OVERVIEW CARD Key Question: Bottom Line: Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son. Memory Verse: Bible Story Focus: The angel told Mary she would have a special baby. The Angel and Mary Luke 1:26-33, 38, 46 Coloring Page: An angel visits Mary. Music: It s Christmastime Best Present Ever I Like To Nobody Loves Me Like You Bible Lesson: The Beginner s Bible An Angel Visits Mary Pages 266 to 270 Story: Christmas Angels by Crystal Bowman Service Time: 58 minutes (week 2) 61 minutes (week 3)
ACTIVITY 1 2 s/3 s only Find That Bow Have the children find and collect different colors of Christmas bows. What You Need: A bag of small gift bows in a variety of colors, and Christmas wrapped box. Before the Activity: Place the Christmas wrapped box in the center of the room and drop the bows in the center of an open area around the box. Gather the children around the bows on the floor. During the Activity: Call out a color and encourage the children to find one bow in that color and place it in the box. Then repeat with a different color that you call out until all the bows are collected. (Some children may not know their colors and that s ok, just let them pick up any bow.) During the Activity: What do you see on the floor? (Pause.) Bows! Great job! Do you see how many different colors there are? I m going to call out a color and I want each of you to grab ONE bow in that color and place it in our Christmas box. Are you ready? Okay! Everyone find a RED bow! (Repeat with several different colors.) After the Activity: You know your colors! Great job, everyone. What do we use these for? (Pause for responses.) That s right; we use them when we re wrapping a gift. This month we re going to learn about the best gift ever! The news the angel gave to Mary really was the best news ever! Mary was scared at first when the angel appeared, until she heard his big news that she would have a baby! What was the name of the baby? (Pause.) Yes! Jesus! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son.
The image part with relationship ID rid10 was not found in the file. ACTIVITY 2 2 s/3 s only Best Present Ever Dance Off Have the children sing and dance to our fun Christmas music. What You Need: Christmas CD with Best Present Ever song and a music player During the Activity: Gather the children in an open area of the room. Play the Best Present Ever song and encourage the children to sing and dance along! During the Activity: Let s dance and sing about the BEST PRESENT EVER! God sent a special baby: Jesus! Are you ready? Let s dance! After the Activity: That was super fun! I LOVE to dance and sing with you, friends. The news the angel gave to Mary really was the best news ever! Mary was scared at first when the angel appeared, until she heard his big news that she would have a baby! What was the name of the baby? (Pause.) Yes! Jesus! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son.
The image part with relationship ID rid10 was not found in the file. ACTIVITY 3 - All Parachute filled with Bows Memory Verse Children will play with the parachute while practicing their memory verse. What You Need: Parachute and small bows During the activity: Place the bows onto the center of the parachute. Have the children form a circle and grab onto the sides of the parachute. Start off shaking the parachute slowly and then shake the parachute faster and faster until all of the bows have fallen off of the parachute. Collect the bows and start again. Once you have done this a couple of times have the children say their memory verse while shaking the parachute. At the end of the activity: Clean up all the bows and put away the parachute. Before the activity: Do you know what these are? (Pause) Yes, these are Christmas bows! I have a fantastic idea! Let s play a game with these bows. Are you ready? During the activity: I am going to place all of these bows onto the parachute and we have to shake the parachute until all of the bows fall off. Are you ready? (Pause.) Great let s GO! (After a couple of times) Now, let s practice our memory verse as we shake our parachute. Just say what I say. I bring you good news of great joy.. Good job! Let s say that again! (Repeat the verse together several more times.) At the end of the activity: WOW! That was so much fun! I love presents with bows, don t you? (Pause.) My favorite present is the present that God gave to all of us. Do you know what that present was? (Pause.) Yes! He gave us Jesus because He loves us so much! Yes! And why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son.
ACTIVITY 4 4 s/5 s only Presents filled with Bows Children will participate in a relay race where they fill baskets with Christmas bows. What You Need: Christmas wrapped box (2), red and green container filled with small bows and masking tape. Before the activity: Mark two lines with the masking tape on the floor where you will have the starting line. During the activity: Divide the children into two teams and have the children line up single file at one piece of the tape and the other half at the other piece of tape. Tape the cardboard box present onto the floor. Have the children pick a bow from the container and walk with it on their head up to the present. Once they have reached the present, have each child put the bow into the box one at a time until all of the bows are gone. Before the activity: Do you know what this is? (Pause) Yes, this is a Christmas present! I have a fantastic idea! Let s play a super silly game with the present. Are you ready to be super silly? During the activity: (Divide the children into the two lines.) I am going to tape the present onto the floor (point to the present) and each person gets to add a bow to our present box. Who thinks they can do this? (Pause.) Good, but you must walk with the bow on your head and not let it drop until you reach the present. (Pause) I told you this was a super silly game. Are you ready for our game? (Pause.) Great let s GO! At the end of the activity: WOW! That was so much fun! Presents can be fun in many different ways. I love to get presents, don t you? (Pause.) My favorite present is the present that God gave to all of us. Do you know what that present was? (Pause.) Yes! He gave us Jesus because He loves us so much! Yes! And why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son.
ACTIVITY 5 4 s/5 s only Color Your Angel Children will split into two teams and compete to see who can color their angels first by rolling dice and coloring in the number rolled. What You Need: Angel Activity Sheet, large foam dice, crayons Divide the children into two teams. Children will take turns rolling a dice and each team will color in the number thrown. The first team to color in the whole angel is the winner! Before the activity: Divide the children into two teams. Make sure each child has an angel activity page, crayons and one large foam dice per table. During the activity: What a pretty angel! (Hold up the angel activity page.) It looks like the angel in our lesson today! What is different about this angel? (Pause) You are right! This angle has numbers on it. Let s see if we can read the numbers. (Go over all the numbers with the children.) Great job! We are going to play a fun game with our angels. (Hold up the dice.) Each person on your team is going to get a chance to roll this dice. Once the dice is rolled, your whole team will color in the number shown on the dice. (Roll the dice.) (Point to the number on top.) This number has dots on it. Let s count the dots to see what number it is. (Point to the dots as you count them.) One, two, three, and FOUR! This is the number FOUR! (Point.) If this was during our game, you would color in all of the spaces on our angel with the number FOUR! You will keep rolling the dice until all of the numbers on your angel are colored in and the first team to color their whole angel wins! Are you ready to play? (Help the children with passing the dice and recognizing the numbers.) Great! Let s play! After the activity: Today we learned that God gave us Jesus at Christmas. Even before Jesus was born, people knew He was coming because God told them in the Bible. In today s lesson, we heard about a lady named Mary who was visited by an angel and was told some really exciting news! The angel told Mary that God was pleased with her and not to be afraid. God was going to give her a baby a very special baby! The baby would be God s Son! His name is Jesus! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son!
CRAFT WEEK 2 Angel Ornaments - Memory Verse What You Need: Angel Ornaments and memory verse labels. Give each child an angel ornament. Demonstrate how to use the pencil to reveal all the different colors. Once they are done add a memory verse label to the front of each angel. Before the activity: Wasn t our Bible lesson today amazing? God loves us soooo much that He gave us a super special present. Do you remember what God gave us to show His love? (Pause.) God gave us Jesus, His Son. In our Bible lesson we learned that Mary found out she was going to be a mommy to Jesus by a special messenger. Do you remember who told Mary she was going to be a mommy? (Pause.) An angel told Mary she was going to be a mommy! During the activity: Today, we are going to make an angel to take home that has our memory verse on it! (Hand out angels and scratch sticks.) Let s use these special pencils to decorate our angels. Oh, you guys are doing a great job! Such beautiful angels you ve made! Wow! Your angels are Awesome! At the end of the activity: Look at your awesome angels! They look fantastic! Our memory verse tells us that God has some WONDERFUL news for us! And that is that His Son Jesus was born! He loves us SO MUCH that He gave us Jesus! That really is news of great joy! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son!
CRAFT WEEK 3 Angel Craft What You Need: Angel and Background Activity Pages, medium-sized coffee filters, glue sticks, and scissors Before the Activity: Each child needs one angel and one background activity page. Each child needs one half of the filter. During the Activity: Give each child a light blue Activity Page and half of a coffee filter. Help the children glue the filter onto the Activity Page with the straight edge facing down/on the bottom. Give each child an angel. Help the children glue the angel on top of the coffee filter. The filter should look like the angel s wings. After the Activity: Say the Bottom Line together. Before the Activity: We are going to make an angel just like the one in our lesson today! During the Activity: First, we are going to glue on the angel s wings. (Glue on the filter or doily.) Perfect! Now we can glue on the angel. (Finish the activity.) Great job! Your angel is BEAUTIFUL! After the Activity: The angels you made remind me of our lesson today. The angel told Mary that she would have a baby! The baby would be God s Son! His name is Jesus! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son!
SMALL GROUP Small Group Time What you Need: Parent Take Home Card, Playdoh, Angel Cookie Cutters, Rolling Pins, and Sticker Roll SMALL GROUP LEADER (SGL): Today we got to hear the beginning of the Christmas story. Do remember what happened at the very beginning? (Pause for response.) Right! God sent an angel to tell Mary she was going to have a special baby named Jesus. Look at these cookie cutters. They are angel cookie cutters! Let s make some angels out of Play-Doh. Flatten out your Play-Doh. (Pause.) Now push down the cookie cutter. (Pause.) Look at that! You made an angel! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son! SGL: Yes! Jesus is God s Son! So every time I ask you: Why is Jesus special? I want you to say: Jesus is God s Son. Got it? Okay, let me hear you. Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son! SGL: Again! Why is Jesus special? Jesus is God s Son! SGL: I love hearing you say that! And there s more good news! Ready for this? (Dramatic pause.) Jesus wants to be your friend forever! It s true! God s Son, JESUS, wants to be YOUR friend forever! Who wants to be your friend forever? [Basic Truth] Jesus wants to be my friend forever! SGL: Today let s talk about our friends, and when we pray we can ask God to help all of our friends hear the good news about Jesus this Christmas. When I say your name, tell me some of your friends. Ok, it s time to review our lesson. I am going to ask you some questions and you will get a sticker for answering them. I have some really cool stickers today. Are you ready? (Pause.) Great! (Ask the children the questions from the Parent Take Home Cards. You can also make up additional questions from our video lesson. Don t forget to ask them to say their memory verse for another sticker. You can repeat the same questions over and over as repetition is good for preschoolers.) You are such great listeners! Now I ll pray before it s time to say goodbye until next week. (Read the prayer on the back of the Parent Take Home Card. )