Return from Exile

Video Station

Summary of Lesson Activities:

The students will watch and discuss Volume 7 in the DVD series “What’s in the Bible?" Volume 7 is called: "Exile and Return”.

The PreK students will learn more about prayer as they watch “Prayer Bear."

Scripture Reference and Key Verse:

See above to the first post. 

Preparation

1. Review Bible Background notes.
2. Pray for the children and for your teaching of the lesson.

Materials List:

• Bibles (found classrooms)     
• Pencils, crayons, markers, paper, scissors (found in guide boxes—kept in classrooms)     
• Storybook on Ezra and Nehemiah (described here) — printouts of this will be provided (for PreK)     

Bible Storybook Ideas:  You may read the story from the Bible or a Bible storybook (make sure that the children know this is a true Bible story and not a storybook).  

• Through the Bible in Felt—Felt Board and Figures        
• See List in Bible Background document

• DVD Player     
• Projector or TV     
• DVD:  What’s in the Bible? Volume 7: Exile and Return!     
• DVD:  The Adventures of Prayer Bear “Best Friends” (for PreK)     
• Large sheet of paper     
• Tape

Advance Preparation:

• Refer to schedule and decide how you will make adjustments for the different ages.      
• Watch the videos beforehand, so that you are familiar with them.     
• On the large sheet of paper, write the following (basically a summary of the video):  Kings have trouble being good – Theme Song – Where are we in the Bible? – Empires – Cyrus lets the Exiles Return – Sheshbazaar (and Zerubbabel) Rebuild the Temple – Ezra – Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls – Quick Review.  Tape to wall.     
• Before class starts, get the video cued up to the designated spot. This is especially important for the video with the older kids so that there will be time enough for the video and discussion.

Important Note for Video Station Teachers:

With video, we are tapping into the brain's love of media to teach God's Word and improve the brain's ability to recall it and embrace it.  It should not just be passive “sitting and watching”—we are engaging the kids with the video.  The “Pause” feature on your remote is a great teaching tool—build that into the lessons.  Stop and ask questions—did you notice such and such—what would you do—what do you think will happen next, etc.  Don't be afraid to view an important scene a second time (if time permits).

Before the video begins, assign them things to look for.  You might want to hand out paper and pencil to help out in this.  After the video, debrief and process the story:  What did you see?  What happened?  Did anyone notice ___?  What was the reaction of ___ to ___?  What would have been your response?

Familiarize yourself with the video before the day of class.  Before class starts, make sure that you understand how the equipment operates.  Load your video and get it to the starting point mentioned in the lesson. Some videos may take some liberties with the story-you may need to point out these discrepancies.

Presentation

Opening-Welcome and Lesson Introduction:

This lesson is for Grades 1-6.  Please see the end of this document

for the lesson for PreK and Kindergarten!

1. Introduce yourself to the students.
2. Introduce the day’s story/station and the main learning purpose:      For the past two months, we have been learning Bible stories about the time when God’s people were being held captive in a foreign land.  They were in exile.  The people we learned about were Daniel and Esther.  Now we will be learning about the time when God’s people RETURNED from exile.  They returned to the land of Israel and to the cityof Jerusalem.  We will be watching a video all about these two books of the Bible—Ezra and Nehemiah.
3. Open with a prayer.

Dig-Main Content and Reflection:

Please make sure that the students hear and “get” the Bible story as well as the application of that story to their lives.  The Bible story is the MOST important part of the lesson—it is much more important than the activity associated with this station!

There is a series of videos called “What’s in the Bible” that teaches about EVERY book in the Bible. We are going to watch part of one that deals with Ezra and Nehemiah. This is what the video will be going over.  Point to the large sheet of paper that you have written out:

• Kings have trouble being Good—a lot of the kings of God’s people had trouble following God and that got them (and the people) into some trouble     
• Theme Song—then we have the theme song     
• Where are we in the Bible—tells us a little bit about where these books are in the Bible     
• Empires—talks about the 2 empires that conquered God’s people and took them into captivity     
• Cyrus—this is where the exiles first start returning to their land     
• Sheshbazaar (and Zerubbabel)—there were several leaders in that first return.  The book that we read focuses more on Zerubbabel; the video talks more about Sheshbazaar.  They were both around.     
• Ezra—He came with the second group of exiles and helped teach the people     
• Nehemiah—He came with the third group of exiles.  Prayer was very important for him.     
• Review

Questions:

See 'Reflect Closure" section below.

Activities: Show video

From the DVD menu, choose “Chapters.” This will take you to the six chapters of Part 1.  Choose the first one, which is “On to Ezra and Nehemiah.”  We will be watching for around 8-9 minutes. STOP the DVD after Nebuchadnezzar is mentioned and you see his name written on a black background (we are going to skip the section on “True and Trustworthy.")

Go to the menu again and choose the chapter called “Cyrus Lets the Exiles Return.”  We will watch the remainder of this section, through the review of the stories and Buck Denver and Phil Vischer signing off. Stop the video when the scene returns to the car (it will be starting the story of Esther).

These 2 sections together will take about 26 minutes, which will be the majority of class time.

Reflect/Closure:

As time allows, ask a few questions after the video is over:     

• What did you like best in the video and why?     
• Why did God allow the people to be taken into exile? (they had repeatedly turned away from God)     
• God showed that He is in charge of all things—even people who don’t believe in Him.  Did the kings of Persia worship God and God alone?  (No.  But that didn’t stop God from using them to get His people back to Jerusalem)     
• Another important lesson from this story is that God never gives up on His people.  He kept His promises to the people in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.  And He keeps His promises to us as well.  He promises to love us and care for us and help us to believe in Him.

Close in Prayer.

Age Adaptations

1. Older students: None

2. Younger students: None

PreK-Kindergarten Adaptations

(Since these students have the need for simpler activities—and have shorter attention spans—we offer these more detailed adaptations.  In most cases, the main part of the lesson will be shorter.  The extra time at the end could be filled with various activity stations, such as play dough, puzzles, coloring, rice/grain table, etc).

1. Additional Materials List

         Plastic pencil box filled with song cards  (room 301)

2. Changes to Introduction/Bible Story

Say:  For the past two months, we have been learning Bible stories about the time when God’s people were being held captive in a foreign land.  They were in exile.  The people we learned about were Daniel and Esther.  Now we have been learning about the time when God’s people RETURNED from exile.  They returned to the land of Israel and to thecity of Jerusalem.  I am going to read you a little part of the story and then we are going to watch a video.  The video is NOT about the story of Ezra and Nehemiah.  But it IS about something that was very important to them.  Both of these men spent a lot of time praying to God, so we are going to watch a video about prayer.

But first, a little bit about the story.  God’s people had not obeyed God and had even turned away from God.  So a king from another country came and tore down their cities and took them away.  They lived as captives in another country for 70 years.  But then God decided that it was time for them to come home again—to return from the exile.  The king of this country sent a group of people back to their land so that they could rebuild their temple church.   Zerubbabel was the leader of this group of people.  Then a new king sent another man—called Ezra.

Continue by reading the storybook on Ezra and Nehemiah.  As I said, both of these men spent a lot of time praying to God.  So we are going to learn a little bit more about prayer by watching a video called Prayer Bear.

3. Changes to Activities

Watching the Video

Cue the video at the beginning.  You will watch the entire video, which will take about 24 minutes.

Questions

• What did you like best about the video and why?     
• When do you pray to Jesus?     
• What kinds of things do you pray for?     
• Why does Jesus like it when we pray to Him and why does He listen to our prayers?  (He loves us and He is our friend.

4. Changes to Closing

• Pick out 1 or 2 songs from the song box to sing with the class     
• Ask the children if they have any prayer requests.  If they are having trouble thinking of something—suggest that they think of something that they would like to say thank you go God about.  Incorporate all of these into your closing prayer.

Resources/Bibliography

• Neil MacQueen's Outline and Teaching Tips for What's in the Bible? DVD #7: Exile and Return ~ Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (available to Rotation.org Supporting Members here).

A lesson by Cathy Walz

A representative of Rotation.org reformatted this post to improve readability.