015 or e-mail me at care@daniellesplace.com

Comments

We would love to hear your comments about this lesson. If you taught this lesson, we would love to hear how it went, if you changed anything, added anything, what age you taught and was it appropriate.  Any comments that would help others teach this lesson are welcome.

Hi Carolyn,
I have been using your 23rd Psalms series on my class of 2-6 year olds. Instead of making the sock lamb I am using a stuffed fuzzy lamb. The kids seem to be enjoying the lessons. Last week we did the little shadow box. Difficulty level was okay for this age. I had them color, then I had to fold tape and glue for them. They learned the memory verse easily. This weeks lesson I used the sack puppet for them to make and of course the printable color pages. My kids really like the memory card with the little rounded picture on the bottom. We have taped or glued these to popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners and even fingers for finger puppets. They really seem to enjoy these. The memory verse for this week was too hard for this age to remember. We tried but it just would not stick. Thank you for this series. We are enjoying it greatly. Bev (I have added a suggestion to the Bible verse memory game to make this game a little easier.)

Just a note to say that I used your craft idea for the sheep lying down in green pastures with the green-tinted rice. Both the children and parents were taken with the texture that the rice gave the finished product. Thanks for the idea. I enjoy your site very much. Jennie Shirey

I have been using your 23rd Psalm series with my Sunday School class of 2-3 year olds. They are doing a great job so far of memorizing the verses. The cube is a great idea.....They loved rolling it and then saying the verse that went with the color. If they rolled their cube and "Woolie" came up, they repeated the verse they learned the week before. My kids really like "Woolie" coming to class each week too!! Thanks for a great job. Donna Andrews

This week I am going to do a second "Sheep" lesson. I have a tongue twister object lesson that I am going to have them say, which I attached below.

OBJECT LESSON: "Seven Silly Sheep" tongue twister

Leader should say or read a few times:

Silly Sally swiftly shooed seven silly sheep.
The seven silly sheep Silly Sally shooed
shilly-shallied south.
These sheep shouldn't sleep in a shack;
sheep should sleep in a shed.

Depending on age of children, the leader may want to say a few times or have older children try to read it.

After saying a few times, say:

Should sheep sleep in a shed? Silly Sally thought so. The Shepherd isn't silly. He shows sheep where to sleep, eat, stay dry. He loves them and protects them and makes sure they are well cared for. Lisa

We are really enjoying these lessons. The craft ideas are great! I've used the picture with the rice grass (I added a stream to the picture before I ran it off and used butterfly and flower stickers). The kids loved the shadow box and the sack puppet. This week I am going to let them lead the sheep to green pastures and teach them to "follow" Jesus on the "right" path. They are learning the verses nicely. I have included some pictures of the "sheep" and the refreshments. I'm serving blue Koolaid to remind them of the "still waters". The plates are lions and bears! Keep up the good work! Sylvia

We did Ps 23:2 lesson last week. Our kids (ages 5-7) really enjoyed it. We used the color sheet (because is had the bible verse on it) and had the kids color it and then glued the rice on it. They really enjoyed that. We had 9 kids doing this project!! So it is easy enough that we didn't have to help them a whole lot and that sure helps when you don't have a lot of time. Looking forward to next week's lesson. Stacy

Wow, what a great idea with the green rice!!!!!!!!! My kids loved doing the picture and gluing the grass on. I usally have 5 children and 1 of my kids is going to bring a friend next week because she (friend) saw last weeks shadow box and wanted one too. Kids are great, eh. Nancy Vance