A Family Reunion
Group Activities

Sermon Title: "A Family Reunion (Joseph and His Brothers, Part 2)"

Scripture Reading: Genesis 45:1-15

JAIL TAG:

Play a normal game of tag-you're IT... but the leader trying to tag other players will take the ones that are tagged to JAIL, over to the side.. in a place that is set up as a jail in our story today. Let children take turns tagging and putting into jail.

GOOD AND BAD SEEKING:

Play this game the same as Hide and Seek, but before playing the game, each child will be given a card with either GOOD or BAD on each card. There will be 2 "seekers" to find the others. One seeker will be looking for only the BAD card children and the other will be seeking for only GOOD card children. If the seekers find one and the card is not the right one, they must just walk on to find one that matches their GOOD or BAD card.

KICK BALL:

Let children line up against a wall or outside on a line. Children will take turns trying to kick a ball into a big box or an area that is taped or roped off as a JAIL. Let children know that they will learn about someone who was in jail in today's Bible story.

FIND AND SEEK MATCH GAME:

The teacher will hide one color of cards around the room with words from today's story. Then the teacher will also hide another matching color of cards that are different from the first cards that have been hidden and these cards will have matching words for the first set of cards. So one set of cards can be red and the other set of cards can be blue (for the matching words). Ex: the first colored card can say JOSEPH and the other colored card to match up could say COAT OF MANY COLORS. Another match could be POTIPHAR with the matching card to say the KING'S WIFE. One card could say JAIL and the matching card that the child would find would say PRISONERS, etc. When the children find all the cards they can match them up with each other and retell the story in our Bible lesson today.

FAMILY REUNION FROLIC:

Children can all sit together in the middle of a designated space to begin the frolic. Tell children to listen carefully and after this "family reunion", they will be able to tell today's Bible story. The teacher or leader will have large signs up around the room for the children to run, skip, hop or jump to as the teacher tells today's story. The signs will say such things as THE PIT, EGYPT, POTIPHAR'S HOUSE, JAIL, DREAMING PRISONERS, PHARAOH, HARVEST, JOSEPH'S BROTHERS, JOSEPH'S FATHER; HAPPY REUNION

DREAM CIRCLE:

Let children form a large circle and take turns closing their eyes and say, I"M DREAMING of.... and the child will give a small hint of someone or something in our lesson today, that the other children in the circle will try to guess, such as "I'm dreaming of someone with a coat of many colors (from last weeks lesson"), or I'm dreaming of someone in our Bible verse today whose brother's name was Benjamin, or I'm dreaming of Joseph and working in the house of the king's wife whose name was ?, or I'm dreaming of someone who GOD gave a gift of interpreting dreams, etc.

JAIL CHAIN:

Give children many small strips of colored paper to write words from today's lesson and then tape the loops of paper together to form a chain. See if the children can get a long enough JAIL CHAIN to wrap around all the children as they stand close together.

JAIL FINGERPRINTS:

Provide children with ink pads of different colors to make many fingerprints on a piece of paper for each child. They can either make JAIL bars over the fingerprints that have little faces, legs and arms added to the prints, or they can make a story out of their fingerprints for Joseph, Potiphar, his brothers, etc, if desired!

GOOD AND BAD BOOKLET:

Children can be given several small squares of colored construction paper.Hole punch the side or corner of the papers and tie together with string, ribbon or yarn. Let children write words or draw pictures on each piece of paper for difficult things that they might face and things that GOD forgives us for, or the GOOD things in life that GOD has blessed us with each day.

SING A SONG:

GOD IS SO GOOD

SHARE A SNACK:

Jailhouse snack would be bread and water, so the teacher can choose what type of bread and what flavor of water!!

Song: "God Is So Good" - Traditional

Words and Music (pdf)

MP3 Accompaniment Track

Song: "My God Is So Great" - Traditional

Words and Music (pdf)

MP3 Accompaniment Track

The above songs are in the public domain and may be downloaded and reproduced for religious or educational use by churches, schools, home schoolers, and other non-profit organizations.