This week I have a lesson for you based on the life of Abraham. The main point to get across in this lesson is that God ALWAYS keeps His promises. What a great truth to hold onto as we go through our lives! I hope you have fun teaching this lesson — and that it will encourage and challenge you and your preschoolers to hold on — God ALWAYS keeps His promises!
Keep Serving Jesus!
God Always Keeps His Promises pdf
Opening Activities:
1. Play a fun “waiting” game with your preschoolers. Play some music and have the kids dance and jump around while the music is playing. When the music stops, however, they have to stand perfectly still exactly how they are and stay in that position until you start the music again. Have lots of fun with this! When the game is finished, say: What a fun game! You did a great job waiting for me to start the music again! Sometimes it can be hard to wait for something to happen. Today we are going to learn about a man who had to wait for a long time for God to keep a promise to Him. But God kept His promise to him, and God will keep His promises to us, too!
2. Get the kids ready for today’s lesson with this fun, tactile activity! Beforehand, purchase a bag of play sand. Give each child a cake pan full of play sand (or, if you’d prefer to do this with everyone working together, put the play sand in a larger container that all the kids can sit around). Let the kids spend some time running their hands through the play sand. Say things like, “How does the sand feel between your fingers? Can you hold a bunch of sand in your hand?” You might also want to provide some toys or containers of different sizes (like cups and bowls) and simply let them play in the sand for awhile. When you are ready to move on from this part of your lesson, say: Can anyone count all the little pieces of sand in your container? Let the kids try to count. That’s impossible, isn’t it? We can’t count all this sand, there’s just so much! This reminds me of a promise God made to a man named Abraham a long, long time ago. Come on over here and let me tell you more about it!
Bible Lesson:
Beforehand, gather the following props: 2 paper plates – 1 decorated to look like an old man, and 1 decorated to look like an old woman (cut the eyes out so you can put it in front of your face while telling the story), play sand in a container, a jar, water, confetti stars (or just confetti that you pretend are stars), blue food coloring
Bring all the kids to the area where you are going to tell the Bible lesson. Take out the paper plate that looks like an old man. This is Abraham. He is going to help you tell the story today!
NOTE: Have fun with this lesson! Change your voice to match the plate you are holding and become that character throughout the lesson. If you have fun with this, your kids will, too!
Hold “Abraham” over your face. Say (in an “old man sounding voice”): Hello. My name is Abraham. I lived a long, long, long time ago. I want to tell you about a time when God made me a promise.
Switch to the old woman plate. Hold this one over your face and talk in a very exaggerated old woman voice. Say: My name is Sarah. I was married to Abraham a long, long, long time ago.
Put the “Abraham” plate in front of your face. Say (in the “Abraham” voice): One day, God talked to me and told me that he was going to make me have many, many, many descendants. Do you know what a descendant is? Perhaps your teacher can tell you what a descendant is.
Take the paper plate mask away from your face and be yourself. Say: I would LOVE to tell you what a descendant is. YOU are a descendant of your mom and your grandma and grandpa. That means that you are their kid – you were born in their family after them. So when God told Abraham that he was going to have a lot of descendants, that meant he was going to have a lot of grandchildren and great great grandchildren and great great great grandchildren . . .
Put the “Sarah” plate in front of your face. Say: There was only one problem. In order to have a lot of descendants, you have to have a child! Abraham and I did not have ANY CHILDREN!!!
Put the Abraham plate in front of your face. I believed that God would keep His promise to me, though. But it took a long, long time. Sarah kept getting older, and still we had no children.
Put the Sarah plate in front of your face. Excuse me??? You got older too, old man! In fact, Abraham and I were WAY older than YOUR moms and dads and even your Grandmas and Grandpas and STILL we had no children!
Put the Abraham plate in front of your face. That’s right, we were really old. God had told me that I was going to have as many descendants as there is sand on the seashore or stars in the sky. That’s a lot of descendants! But how could that be? We didn’t even have ONE son!
Take the paper plates away from your face and talk to the kids as yourself. Say: Wow! Did you hear that? God made a promise to Abraham and Sarah, but it didn’t seem like that promise was even possible! They were really old and still didn’t have any kids. What do you think is going to happen? Let the kids answer.
Put the Abraham mask back in front of your face. GUESS WHAT? God kept His promise! Sarah had a BABY! She was over 90 years old, and I was close to 100 and SHE HAD A BABY!
Put the Sarah mask in front of your face. Say: YAYYY!!! I had a baby!! I thought it was so funny that I named the baby a name that means LAUGHTER – the name Isaac. Can you LAUGH with me? Encourage the kids to laugh.
Put the Abraham mask in front of your face. Say: God always keeps His promises. He made me a promise and He kept it – even though I had to wait a long time. Isaac grew up and had kids and his kids had kids and my descendants DID become as many as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky!
Put the Sarah mask in front of your face. Say: Remember, kids, God ALWAYS keeps His promises!
Put the masks away. Take out the jar, sand, water and confetti. Say: God made a promise to Abraham. What was that promise? Discuss.
Say: God promised that Abraham would have as many descendants as sand on the seashore and stars in the sky. Put a scoop of sand in the jar. Then add water and blue food coloring to give the appearance of the sky. Finally, add the confetti stars. You can mix it all up (like a snow globe) and watch the contents of the jar settle. After it settles, pray with the kids, thanking God that He always keeps His promises.
Additional Activities:
1. Make koolaid sand paint and paint with sand! This project could be messy but also oh so fun! Older kids can even help you mix the paint together! Use this on paper inside or go outside and use this as sidewalk paint.
2. Beforehand, make star sugar cookies. Provide frosting and sprinkles and have the kids decorate their own cookies! While you are working, discuss the promise God made to Abraham and how God always keeps His promises.
3. Healthier snack option: Provide a variety of fruit and have the kids make their own stars. For example, give them strawberries and grapes. The strawberry can go in the center and then grapes (sliced) can go all the way around the strawberry in a circle to make a “star”. You can also provide bananas and let them make sand!
4. Give your kids star templates and let them decorate their stars using whatever materials you have on hand. (There is a star template included in the pdf for this lesson). You can give them cut up pieces of paper, crayons or markers, pasta, or whatever else you can imagine! As they are decorating their stars, talk about the promise God made to Abraham and about how God always keeps His promises!
5. Let the kids make their own Abraham and Sarah masks – and then let them retell the story by using their masks to pretend to be Abraham and Sarah! Encourage them to tell their families the story when they go home!
6. Have the kids make their own jars to represent today’s story! Help them scoop sand into a smaller jar (try to avoid glass jars – plastic water bottles might work well), pour water in it, put blue food coloring and confetti (they can even make their own confetti if you want). Help them seal their jars and then show them how to shake them up. Talk about today’s lesson and about how God always keeps His promises while you are working on this project.
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Cheri Gamble 
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