Circle time
5 minutes
As you begin the session, invite the children to sit together in a circle and if appropriate welcome parents to join you for this time. Encourage the children to share their stories and news from the past week, taking turns around the circle. Celebrate special events that have taken place, such as birthdays and take the opportunity to affirm each member of the group. Thank everyone for sharing their news and take the opportunity to pray together, remembering any specific prayer needs and thanking God for the good news stories.
Follow the leader
10 minutes
You will need: equipment for your chosen game
Begin the session by playing a game together which has easy to follow rules. For a small group, this could be a game like snakes and ladders or, for a larger group, parachute games would work well, such as cat and mouse, where children need to follow the instruction or rules given. Share the rules at the beginning to ensure everyone understands what they are allowed to do.
As you play the game, talk about the rules, as the opportunities arise. Don’t interrupt the flow of the game, but take little opportunities to remind the children why they need to follow the rules and why they matter, as you play together.
Bible story
10 minutes
You will need: ten large white cards; paint; paintbrushes
Begin the story by reminding children of the previous story, when God set his people free. Explain to the children that God’s people had to travel through the desert to the special new home that he had prepared for them. Then tell the story.
God’s people had been travelling through the desert and God was looking after them. He gave them food to eat and safe places to stay. Then God gave his people another gift - ten special rules to follow that would keep them safe. God called Moses to climb up a mountain to meet him there. He told Moses the special rules. God wrote them on a block of stone.
As you share the following ten rules, paint a simple symbol on each card, as described below and put on display. These should be done quickly, as simple line drawings to continue the flow of the story, but don’t rush through the retelling. Children could count on their fingers, to show the ten rules, as you do so.
- Put God first in your life. Nothing is more important than him. (Paint a large number 1.)
- Only worship God. (Paint a heart.)
- Treat God’s name with respect. Don’t say it as a bad word. (Paint a speech bubble.)
- Keep the Sabbath day special. You can work for six days but on the seventh day, you need to rest. (Paint someone sleeping, perhaps with ‘zzz’ in a speech bubble.)
- Respect your parents. (Paint a family.)
- Never hurt anyone. (Paint a sad face, perhaps someone crying.)
- Keep wedding promises. (Paint a bride and groom.)
- Don’t take things that don’t belong to you. (Paint someone holding something in their hand.)
- Always tell the truth. (Paint two people talking - each with a speech bubble.)
- Don’t be jealous of other people’s things. (Paint two people; one looking unhappily at the other.)
When Moses came down from the mountain, he shared God’s rules with the people. I wonder how easy it was to keep God’s rules?
Chatting together
5 minutes
Ask the children these questions, encouraging everyone to take turns to contribute:
- What is your favourite part of this story?
- When is it easy to follow rules?
- When is it more difficult?
- Why do you think God gave these rules to people?
- Do you want to say anything to God?
Creative response
20 minutes
You will need: play dough
Give each child a small lump of play dough and invite the children to work on their own or in pairs to create a model that either shows somebody following a rule, or breaking one. It may be obvious how this relates to the Ten Commandments or it may relate more to the rules that children are given in their homes, within the group or their care setting.
As they create their models, encourage them to talk about the different scenarios they think of, where appropriate talk about how these rules relate to the Ten Commandments, but the purpose of the exercise is not to learn the ten rules, but rather to see how they relate to children’s own lives and why they still matter to us today.
Prayer
5 minutes
Explain to the children that as much as God wants us to follow these rules, he knows that as human beings, we all do things wrong and find it hard to always do the right thing. God has promised us that he will forgive us and give us another chance to try again, when we say sorry to him. Invite the children to think of something they want to say sorry to God for, either aloud, or simply to say sorry silently in their own minds as you pray for them all.
