A few ideas on teaching the story............perhaps a few more will come to me in the wee hours of the night!
Art:
This would relate to the idea of a perfect world altered by sin, but would then point to the hope we have in the cross. Start with a pretty (and intact) china plate. The class will then have a chance to destroy it--perhaps by each one hitting it with a hammer or dropping it on the ground (perhaps putting in a sturdy freezer Ziploc bag to keep the pieces from flying everywhere!) You would then try to reassemble it--which isn't going to happen.
The kids then make a mosaic of a cross using broken china pieces. I think it would work best if the teacher already had some bags of broken china to hand out so that tiny or particularly jagged pieces don't make it in. You could lay the pieces in cement or some quick-drying substance (I remember using something from Crayola years ago that set pretty quick).
I like this idea--probably needs some thinking on how to make it "safe" so that you don't have kids slicing their fingers on the china pieces!
Cooking:
Making lemonade. Lemons = sour = sin. Each student gets a few lemons that they get the juice out of by squeezing and using a spoon as a "juicer". Have them work pretty hard at getting that juice out. Give each child a drop or two of lemon juice to taste. Still pretty sour. So hard work at juicing does not equal lemonade, just as our works don't get us our salvation. Then talk about what Jesus did for us = adding the sugar. NOW you have tasty lemonade.
Drama:
Instead of acting out the Fall into Sin, have the students act out the reactions of various groups TO the fall into sin. For instance:
- Animals--now they too will die; be killed for food and clothing
- Angels
- Devil and fallen angels
- God
