“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.” Matthew 14:19 (read the whole story here)
I have found that (my) children learn best with repetitive, hands-on play. I’ve been choosing to focus on one story and theme per week and retell it multiple ways each day. This also allows me to branch out of the Bible story to work on other preschool learning opportunities with Sparrow (4 yrs) as applicable. (ie. counting, alphabet, phonics, science…)
This week we covered Jesus feeding the 5000 as told in all 4 Gospels. I wanted them to understand the miracle. And then for them to know and see that Jesus can take a little and turn it into more than enough. I also wanted them to see that Jesus gave thanks to God. So we dove right in.
Paper Basket Craft
We first read an account of the story in a children’s Bible and talked about it. Then we created these cute sack lunches with 5 loaves and 2 fish. It was the perfectly timed activity because my kids have been in this “pack a basket” phase where they put anything and everything in bags or baskets and tote it around the house all day lol. I thought these turned out super cute. All we did was roll the bag down to the depth we liked, and then I stapled a sturdy (file folder strip) handle to the top. The kids decorated them. I cut bread loaves from cardboard so they would last longer than paper, and we snagged laminated fish from our fishing game. I love that there are so many options on how to recreate the loaves and fish for play. If you make or have already made something similar, let me know in the comments what you used!
Have a picnic
I packed a little basket of rolls, ham, and cheese; laid a blanket on the floor and we had an indoor picnic! It was a fun way to get in the story and talk about how the boy brought his lunch, so he could spend all day listening to Jesus.
Bread in a bag
This was so much fun to do! It may have been a little less chaotic if I only had one 2 year old to hover over instead of three, but we made it work lol. I ended up having to do the last of the kneading… play-doh is more forgiving than real yeast dough and they lost interest haha. But my goodness this bread turned out SO GOOD. I used one recipe per kid and we ended up with a ton of bread lol. But we ended up gifting some and using the rest for every meal that week, (we were out of bread anyways) so it worked!
Fish & Loaves Bracelets
These were super easy and fun – they each made several! All you need is pipe cleaners, dry penne pasta, and foam!! I cut out little fish shapes from the foam and punched a hole in them. We counted out 2 fish and 5 pieces of pasta for each bracelet and they got busy! They turned out pretty cute too!
Little or A Lot
I wanted to be sure the kids were understanding that Jesus turned a little bit into a lot – more than enough for over 5000 people. I reminded Sparrow when she went to pony camp and I packed her a little lunch. Just what was enough for her. I asked if she took that lunch to “big church”, and she gave her lunch to Pastor Chris, would it be enough to feed *everybody* at church??! No! It’s only enough for her! And that’s how much food the little boy had, but when he gave it to Jesus, Jesus *could* make it enough to feed *everybody* that was there that day… and it was so so so many more people than at church! We continued to talk about what is a little and what is a lot. This was a little extra activity, but it was a good visual for a little and a lot. Each kid made two cookies out of play-doh. I then gave them some beads and they made one cookie have “a little”, and the other cookie have “a lot”. Of course, it ended that both cookies had “a lot” by the time we finished, but the kids had fun – they said, “WHOAH, look its a LOT!”…so I called it a win lol.
BABIES IN THE WORD 
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