Daniel

This page is devoted to sharing the actual lesson plans I used while teaching Daniel to a preschool class in a Bible class setting. I also throw in a few personal thoughts along the way.

Below is a list of the lessons taught. Scroll down to view each lesson.

Click here to see and hear the song, Daniel, that is used during these lessons.

Daniel And His Friends Choose Good Food

This is our first lesson to study Daniel. We will have 8 class sessions. Each lesson will be studied Sunday AM and the following Wednesday PM. We will be studying:

• Daniel and His Friends Choose Good Food
• The Fiery Furnace
• The King’s Dream
• The Lion’s Den

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E. We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: Let children choose the healthy food to eat out of the plastic food in the classroom.

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart. We sang this song last month with Elijah. We’ll continue to sing it since it fits so well with God taking care of Daniel.

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chose to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to sit down on the floor in front of the flannel graph. We will just go over the first scene — Daniel and his friends choosing the good food.

Review previous lessons with the Song Timeline. This is just pictures from each lesson with the song glued to the back. The songs can be found at the “songs” tab above.

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), and the next 3 red cards (1/2 Samuel, 1/2 Kings, 1/2 Chronicles). Then let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

If there is time do the food matching folder activity. This is just a colored folder with different foods laminated to the inside. The children are to match the food (laminated individually) to the pieces in the folder. It will be great for the 2 youngest kids in the class.

Being the first lesson of the month, there aren’t a whole lot of activities to do. If there is any time left, let the children choose their favorite song to sing.

Prayer

Daniel And His Friends Choose Good Food Lesson 2

Sunday morning we had a class full. Our classroom is set up for 6 comfortably, 8 is a tight squeeze. We normally have 6-7. But, we had a couple of visitors and everyone that normally comes was there. We had 9 in class. It was a lot, but we had a good time.

Since it was the first lesson on Daniel, they were very attentive to everything we did. It’s always nice to have new material. I think the way we’re using a lesson for a month is great, but the change is nice.

Tonight’s lesson will basically be a repeat of Sunday AM. There were a couple of things we weren’t able to get to, so it will still be exciting for them. The older ones are enjoying the challenge of memorizing the OT books. The younger just play along.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: Let children choose the healthy food to eat out of the plastic food in the classroom.

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chose to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to sit down on the floor in front of the flannel graph. We will just go over the first scene — Daniel and his friends choosing the good food.

Review previous lessons with the Song Timeline. This is just pictures from each lesson with the song glued to the back. The songs can be found here: Bible Songs.

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), and the next 3 red cards (1/2 Samuel, 1/2 Kings, 1/2 Chronicles). Then let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

If there is time do the food matching folder activity. This is just a colored folder with different foods laminated to the inside. The children are to match the food (laminated individually) to the pieces in the folder. It will be great for the 2 youngest kids in the class.

Prayer

Daniel Interprets The King’s Dream

I think I said I would do this lesson 3rd, but due to my lack of memory, I thought I was going to do it 2nd. So, we’ll do it 2nd.

We will stress today that God took care of Daniel by telling him what the King’s dream was and what it meant. This saved Daniel’s and all the wise men’s lives. We will also stress that Daniel prayed to God for help with the dream.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: We will start our class with the prayer box — a box filled with pictures of things to pray for. The kids will get to choose 2 pictures out of the box and each will have a turn to pray.

Sing:Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chose to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to sit down on the floor in front of the flannel graph.

Review previous lessons with the Song Timeline. This is just pictures from each lesson with the song glued to the back. The songs can be found at the “songs” tab above.

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), and the next 3 red cards (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther). These are the last of the red cards (history). Then let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointerr. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

If there is time, let them choose food Daniel and his friends ate using our plastic food.

Prayer

Daniel Interprets The King’s Dream Lesson 2

Sunday we started talking about Daniel interpreting the king’s dream. Tonight we will spend more time on it. I’m concentrating on the role Daniel’s prayer played in the story. I’m not analyzing the dream. I want the kids to know that Daniel prayed to God when he needed help and that God gave him the help he needed.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: We will begin making “prayer boxes”. Pass them out and let the children color the pictures on the sides. After they are through, let the helpers (I’m going to get 2 mommas to come into class with me tonight) take them up and put them together. At the end of class, we will add the finishing touches.

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chose to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to sit down on the floor in front of the flannel graph.

Story Review: Use the Large Flannelgraph (Betty Lukens) to retell the story.

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), and the next 3 red cards (Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther). These are the last of the red cards (history). Then let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

Let the children glue the praying hands on to the side of the prayer box they made earlier. Talk to them about the importance of praying to God when we have a problem.

Let each child that wants to say a prayer.

If there is time, let them choose food Daniel and his friends ate using our plastic food.

The Fiery Furnace

This lesson does not involve Daniel, but since it involves his friends and is found in the book of Daniel, we’ll include it here. All of the stories about Daniel and his friends really tell us how God takes care of those that follow him. Even though it was not the popular thing to do, they worship God and only God. He rewards them greatly.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: Fiery Furnace Magnetic Puzzle

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chot to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to sit down on the floor in front of the flannel graph.

Story Review: Use the Large Flannelgraph (Betty Lukens) to retell the story.

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), and the books of poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). This is a lot to add at one time. I’m trying to get the older kids to memorize the books of the OT before the end of June. They’ll be moving up to the next class then and it would be nice if they knew them. Let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

Let each child that wants to say a prayer.

If there is time, let them choose food Daniel and his friends ate using our plastic food.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and The Fiery Furnace

We will continue the story of the Fiery Furnace tonight. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Oprah. Her show is about the Holocaust. People are inhumane. They have been for years. How anyone can ever imagine that burning someone or any other kind of barbaric death is the thing to do, I’ll never know.

I found a “furnace” that was made for another class the last time our congregation talked about this lesson. Since my class is not on the older classes schedule, I get to use and they can still use it when they get to it. It is about 5 feet tall and stands in the corner. It’s just made of a large box, spray painted to look like stone and has tissue paper coming out the top that resembles fire. It does the job, because as soon as my 5 year old saw it, he knew what it was. All the kids that want to will get a chance to go into the “fiery furnace” tonight.

We had 8 in class Sunday AM. When there are that many, there is no way to get them to all sit on the floor and pay attention to the flannelgraph or anything else we’re doing there. So, they just sat in their seats. It is a long time, but they handled it pretty well.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: Fiery Furnace Magnetic Puzzle

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chot to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to sit down on the floor in front of the flannel graph. We didn’t get around to this Sun AM, so we’ll be sure to try it tonight.

Story Review: Use the Large Flannelgraph (Betty Lukens) to retell the story.

Daniel Cheat Sheets PDF

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), and the books of poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). This is a lot to add at one time. I’m trying to get the older kids to memorize the books of the OT before the end of June. They’ll be moving up to the next class then and it would be nice if they knew them. Let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own. We’ll just do the same thing we did Sun AM.

Let each child that wants to say a prayer.

If there is time, show them the Frog Black Light. We’ve been singing the frog song and I have some live tadpoles to show them. I’ll try to bring them to class a couple of times a month until they are mature. There’s nothing like experiencing God’s creation so close up.

Daniel In The Lion’s Den

We’ve finally made it to the one of the most well known stories in the Bible. Daniel in the Lion’s Den is not just a story we tell little kids, it is true. It is a story about how Daniel worshipped God no matter what was going on around him. It is a story about how Daniel prayed diligently to God. It is a story of how God took care of Daniel. It is a story of how the power of God changed even the king’s opinion of Him.

Each class period, I’ve read the entire story of Daniel to the kids (using the flip chart). By now, they are very familiar with the story of the Daniel and the Lions. Tomorrow, we will get to hear the story with the regular flip chart, using a blacklight story, and we will hear the story using one of the clip and tell stories from Karen Henley.

For the last 2 class periods, I’ve accidentally left off something from the lesson plan. But, once I got to class I remembered it and we did it anyway. It was the small flannelgraph boxes. We have pictures of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the furnace. There is also an angel and felt fire. The kids really enjoyed doing these.

I also took the live tadpoles last Wed PM and told them the story of the life cycle of a frog using Palma Smiley’s Blacklight story. They really enjoyed this activity. I’ll try to bring the tadpoles every 2 or 3 weeks so they can see how they’ve grown.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E We are learning The B-I-B-L-E in sign language. The kids like challenge and so do I.

Opening Activity: Daniel In The Lion’s Den Magnetic Puzzle

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Flip Chart.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Black Light Story — Daniel

Attendance Chart — Our attendance chart this month will be just a plain white paper plate stapled to the wall. In the center of the paper plate is the child’s name with the words “Daniel chot to eat good food”. I found some great pictures of vegetables on the internet, that are copied and cut out. Each week, the children will add a different vegetable to their plate.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to get a pillow and sit down on the floor with it.

Story Review: Clip’n’Tell

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), large red cards (books of history), the green cards (books of poetry and the first 3 Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations). Let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

Let each child that wants to say a prayer.

Daniel In The Lion’s Den Lesson 2

This is our last lesson with Daniel. This quarter has gone by quickly. I think it’s because I was more prepared than I have been the last couple of quarters. In fact, I found an activity in my box a minute ago that I had forgotten about. We’ll make time to get to it today.

I’m going to draft some helpers tonight. We’ll be making lion puppets. I don’t usually do this type of craft, but this was irresistible. I’ll try to get pictures in a couple of days for you to see. The instructions came from How to Make Puppets With Children. I’ve precut everything and all they have to do is some gluing, but it is too much for me to handle on my own. I’m hoping to a teacher for every 3 kids.

My lesson plan is:

Sing: Jesus Loves Me and The B-I-B-L-E

Opening Activity: We’ll start class with the lion puppet. This will give everything time to dry.

Sing: Daniel

Daniel Sequence Cards: We usually do the flip chart here. Instead, we will do the sequnce cards (these are the ones I had forgotten about, and found in the box today). There is a set of large sequence cards (the pictures came from Soul-ly For Kids) so we can review the lesson as a class. Then each child has a set of small (baseball cards sized) sequence cards to see if they can put it in order themselves.

Sing: God Will Take Care of You using the flip chart.

Black Light Story — Daniel

Attendance Chart — Their attendance charts are looking quite delicious. They will get to take them home tonight.

As they finish putting their food on the paper plate, tell them to get a pillow and sit down on the floor with it.

Story Review: Clip’n’Tell by Karen Henley. I really blew this one Sun AM. I practiced a little more and I think it will look great this time. Sun AM the lion had 2 eyes, 2 noses and 2 mouths. The kids thought it was pretty funny.

Old Testament books — Work together with the large blue cards (books of law), large red cards (books of history), the green cards (books of poetry and the first 3 Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations). Let each child take a turn pointing to and saying the books on the wall with the hand pointer. After each child has had a turn, let them return to their seat. Give each child his set of OT cards to put in order on his own.

If there is time let them do the small flannelgraph boxes. This is a review of the fiery furnace.

Let each child that wants to say a prayer.

Pictures Of Some Daniel Activities

This is the attendance chart we did. The words in the middle say, “Daniel chose to eat good food.” Then the child’s name is underneath that. Each class session, the children added a different vegetable to their plate.

We made the lion Wednesday PM. It came from the book: How To Make Puppets With Children. I recruited 2 helpers for every 2 kids in class. I also did prep work to make the whole thing go smoothly (prepare puppet, cut pieces, add details). Each child had a baggie with all the pieces for their puppet. The teacher applied the glue, the child applied the pieces. The children seemed to enjoy it and they were proud of the product.

This is the fiery furnace I found in our storage room. A teacher made it for the 2nd and 3rd grade class. I think they actually did some dramatization of the story. My kids were offered the chance to stand in the furnace if they wanted to. Some were afraid, others loved it.