Speaking in Tongues

For an idea of speaking in tongues, we purchased a card game called Bible Mad Gab very inexpensively at our local Christian book store. It consists of words on a card which when read doesn't seem to make sense but actually lists a bible sentence or phrase when the kids figure it out. It sounds like they are speaking in tongues but they are actually saying something of importance. It was a lot of fun and brought the point across really well.

Bible Banquets With Kids

The book, "Bible Banquets With Kids" (Abingdon, 2000, Cindy Dingwall) includes a program on Pentecost...music, movement,drama, food, crafts etc.

Wind Chimes

Kids can cut different sized dowels, or colored pvc pipe and string together using colorful yarn. Use handsaws (it's not as dangerous as it sounds!) and have helpers. You can pre-paint the dowels. Put a notch in one end of 'chime' to tie yarn to suspend from a horizontal dowel. Loop a hanger yarn.

Have a fan to test spacing and hanging of 'chime' rods.

Write keywords or verse phrases on the 'chimes'.

Pentecost Open House

Our first year of rotation we had an open house on Pentecost (the end of our school year) and the whole church was invite to go through all the workshops and participate in a short something in each one. Two I remember:

Art: Everyone traced and cut out their handprint from red, orange or yellow felt and someone helped them glue it to a large felt banner. The handprints started at the bottom with red, then orange, then yellow and were shaped into a large flame. At the top of the banner was a white dove coming down. We then hung it in the sanctuary during worship.

Games: With "Boomwhackers" everyone followed the colored notation for a song, which they couldn't tell at first what the song was (talking in tongues?) until it was played through -- it was "Happy Birthday." Fun! 

Editor's note: See a Music/Movement lesson that was developed with this idea of using Boomwhackers to play the Happy Birthday tune.

Breath Prayers:

(adapted from the book "7 Ways of Teaching the Bible to Children", page 91)

As part of the _________ Workshop, the children will be learning Breath Prayers. I would like for all of you to experience this way of praying.

Everyone should be seated comfortably. Talk about breathing, how we always breathe without even having to think about it. Take a few deep breaths and let them out slowly. Ask everyone to blow on their hands to see if they can feel their breath.

Say, "The Holy Spirit is always as close to you as your own breath. God is always with you."

"A breath prayer is a very simple prayer that is repeated over and over as you breathe in and breathe out. Say ‘Dear God' as you breathe in and ‘be with me' as you breathe out. Say it very quietly while you breathe. It will take some practice to talk quietly as you breathe."

Remind everyone that they can say this prayer anytime and anywhere and it will help them remember that God is always with them.

Author Jill Kemp has a number of FREE printable one-page Bible storybooks for younger children and preschoolers which use Richard Gunther kid-friendly illustrations.

NEW Testament storybooks:  http://www.lambsongs.co.nz/One...0Bible%20Stories.htm

OLD Testament storybooks: http://www.lambsongs.co.nz/one..._old%20testament.htm

These include both color and black & white story pages.

Free one-page printable storybook about Pentecost: http://www.lambsongs.co.nz/One...ge%20story%20col.pdf

You can find more free Bible illustrations by Richard Gunther at freeBibleimages.org and licensed for non-commercial teaching use. Illustrations by themselves are good for teaching non-readers and for using as "charade" or Pictionary clues, and for story-ordering games.

To see all of Gunther's other illustrated stories organized by Bible story go to https://www.freebibleimages.or...tors/richardgunther/

Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher, who teaches how God’s grace guides us to our birthright as beings made of Divine Love, composed this prayer litany of the Holy Spirit, imagining the Spirit’s many descriptive names.

One is invited to read these names of the Spirit slowly as a way to awaken to the Spirit’s presence in your life. Or, use them in your teaching to help children understand the Holy Spirit. My favorites from this list:

God Compass
Divine DNA
Planted Longing
The Welcoming Within...

A beautiful list!

Listen to Father Richard read 65 of the Spirit’s many descriptive names on YouTube.

The Cartoonist's Bible: ACTS is a printable or presentable PDF "graphic novel" of ACTS. It has a couple of pages on the story of Pentecost from Acts 2.

See our FULL POST with LINKS about this resource at https://www.rotation.org/topic...-more-acts-resources