Lost Sheep/Coin/Prodigal Son Sunday School Go-Along Activity

I tried out a verse activity with my 5th and 6th grade Sunday school class, that was nice and simple, but worked so well for bringing home the point of our lesson from Luke chapter 15 on the parables of the Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin and The Lost Son, I thought I'd pass it along.

Our church uses Sunday school material from LifeWay publishing, and the verse to go along with the lesson for the week was Psalms 107:1.  The memorization activity suggestion was to print the verse on a large piece of paper, have the children read it, then cut one word out at a time, having the children repeat the verse through each time, filling in the "lost" words from memory.

I modified the activity a little by cutting all the words out ahead of time.  Then, after our lesson, when it was time to learn the verse, I pulled out the hole filled paper, with the mixed up pile of words for the children to fit back in place.

What I didn't tell them is that before class, I had taken one of the words, and taped it under one of the chairs.  They saw me come into class, and set out the material in a somewhat disorganized fashion (coming into church with six children on a Sunday morning, pretending to be rushed and disorganized didn't take much acting on my part).

When the children discovered they were missing a word to complete the verse, I mumbled to myself  - "I wonder where it went? I know I had them all, this morning."

The children started searching under the books on the table, under the table, and finally under the chairs, where they discovered the missing word.  I waited a second as they processed the scene, and thought about the tape holding the word to the chair, watching as the light went on in their minds..."This is just like our story today...hey! You hid that word on purpose!"

It's great to be a Sunday school teacher.