Today we will be talking about one of the most easily remembered story in the Bible. Joseph gets his coat of many colors, has dreams that his family will bow down to him and gets sold by his brothers. As I was reading this lesson to my boys this week, my 8 year old (who isn’t the best at paying attention while I read) perked up and couldn’t wait to tell me the story before I finished reading it. A couple of years ago, our VBS was on various young people in the Bible that grew up to do great things — Remember Your Creator.  Joseph was on of these young people that we studied. One of the things I like about our VBS is that it gives an opportunity for the children to hear the Bible story again with more time per class which allows for more activities that help cement the story in their minds. I think that’s why Benjamin remembered this one so well.

At the beginning of the quarter, I set some goals for this class.  They haven’t gone quite as planned but I think we are still going to have most of the goals met.  I had intended on quite a bit of memory work.  My classes are usually able to do this but it just wasn’t happening with this class.  There were a couple of reasons why.  One is that these kids are younger — I even have a 4 year old in class because she’s the only pre-schooler in the congregation.  The age is usually not a problem but these kids had not been required to memorize very much previously so they weren’t used to the whole idea.  I think it will improve as time goes one.  Another problem has been that I’m just teaching on Sunday AM.  If I were teaching both class sessions during the week I would be able to consistently review with them.  The last problem we’ve had is that I’ve been very distracted with goings on at home.  My 2nd son moved out (all the way to Florida) and it has taken a toll on me.  I have not been as creative and energetic the past few weeks as I could have been.  Excuses aside, here’s what we’ve accomplished:

Days of Creation They know the days of creation — at least as a group they know them.  I review with them and the group calls out what was made on that day.  Today I’m going to check and see how well they do individually.

God’s Promise to Noah: They know part of the promise God made to Noah.  I was wanting them to memorize Genesis 9:12-16.  They successfully memorized verse 12 and part of verse 13: And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:  I set My rainbow in the cloud.

God’s Promises to Abraham: I had wanted them to memorize Genesis 12:1-3.  Instead of memorizing it word for word, they have memorized the 3 promises — God will give him land, make him a nation and through his seed all the world will be blessed.

12 Sons of Jacob: We have just a few weeks left in this quarter and we need to get busy memorizing the 12 sons of Jacob.  We’ll start on this today.

17 Time Periods of the Bible: This is to be an ongoing memory project.  My goal for this quarter was to learn the first 4.  We haven’t worked on it much.  I need to concentrate on it these last few weeks.  See lesson the promise to Abraham for this list.

 Lesson Plan:

Review: Using the timeline, review the whole Bible story.  Review memory work as it comes up in the story (Days of Creation at beginning, Promise to Noah when we get to the story of Noah, Promises to Abraham when we get to Abraham).

17 Time Periods: Reintroduce the 4 time periods we have studied so far.

Today’s Lesson: Reading from the Bible, tell the story of Joseph.

Sing: Joseph

Prayer