Marble Maze (+ A Bible Lesson)

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Welcome to Making Boys Men!  Today's post is split into two sections the craft - fun maze ideas - and the Bible bit.  Why split it in two?  Well, I think the craft and play ideas are pretty cool, but recognise that faith related stuff might not be everyone's cup of tea so this way everyone gets the craft bit and then can choose if they want to read on or not.  Whatever your preference I hope you enjoy and stop back soon!

Since Bud turned four he's really got in to mazes, he has always enjoyed puzzles and he thinks mazes are pretty cool so we've had a fair bit of maze fun recently.  I had some cardboard box packaging that I was going to bin, but instead thought I'd try my hand at making a marble maze.  I've pinned quite a few of these, but the post that got me kick started was from Teach Preschool. 

I hot glued some cut up bendy straws to create the maze then decorated it with pens stickers and bits of cut up coloured paper.  This is the end result...

So, why stop at one?  I made a few more, in fact I made over twenty more using cereal boxes as we used them for my Sunday School class craft (see below).

This time I got the boys (and the kids in my class) to decorate their own.  Instead of using actual marbles I rolled up balls of plasticine to make the 'marble'.  This is Bud's finished maze:

And this is Hubby and Bud playing with one.  Bud actually thought he was pretty cool when he was able to cheat and make the ball jump over the walls!

If your kids like mazes then you might also like some of the other mazes we've created.  How about a lego maze?  I used our Duplo bricks to create this maze then the boys rolled a small ball round it (I got the idea from here).

Or, you could try a giant maze.  The boys and Hubby came up with this all on their own!  They got loads of toys out and created the maze walls with them then had races trying to see who could get through the maze the quickest.

Hope you get to have maze fun with your kids!  If you want to see how you could use these ideas in a Sunday School class, a family devotional or Bible lesson then read on......

Welcome to part two of the post!  To give you a bit of context I teach a Sunday School class of about twenty kids age 2 to 5, and this is a rough outline of a class that I taught them, but it is also very similar to the type of studies that I sometimes do at home with the boys.  I hope it's helpful.....

By now you're probably wondering what on earth mazes have to do with the Bible!  Well I used the maze craft when I was teaching the story of Jesus as a boy getting lost in Jerusalem and being found my Mary and Joseph in the temple.  I always start writing the lessons by thinking 'what does this story teach us?  what do I want the kids to learn?' and from there I create a summary sentence which for this story is.... Jesus knew that God was his father.  When I tell the story, link in the craft or game I try to repeat this phrase as much as possible.

I start the lesson time with what I call a story engagement, something that'll grab their attention and creates a bit of interaction so they are ready to listen.  In this case I had pictures of baby animals (foal, kitten, puppy, tadpole) and adult or mummy animals (horse, cat, dog, frog) and asked if the kids knew whose baby was whose.  The link being 'well, today's Bible story is also about a Mummy finding her son, today we're going to read about when Jesus was lost'.

Then I read the story using the The Beginner's Bible (affiliate link) which I think is a really great resource.  Then I read it again summarising each picture and using the summary sentence again.

 

You could also ask the kids questions to ensure they've understood the story.  My suggestions are:

Q: Where did Mary and Joseph find Jesus? 
A: In the temple

Q: Did Jesus know that God was his Father?
A: Yes

Then we did the craft linking in being lost with mazes

Then we had a game, I taped out electrical tape on the wall so the kids could trace their fingers along the lines.  I used the Mummy and baby animal pictures again with the Mum at one end and the baby at the other end.  Or you could use the maze games above or make maze lines on the floor like we did in our sticky tape post.

I create a take home sheet each week using a colouring page like this one (found through google images, bit old fashioned), but you could also print out some mazes like the ones here.

If this post is at all helpful to you do let me know, or if you have any suggestions as to what else might help you if you teach Sunday School or do your own home Bible studies, I'd love to hear from you!  All tips and hints very welcome!