Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Just in time for Christmas next week we have made it to the story of baby Jesus! If you are looking for some fun and easy activities to do with your little one next week, look no further.

If you haven’t read the introduction to this series yet I recommend going here. For all the plans in one place, go here.


Week Thirteen – Baby Jesus


Focus Point

Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus the baby king.

Story Time Tips

  • We read “The Special Baby” starting on page 172 and “The Shepherds” on page 182 of The Rhyme Bible Storybook and “Who Saw Jesus?” starting on page 130 of The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers.
  • When we talked about how Jesus is the King (page 184 of TRBS), K remembered how last week we had learned that Daniel didn’t pray to the king. That led to a discussion of how Jesus is the King of the whole world, the King of Kings. We talked about how he is God, so it is okay to pray to him.
  • On page 180 (TRBS) we see baby Jesus in the manger. K found it was super silly to learn that the manger was where the animals ate their food – kind of like the dog’s dish!
  • After learning about the angels, K really enjoyed listening to Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Activity

If you have a kids nativity set (I recommend this one, but if you don’t have one try searching for “printable nativity”), use the pieces to reenact the Christmas story with your child. We’ve done this multiple times since K loves to play with his nativity and, though it is simple, it has really helped him remember the story and each person’s role.

Discussion

Parent: “Who’s birthday is it on Christmas?”

Child: “Jesus.”

Parent: “Who was Jesus’ mom?”

Child: “Mary.”

Parent: “Who was his dad?”

Child: “Joseph.”

Parent: “Where was he born?”

Child: “Stable/manger.”

Parent: “Who did the angels tell about Jesus being born?”

Child: “The shepherds.”

Daily Craft

Day One – Nativity Coloring Page

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/nativity-colouring-pages 

Day Two – Simple Shape Nativity

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

 

Materials needed:

  • White paper
  • Black marker
  • Yarn cut into small pieces (ours was off-white, but you could use brown or yellow)
  • Glue
  • Green construction paper cut into the shape above
  • Blue construction paper cut into the shape above and into a small oval
  • Brown construction paper cut into two small circles and one smaller circle
  • Gray construction paper cut into a trapezoid and two small rectangles

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.comThis craft is fairly simple and self-explanatory, so I didn’t take pictures of step-by-step instructions. All you need to do is glue the pieces onto the white paper like the above picture. When we were done we wrote “Jesus the baby king” on the bottom.

Day Three – Craft Stick Nativity Ornament

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

 

Materials needed:

  • Paints (we used blue, yellow, green, and white)
  • 6 wide craft sticks – three whole, three cut like the above picture
  • Glue gun (or your choice of glue)
  • Star cut out of paper or a cereal box
  • Black marker
  • Three small circles cut out of brown paper

I’ve seen these cute craft stick nativities floating around the internet and thought it would be fun to make. I found some instructions here, but ended up simplifying it way down for toddler hands.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Paint your star yellow (or silver, gold, etc).

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Paint the smallest craft stick white (this is baby Jesus).

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Paint the tallest craft stick green (this will be Joseph).

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Lastly, paint the second smallest craft stick blue (this will be Mary).

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Once the paint is dry, glue the brown circles on and draw some little faces.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Use the glue gun to glue the remaining craft sticks into a stable shape.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Then, glue on your Mark, Joseph, baby Jesus, and star.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Day Four – The Shepherd’s Sheep

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Materials needed:

  • Cardboard cut into the shape of a kidney bean
  • Two clothespins
  • Black paint
  • Yarn (we used off white)
  • Googley eyes (optional)

We had a lot of fun with the sheep craft we did when we learned about David, so I decided to search around for another one for us to do for learning about the shepherds and the angels in the Christmas story. I ended up finding the cutest little sheep and we had to give them a try!

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

First, paint your two clothespins black…

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

…and paint your cardboard piece black too.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Once it’s dry, pin the legs on like so. Also, learn from our mistake and make sure to check the clothespins before you use them – one of our sheep’s legs ended up being shorter than all the rest, so he couldn’t stand on his own.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Use some tape to stick your yarn onto the body of the sheep.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Then, wind the yarn around and around until the whole sheep body is covered.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Cute, ain’t he!?

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

If you’d like, you can finish by glueing on some eyes.

Baby Jesus - Play Through The Bible - Week 13 - www.simplelifemessylife.com

Then, it’s time to play!

Day Five

Since it’s Christmas week, we decided to keep it to just four days of crafts.

Extra Resources

We’ve been listening to Christmas music everyday using Pandora and K is getting good at picking up on some of the lyrics.

There are so many amazing Christmas resources out there, the real key is to try to not and do too much!


We will be off next week due to Christmas! Look for Play Through the Bible to return on January 1st!

I hope you enjoyed week thirteen of Play Through The Bible. I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or use the hashtag #playthroughthebible on Twitter or Instagram! 

 

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5 Comments

  1. cassy on November 29, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    I love your ideas for every bible story. I often use at least one in my sunday school class. But I have to say…I LOVE the Christmas sheep activity. These will be made at church as well as at home for my tree! Maybe even several. They are SO CUTE! Thank you for this site and all of your great ideas!



    • Liz Millay on November 30, 2016 at 8:18 pm

      I’m so glad you like it! 🙂



  2. Laura Peters on October 8, 2019 at 6:17 pm

    Is there a hard copy of the book with both old and new testament? Cause I ordered the volume 1 Old testament hardcopy and will like the new testament hardcopy as well



    • Liz Millay on October 9, 2019 at 3:35 pm

      Not yet! The New Testament version is currently in the works, but I do not have a release date yet. 🙂



  3. Cynthia Torres on February 6, 2020 at 12:58 pm

    I teach the 2-5 year old’s at my church and they love all these activities! We just finished working through the Old Testament weeks and are now onto the New Testament! Thanks so much for putting all of this so organized so that teachers like me can benefit and teach our little ones.