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History

Unit 15 / Lesson 7

History

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Teacher's Prep

  • Games

    • Telephone

    • Memory: Team Edition

      • Prepare a deck of cards and set up a table for every group of 4-6 children. Ideally, the tables would be set up before the lesson, and put to the side until they are needed.

      • Check that the cards are shuffled before the lesson.

      • Set up the cards facedown in a grid, so that they can be turned over easily.

      • If you are not familiar with the Memory game, please see this video:

    • The Floor is Lava

      • Materials: 

        • Four chairs or pylons

        • Foam floor tiles – about four tiles per group of ten. For an idea of how these mats look, you can search Google for “foam floor tiles.”

        • Have foam mats ready in stacks, ready to give to each team

    • Paper Towers (filler game at the end if there is extra time)

      • Get familiar with this activity by watching the YouTube video below:

      • Materials:

        • 20 sheets of paper per group of four

        • 1 measuring tape

        • Have several sheets of paper on standby 

      • Before the class, have the sheets of paper portioned into stacks of exactly 20 sheets each, so that you can hand out the stacks quickly.

  • Main Activity (Sundial):

    • Concept

      • This website below will allow you to make a pop-up sundial that actually tells the right time. A proper sundial is not just a stick in the middle of a paper plate as you might see in some pictures; those will not actually tell the time. But, this website below calculates the proper spacing between all the markings, depending on your location on earth.

      • You will want to use the website above to print out a sundial for each child, plus a few spares.

      • Importantly: you will want to bring a completed sundial to the classroom to show the class so that they can copy yours.

    • Materials (for each child):

      • Sundial printout, obtained from the website above, after providing the website with your location on the world map.

      • Tape

      • Crayons, pencil crayons, and other things to decorate your sundial.

      • a paper plate to mount your sundial.

      • An L-shaped “corner brace,” about 1 inch x 1 inch, which can be found at a hardware store. 

        • The intent of this corner brace is to hold up the wedge of the sundial so that it stays at a 90 degree angle to the base of the sundial.

        • You may want to search up images for what a corner brace looks like.


    Intro

    SLIDE 1

  • Gathering

    • How was your week?

    SLIDE 2

  • Intro Game: Telephone

    • Instructions

      • Let’s start our lesson with a game. It’s the game of Telephone!

      • To play everyone gets in a circle.

      • Teacher: have students form a circle

      • Now take one step back so there's a bit of space between you, so you can't hear each other.

      • I'll whisper some words to one person. They can only hear what you say one time, and they can't ask for a repeat. That person will pass it on to the next person, until everyone in the circle has heard the message.Then the last person will say what they heard out loud to the group.

      • Teacher: You will want to use the phrases below one at a time. Note, you don’t need to use all the phrases. Easier phrases are towards the beginning

    • Telephone phrases

      • Blue bubbles in the bathtub

      • Dogs dig holes for big bones.

      • Really rainy rivers are wet.

      • A dog chooses shoes to chew.

      • Two tiny toads ate fat flying flies

      • The funny bunny hid the colored candy in the colored can.

    • Debrief/Relevance

      • In this game, we all heard a message, and we did our best to pass it on, but sometimes there were mistakes!

      • And if you were the last one to get the message, a lot of times you would have no chance of getting the message right.

      • It would be so much easier if we could go all the way back to the beginning, and hear the message just the way the first person heard it.

    SLIDE 3

    • Well, real life works like that sometimes. Sometimes people make mistakes because someone taught them the wrong way. Bad ideas get passed around all the time.

    SLIDE 4

    • But sometimes in life there is a way to go back to the beginning. We can read the stories that people wrote hundreds of years ago, or even thousands of years ago.

    • And, sometimes we can see where people started going wrong.

    • There's a word that describes when people study old things that happened a long time ago. The word is history.

    • And that brings us to our Bible story. Today’s Bible story teaches us why history is so important.

    SLIDE 5

  • Big Question

    • Our big question today is: Why should we learn history?

  • Big Idea

    • Our big idea is:

      • 1. History is a treasure to help US, and

      • 2. History is a treasure to help OTHERS

  • Bible Reference

    • That's what we'll see at the end of the book of Esther.

    • Let's start with a cartoon to catch us up on the story so far.

    SLIDE 6


    Point 1

  • The first thing we'll learn today is that:

    • History is a treasure to help us

    SLIDE 7

  • Game: Memory

    • Instructions

      • We'll start this point with a game called Memory.

      • Teacher: you may want to play this short instructional video if you think any of the children are unfamiliar with Memory (the card matching game).

      • In order to play, we need to set up a table for every 4 people (or 6 people)

      • On each table, we need to have a lot of cards upside down and spread out neatly.

      • Let's take a moment to set up the tables and the cards

      • Teacher: set up tables and cards with the children. Cards should end up in a grid formation.

      • Now everyone needs to find a partner, and when you've found your partner, go to a table.

      • Every table should have about 4 people (or 6 people). You and your partner should stand on opposite sides of the table, and you will be on opposite teams!

      • Everyone will go around the table turning over two cards, and seeing if they match. If they match, you get to keep the cards for your team. 

      • If they don’t match, you need to put the cards back the way you found them, so that you can only see the back of the cards.

      • Work together with your team and try to get as many matches as you can.

      • Teacher: run the game for about 10 minutes.

    • Debrief

      • In our game, we helped each other out by remembering things we've seen in the past. But, if we forgot what we saw, we would repeat the same mistakes. That's how history works. Sometimes it really helps to remember what happened before.

      • And we see that in the book of Esther.

  • Bible Reference

    SLIDE 8

    • In the book of Esther, God's people were in big trouble, because there was a law that their enemies were allowed to kill them all on a certain day. It was a law that couldn't be changed. All their enemies had marked their calendars to kill God's people and take their stuff.

    SLIDE 9

    • But, near the end of the book, Esther got the king to write a second law so that all of God's people, the Jews, could protect themselves and fight back against their enemies.

    SLIDE 10

    • The Jews had thousands of enemies, so the Jews gathered together to protect themselves.

    SLIDE 11

    • Esther 9:16 says:

      • “On the thirteenth day of Adar, the Jews in the provinces had come together to defend themselves. They killed seventy-five thousand of their enemies, but the Jews did not take anything that belonged to the ones they killed.”

  • Explanation

    • This verse tells us that God’s people fought to protect themselves. And as they fought, they remembered a story from history. The story was that a long time ago, there was an enemy just like this one, but God's people had made a big mistake. God had told them to fight but not take the enemies' stuff. Last time, God’s people disobeyed and took the stuff. That led to a lot of trouble.

    SLIDE 12

    • But, in Esther's story, God's people remembered what happened last time, and they knew they couldn't repeat the same mistake again. So, even though there was lots of money and nice things right in front of them, God's people just protected themselves and didn't take their enemy's stuff, because history told them it would be a mistake.

    SLIDE 13

    • That's one of the best things about history -- it warns us so that we don't have to make the same mistake that other people make. But, if we don't have history, we’ll keep repeating the same mistakes.

  • Application

    SLIDE 14

    • Some of the most useful history you'll ever find is in the Bible. The Bible is full of stories of people who made mistakes and suffered for them. The Bible also has lots of stories about people who did things right, and in the end it worked out for them. And, these stories were put in the Bible to encourage us.

    • So, when you hear stories, it’s worth asking, how can that story happen in your life? Because, history repeats itself.

  • Discussion Question

    SLIDE 15

    • Let’s pause for a discussion question.

      • We all have stories that we keep remembering. Our stories can come from the Bible, school, a movie, or from people we know. What's a story that you keep remembering? 


    Point 2

  • Our second point is:

    • History is a treasure to help others

    SLIDE 16

  • Game: The Floor is Lava

    • Instructions

      • Teacher: Set up four chairs at the corners of the room. The chairs should not be touching the corners of the room, but rather, they should be about 2 metres away from the perimeter of your floor space. These chairs will serve as pylons so that teams will go around the outside of the pylons.

      • We'll start our point with a game! The game is, The Floor is Lava!

      • So we'll split into two teams, and the goal of your team is to make two laps around the room. We have four chairs at the corners of the room, and you will need to go around the outside of the chairs. And once you go around the outside of all the chairs, you will go back to your starting spot, to complete the lap. And when you've finished two whole laps, you win.

      • But the only catch is, the floor is made out of lava. So, the only thing you can step on is these foam mats. So, you'll want to lay down some foam mats, and then you can pick up the foam mat at the back, and move it to the front.

      • There's no penalty for stepping off the mat, but just try to stay on the mat, because it's more fun that way.

      • Teacher: form two teams, and have them start at opposite corners of the room. Have them do two laps around the room, stepping only on their foam mats.

    • Debrief

      • In this game, some of us were at the front of our group, and we got to put down the mat so we could take the next step.

      • But when we put down the mat, it wasn’t just for us, but it was for everyone else who would come after us.

      • And history is like that too. History is good for us, but it's also really useful for helping other people.

  • Bible Reference

    • And that's what we see in our Bible story. Let's read the last bit of our story.

    SLIDE 17

    • Esther 9:20-23

      • 20 Mordecai wrote down everything that had happened. Then he sent letters to the Jews everywhere in the provinces 21 and told them:

    SLIDE 18

    • Each year you must celebrate on both the fourteenth and the fifteenth of Adar, 22 the days when we Jews defeated our enemies. Remember this month as a time when our sorrow was turned to joy, and celebration took the place of crying. Celebrate by having parties and by giving to the poor and by sharing gifts of food with each other.

    SLIDE 19

    • 23 They followed Mordecai’s instructions and set aside these two days every year as a time of celebration.

  • Explanation

    SLIDE 20

    • Even thousands of years later, the Jewish people celebrate this story every year. Every Jewish person knows the story of Esther because they all stop what they are doing, and they take time to tell the story again.

    SLIDE 21

    • It all started in our Bible story, when Mordecai wrote down what happened, and he made sure that this story could be shared and remembered by everyone, because it was a treasure worth remembering.

  • Application

    SLIDE 22

    • We can learn from this, because sometimes God does things for us that are so great that they are worth sharing. But, we need to take the time to get the story right. 

    • You can help a lot of people with stories. If you can learn to tell a story well, you can bring a story to life. You can practice telling all kinds of stories, and some day, you can expect to tell the most important story of all, which is the story of Jesus.

  • Discussion Question

    SLIDE 23

    • Let’s pause for a discussion question:

      • Do you have any tips for telling a better story?


    Conclusion

  • Today we learned about history. History is the study of things that happened in the past. Our Bible story encourages us to learn history for two reasons. 

    SLIDE 24

  • First, history is a treasure to help us. We can learn from the mistakes of other people, and we can also learn from what they did well. 

    SLIDE 25

  • Second, history is a treasure to help others. Sometimes God does amazing things for us, and we need to take the time to work on our story so that we can share it and help people with it.


    SLIDE 26

    Main Activity: Sundial

  • Now it’s time for a craft! Today we are making sundials!

  • Teacher: show your model sundial.

  • Sundials were some of the first clocks in history. People noticed that if they put a stick into the ground, the shadow would move to different spots during the day, because the sun would move. So, they marked the places where the shadow went, and that helped them to keep time.

  • And, sundials still work! The sundial that we're about to make will actually tell the time, even if you have no electricity. You just need to set it up once, and if you don't move it, it will always tell you the right time, as long as the sun is shining on it.

  • Today we're going to spend time coloring the sundial. Once we're done that, we'll cut it out and fold it so that it has a big wedge sticking out of it. This wedge has to be exactly straight up, so we'll tape a metal angle to it to make sure the wedge is standing straight up.

  • And when you take them home, you can remember, history can still help us if we know how to use it.

  • Instructions for the Teacher and Helpers:

    • Pass out the sundial printouts, one per child. 

    • Pass out coloring supplies and any other decorating supplies so that they can personalize their sundial. 

    • Once they have finished decorating the sundial, cut it out, and fold the wedge straight up. 

    • Tape a 90 degree metal bracket to the wedge, so that it will help the wedge stay straight up.

    • Mount the entire apparatus onto a paper plate.


    Optional Time Filler: Paper Tower Game

  • Instructions

    • Let's play one final game! For our final game, we will be doing the paper tower challenge! In a moment, we will form teams of 3 or 4, and each team will have 20 sheets of paper

    • And you'll have ten minutes to try to build the tallest tower you can, using just those twenty sheets of paper and nothing more.

    • If you really ruin a sheet of paper, you can trade it in for a new one, but you can only have twenty sheets of paper, nothing else.

    • Teacher: divide the class into teams of 3 or 4, and then give each team 20 sheets of paper. To keep track of time, set a ten-minute timer on the computer, OR search YouTube for "10-minute timer."

  • Debrief

    • This game helps us to remember everything we've learned today. If you want to build a tower, you need to remember all the lessons you've ever learned about tower building. And, if you build it well, it will be good for your whole team, and everyone who sees your tower can remember it for next time so that they'll do better next time.

    • That's why we need history, so that we can remember, and so that other people can remember, so that we can all live better lives.

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