Search
Danielle's Place and The Resource Room
| (If you would like to
print this lesson select the portion of the text you would like to
print with your mouse. Click on “File”, “Print”,
under “Page Range” select “Print selection”. This
will print only the part of the lesson you have selected.) Note: Netscape
Navigator does not allow you to print selections.
Back to School With a Leap This lesson was also written for older children (Click here to view the older children's lesson) Printable Bible Verse Cards - (Younger children) Print out onto card stock, write the Bible verse on the cards and make copies. KJV 100 dpi, KJV 72 dpi Teaching Concept: In this lesson children learn that we need to be prepared for school so that we will be successful. Not only do we need the right clothes and supplies, but we need to prepare our hearts and minds. Early Arrivals Activity
1. Make a Back-to-School Prayer Book - Print out the pattern 100 dpi or 72 dpi and make copies. Cut the pages apart and staple them together. Have the children color the cover in class. Show them where they can write in their teacher's, principal's, and classmates names so that they can remember to pray for them each day.
3. Make a Paper Plate Frog with the Bible verse in his mouth.
The Lesson
(While it may seem strange to use this book in your Sunday School class since it really doesn't have anything to do with the Bible and has no references to it, I feel it is a great way to get children thinking about how different we as Christian are supposed to be. Wouldn't it be great if a teacher in public school reads this book to one or your children and one of your children reminds everybody that Froggy forgot to pray? This is a great way to bring God into the public schools even if it is only through one child being reminded that Froggy forgot to pray.) Introduction: If you can find Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London in your library, you can start your class by reading the book. In this book Froggy has a dream that he forgets to get dressed for school and goes to school in his underwear. Read the book to your children. Ask them if they ever had a dream like this? Ask them why they think Froggy had this dream. Explain to them that sometimes we have bad dreams when we are worried about something. Ask them what they think Froggy was worried about? Do you think this could really happen to you? Do you think you would forget to change into your school clothes and go to school in your underwear? Probably not, if you forgot, I'm sure your parents would remind you. Being Prepared: How many of you have started to get ready to go back to school? What have you done to prepare? Have you gone shopping for new clothes and shoes? Have you grown out of your clothes from last year? It's fun to get ready for school; buying new clothes and notebooks, and brand new pencils, and crayons and other things. It's an exciting time, wondering what your new teacher will be like and who will be in your class. It can also be kind of scary. You will be meeting new people. You may be worried if you will know any one in your class, if you will be able to find your class, or if your teacher will be nice, or if you will make good grades. You need lots of things for school. You wouldn't want to go unprepared. Would you want to go to school without your lunch or money to buy a school lunch? No. Would you want to go to school without having something to write with? No. It's important to be ready for school; to have what you need to do well in school. It's important to wear the right clothes too. Underwear just wouldn't work in school. Being Spiritually Dressed: Froggy didn't really forget to put on his school clothes, did he? It was just a dream. Froggy did remember to get dressed for school and he did take his lunch box. (Show the children the pictures in the book of Froggy taking his lunch box.) But Froggy did forget something very important. Can you think of something very important that Froggy forgot? (Let the children give their answers.) All these things are important but there is something even more important that you need to be ready for school. You need to put on clothes, and you need pencils to write with, and paper to write on, but there is something even more important. You need to prepare your minds and hearts, the things you don't see. You're not likely to forget to put on your school clothes, but it's easy to forget to prepare your heart and mind because you can't see them. The Bible tells us (Open your Bible to Joshua 1:8 and read the verse.) "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." KJV "Study this Book of the Law continually. Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed." NLT This verse tells us how we can do good and be happy in school, at home, and wherever we are. It tells us to study God's words day and night. Studying school things, like reading and writing, is very important, but the most important thing is knowing God. So it is very important to study God's words and obey them in order to be ready for school. They will teach us how to treat our classmates, and get along with others. (Open your Bible and read Philippians 4:6-7), "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank Him for His answers. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus." TLB. It is important to be ready for school and the most important thing you can do each day is to pray and read your Bible. If you do this, you will be happy and God will guide you, help you, and teach you what you really need to know. Prayer Father, We thank you for our schools. We pray that you guide our teachers and principals. We know that learning things is very important and that you want us to do good in school, but that the most important thing we will ever learn is to love you and put you first in our lives. If we do this, no matter how well or how poorly we do in school, we will have a happy, good life. Help us to remember to pray for our teachers and friends and to make learning about you the most important thing in our lives. Amen Other Crafts
2. Make a survival Kit from a pencil box - Go to Just 4 Kids web site for directions. Activities 1. Play a memory game - Before class collect a bunch of school supplies. (lunch box, pencils, crayons, sandwich, hat and gloves, umbrella, books, notebook, scissors, calculator, ruler, etc. The older the children the more you can use. Place the things on the table one by one so that all the children can see them. To make it a little more interesting pull out some things that you definitely would not take to school such as a big teddy bear, a screw driver, a toothbrush, or a dog chew (anything you can find that wouldn't belong in school.) Tell them to close their eyes while you take one thing away. See who can guess what is missing. 2. Bible Verse Review Game - Cut out a bunch of lily pad shapes. Write the memory verse on the back of the lily pads, one word per lily pad. Leave some lily pads without any words on them. Place the lily pads on the floor with the words face down. Have the children sit in a circle around them. Tell them that we are looking for the Bible verse. Tell them the first word. Let the children take turns turning over one lily pad to see if they can find the first word of the Bible verse. If a child finds the first word he can tape it to the bulletin board. Keep playing until all the words are found in order and they are all hanging on the bulletin board. You can also place the lily pads on the floor in random order or in a path and have the children jump from one lily pad to the other in the order of the verse.
5. Froggy Shares the Bible Verse - Before class prepare the paper plate frog craft (above). Staple the sides of his mouth closed about two inches from the fold. Bend the mouth so that it stays open a little bit. Print out the picture cards (large file or small file) and cut them apart. Fold up the pictures and place them in the frog's mouth. In class tell the children that Froggy has a very important message for them. The only problem is he ate it and they will have to get it out of his mouth. Let the children take turns pulling a piece of paper out of his mouth, opening it up, and seeing if it is part of the message. When a child picks one of the words to the messagetape it up on the board. See if the children can figure out the correct order of the words. Links Oriental Trading Company has many inexpensive religious items such as pencil and erasers that would make great end of the year gifts for your children.
At the beginning of the week send your new students a welcom to class with this adorable "Don't forget to Pray" reminder postcard. Go to the Printable Sunday School Cards Page to print them out.
Copyright © 2003 Carolyn Warvel 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. This copyright notice must be included on all 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. Pencil or Crayon Holder Craft You will need: 1 3/4 oz. Pringles cans, colored peel and
stick foam sheets, (You should get three out of each foam sheet
cut lengthwise about 3 1/2 ". Measure to make sure.) Frog stickers. Your lesson was loved by the children. I must admit I could not for the life of me figure out why you had a story about a frog going to school for the story---But----it brought in the children's interest right into the lesson. I would like to see more recommended little stories to go along with the lessons. The children loved the Frog to dress. I gave the small ones a frog to hold as they first came and this distracted them until their moms left for church. I also did the lunchbag backpacks (Older children's lesson). Our church collected school supplies for all the kids along with treats, plus they had their backpack from your site. I added treats to this bag- and stressed--God's Words are sweet as candy! For the Bulletin Board, school cut-outs were used around our border. Used a picture of Church, Home, and School. The Seven Rules of Behavior were placed around the board with the Bible scripture beneath. Got a big response from the kids telling this and that. One little boy carried on telling us, only the Lord knows what, but he was sure enjoying the lesson. This is where I got the Seven Rules of Behavior- http://www.christianadhd.com/rules_niv.html We had a great lesson thanks to you, God, and of course - Froggy! We also covered the small Pringle cans with peel/stick foam for pencil can holders -- We used froggy stickers on the cans to decorate. Thanks so much, Suzanne I used this lesson with my group of 4-9 year olds. They loved the Froggy goes to School book, and the older children related very well to Froggy's dream. I think all the different verses on the "supplies" were a bit overwhelming for them. They tend to do better with one main verse with everything centered around that. (Older children's lesson) They loved the backpacks and took very good care of them, while they were in class anyway. Loved the lesson. Thanks. Barbara Thought you might like to hear our take on the back to school lesson,
which our 2nd and 3rd graders really enjoyed! I read the Froggy
book, which was a big hit and used the story to talk about fears
and concerns about a new school year. Then we discussed preparations
that the children made prior to starting school...new shoes, cothes,
supplies, etc. Then crossed the bridge to spiritual preparation
and shared the two verses for success. We then started our craft
time, and made the cute prayer booklet. The children seemed to have
real concern for their teacher, principal, etc. Then we did one
of my "inventions" where each child is given a tile from
Home Depot, one that is about 4 by 4 inches. I bought some frog
stickers and some frog foam shapes, as well as flower shapes we
used as lily pads. Typed up some F.R.O.G. titles with what it stands
for underneath, and they designed a tile with the frog theme...a
hit. Then for our last activity, I took the nice frog coloring sheet
(the large frog) and put a few of the scriptured school supplies
around it for them to color. After prayer time, we had refreshments.
To complete the theme fruit rollups, cherry flavored, became frog
tongues! I just wanted to tell you that I used your lesson idea ... back to school with a leap ... anyway it was a smash hit with my preschoolers. They loved making the frog bean bags and the story. They especially enjoyed the backpacks (Older children's lesson). If you could have seen there little faces light up when they got make there own backpacks out of those small paper lucnh bags. I cut everything out for them and they did the rest. I just wanted to let you know how much my pre-school class loved the Back to School lesson. We read the Froggy Goes to School book, then went into the lesson (mostly talking about remembering to pray before we go to school) and made the back packs. Then we played a game with the supplies in the back pack. They were too young to really understand the verses in detail, so I gave them an important point to remember for each item. Like for the pencil I told them God is number one (Older children's lesson). Each child took turns reaching in the back pack and pulled out one of the items. They then had to tell me the point it represented. We went around the room until everyone had a chance to take all the items out and tell the point. They are only 4 & 5 years old so it took some prompting to remember the points but by the time the game was over they could remember almost all of them. Thanks for your website. I really get a lot of help from you. I just finished Back To School with a Wednesday night group of 6 - 8 year olds. We had lots of fun! Since we only have an hour to do things, I usually have all the crafts things cut out and ready to go. That way I can do more activities with the children. (backpack, read Froggy Goes To School, went over the highlights of our school tools)
To draw the interest of the children to the lesson, I enlarged an old school desk. On it I wrote LEAP BACK TO SCHOOL. I also enlarged the hopping frogs on green paper and placed them all over the wall outside our room.
I made the frog bean bags to play the game and sent them home with the kids. They really liked the bright and wild colors I chose. I found a pattern for a frog blower at www.familyfun.com/magazine that the children had a lot of fun with. For treats we had frog cupcakes that you will find at the same source. Keep up the good work! Shirley Kent We tried the back to school lesson for our Sunday School kick off this morning. I have 2, 3 and 4 year olds. The kids really liked starting with the Froggy book. I would like to see more lessons that tie in story books with the Bible lesson. That worked well. We also played the game pulling the pictures and words out of the frog's mouth to find the message for the day: Don't forget to pray. With this age group I would like to see all of the lessons include a full page color sheet that sums up the lesson. Thank You, Kerri Rose
My Sunday school class did the "Back To School With a Leap" lesson today. I read the "Froggy Goes To School" book to them and they loved it! We did the lesson Back to School with a Leap. It was a good lesson. The kids enjoyed getting their own packs. We added a growth chart to our packs also. Stacy, Blue Baptist
|
2.
Make a frog beanbag. Go to the 
Preparation:
Before class gather the following items: lunchbox, pencil, ruler,
eraser, glue, and Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan
London
3.
Play a Beanbag Toss Game - Before class make some frog beanbags.
Go to the 
4. See whose frog can jump the farthest - Give each child a small plastic jumping frog from 
Outreach
