As I’m working to expand my Bible lessons so that each lesson provides everything you need to teach that lesson from preschool up through maybe middle school (I certainly hope those older kid questions do that). One thing I wanted to do was create a sensory bin to go with each lesson, but how to create a Jesus Feeds the 5000 sensory bin? That took me a long time to think through. It was a fun way to add on to the Feeding of the 5000 Unit.
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The trouble creating a Jesus feeds the 5000 sensory bin
I sat down to brainstorm my projects for this lesson, and I came up with a few different ideas that came up very quickly. I could make a basket, we could have some kind of fish and bread paper craft, and then a fun snack.
But what could I do for a sensory bin?
My previous Bible sensory bins had been ways to retell the story, but how would you put create a Feeding of the 5000 sensory bin that retells the story? The disciples and a great crowd and a small basket of food? That just felt weird.
Then I started thinking about the end result of the story. They gathered up 12 baskets of leftover food.
TWELVE baskets of food.
That’s when I started thinking about Montessori scooping and sorting projects.
I thought about how the disciples afterward had to sort all that food into baskets.
That became the thought process behind my Jesus feeds the 5000 sensory bin.
Jesus feeds the 5000 sensory bin supplies
brown pom poms, dark brown pom poms, fish beads (these are so pretty, not the same ones I found, I love the detail on it), Montessori scooping set (I really like this wooden set because it also has several containers); ALTERNATIVELY: small bowls, tongs and spoons
There are a whole bunch more ideas in the Feeding of the 5000 Unit.
In case you can’t tell, I like to use glass bowls occasionally because it can be good to teach kids how to be careful, but obviously, that’s just my taste. Also, that was the cheapest bowls I found to link to, though I did just find using slightly different search terms, these silicon bowls look intriguing especially since they have different sizes.
Let’s put together a sensory bin
As you can see, I mixed around the pom poms to have them all mixed up and scattered the beads around the bin.
I put the different “baskets” I picked out into the different corners of the sensory bin. As I started playing around with it I started thinking about different challenges you could give kids.
Challenges for Jesus feeding the 5000 sensory bin
Clearly, you could just leave them to play with the sensory bin, but why not expand on it?
- sort pom poms and beads by size into different baskets
- sort pom poms and beads by colors into different baskets
- try to pick up single beads or pom poms with the tongs
- scooping the pom poms with the spoon
- Sorting out the beads and pom poms into individual baskets
Clearly, this is just me brainstorming, because these are really obvious ideas, but maybe it’ll spark your brain to think of something more.
I had fun figuring out this one. It was a unique challenge to create a Feeding of the 5000 sensory bin.
More great Bible lessons
- 10 Commandments Prayer Stations
- Cardio for Christ
- Holy Week Devotional
- Gospel Actions Presentation
- Create a peg doll nativity set
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