Noah ~ Genesis 6:1-22

Scripture Reference
Genesis 6:1-22
"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thought of his heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.  So the Lord said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air - for I am grieved that I have made them.' But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.  This is the account of Noah.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.  Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.  Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence.  God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.  So God said to Noah, 'I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.  I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.  So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.  This is how you are to build it:  The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.  Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top.  Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle, and upper dicks.  I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it.  Everything on earth will perish.  But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark - you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you.  You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.  Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.  You are to take every kind of food that is eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.'  Noah did everything just as God commanded him."

Memory Verse
Genesis 9:17
"So God said to Noah, 'This (the rainbow) is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth'."  (We'll probably change out the word "covenant" for "promise", though we'll talk about what a covenant is.)

Planned Activity
We'll be making arks today!  I'm breaking out our recycling things and letting the kids make their own arks out of whatever they can find in there.  Then we're going to fill the bathtub with water (a plastic storage tote would work in a classroom) and see who's floats!
I'll be pointing out that Noah had to follow God's instructions for building the ark, coating it with pitch inside and out, using cypress wood, and following the dimensions that God outlined to Noah.  Then Kiera and I be talking about the importance of us following God's instruction as well.

How It Went
After reading the first sentence, Kiera said, "Mom, is this about Noah?"  Obviously, not a new story to her! :)  Kiera really enjoyed making her own ark.  She gave quite a lot of thought to making her ark waterproof and ended up deciding on a few cardboard boxes taped together to make her ark taller.  She taped the ends of the boxes to make it extra waterproof, "just like they used tar for the ark!"  Andrew's ark wasn't nearly as detailed of course, but he thoroughly enjoyed taking it into the bathtub with him.  Then he enjoyed sinking it on purpose and tearing the wet cardboard to shreds in the tub! :)  Even after I got him out of the tub, he kept running back to the bathtub with other objects saying, "boat float!"  Some of the items weren't even close to being "ark-like", but he really enjoyed our activity!  Kiera's ark did float...for a while at least.  She was excited about that.  We also talked about the importance of following God's instructions from the Bible

Other Ideas
It's extremely hot in Missouri today so we didn't do this, but I think it would be fun to mark out the measurements of the ark at a really big park or huge open field.  I don't think kids (and most adults for that matter) have any idea exactly how large the ark was.  Even saying that it was as big as so many football fields, etc. doesn't give a real picture.  I'd guess that giving kids a feel for the size of the ark would give them a new appreciation for the size of ark and the task of building it.  Even most pictures (coloring pages, etc.) of the ark I've seen show it as a fairly small boat.  I'd love to do this on a not-so-hot day!!