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31 Days of Drawing through the Bible

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

31-days-of-drawing-through-the-Bible

This month I am doing a series called “31 Days of Drawing through the Bible.” My children have been drawing their way through many of the greatest stories from God’s Word, and they have internalized those stories! Some of the drawings are hilarious. For many of the posts, I made a full unit study out of the Bible story, including videos, activities, and printables. I really want parents to bring Scripture to life for their children!

We began drawing back in January, so many of the posts are already here in the index. I will be adding the remaining drawings during the next few weeks. Enjoy!

  1. Drawing the Days of Creation
  2. Plagues of Egypt
  3. Tabernacle Diagram
  4. Gideon Unit Study
  5. David and Goliath Unit Study
  6. Solomon Unit Study
  7. Elijah Unit Study
  8. Ezra Unit Study
  9. Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls
  10. Esther Drawings
  11. Psalm 1 Watercolor
  12. Drawing Proverbs
  13. A Time for Everything
  14. Song of Solomon Printable
  15. Mount Up with Wings
  16. Job Unit Study
  17. Daniel Unit Study
  18. Jonah Unit Study
  19. Old Testament Drawing and Overview
  20. John the Baptist Unit Study
  21. Bethlehem Scene
  22. Foolish and Wise Builders
  23. Jesus Walks on Water
  24. Feeding the 5,000
  25. Triumphal Entry
  26. The Crucifixion and Resurrection
  27. Pentecost Activities for Kids
  28. I Corinthians 13: Love Illustrated
  29. Armor of God Diagram
  30. Hebrews Hall of Faith
  31. New Jerusalem Drawing

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If you enjoyed this “31 Days of Drawing through the Bible” series, you will love all the Bible activities inside the Unit Study Treasure Vault!

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Esther Drawings

Wednesday, September 24th, 2014

esther-drawingsWhen we studied the book of Esther, my kids re-enacted the story, colored some Esther drawings, wore Esther masks, and celebrated the Feast of Purim! We caught it all on film for our Esther Unit Study located in the Unit Study Treasure Vault. Today I would like to show you some of the Esther drawings.

One of my sons drew a banquet hall, since Esther invited the king and Haman to a banquet three times, trying to work up the nerve to ask the king to spare the lives of her people, the Jews.

esther-drawings-3Esther had to approach the king without permission, so she risked being put to death. The laws back then were extremely severe, and kings were treated like gods. Here is a drawing of Esther bowing to the king before speaking her request for him to come to the first banquet. She looks a bit like an acrobat, and my husband laughed hysterically when he saw this drawing.

esther-drawings-2One night the king could not sleep, so he had an attendant read some boring pages about the history of his reign. Suddenly he realized that he had never rewarded Mordecai the Jew for overthrowing a plot to kill him. When Haman walked down the hallway, he was called in to see the king. “What should I do for the man that I seek to honor?” he asked Haman.

Haman replied that he should ride on the king’s donkey and wear a royal robe and be led by a high official. That’s because he thought he himself would be honored. In an ironic twist, the king tells Haman to perform all those things for Mordecai the Jew, whom Haman hated!

mordecai-drawingHaman had been trying to put Mordecai to death by building a gallows for him, but in another twist of fate (God’s providential plan), Haman was hung on his own gallows. You will have to watch the fun video in the Vault, where my husband acted the part of Haman. We all shook rattles and booed whenever Haman came onto the stage as we were re-enacting the story of Esther. We had a great time!

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Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls

Friday, September 19th, 2014

nehemiah-rebuilds-the-walls

People made fun of Nehemiah for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. It seems like when we’re doing God’s work, we’re under constant attack.

After reading the book of Nehemiah, my children made drawings entitled “Nehemiah Rebuilds the Walls.” They drew a wall being built, and people laughing at the Jews for rebuilding Jerusalem. The walls had been torn down and set on fire when King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC. King Nebuchadnezzar also burned the Temple at that time and stole all the Temple treasures.

Seventy years had passed, and according to the book of Jeremiah, God would move the heart of King Cyrus to allow the Jews to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild it. Ezra had taken thousands of Jews back to Jerusalem, but for some reason the walls had still not been rebuilt. Nehemiah heard about the broken-down walls of Jerusalem, and he wanted to do something about it. He wept and felt a burden for God’s people.

nehemiah-drawingEven though Nehemiah was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, the king allowed him to take a group of people back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. Scripture makes it clear that prayer is what caused the king’s heart to be won over.

When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he rode on a donkey at night, surveying the walls to see what sort of damage there was, and seeing what would be required to build the walls back up. He later met with the officials of the city to draw up a plan for the reconstruction of Jerusalem.

When they started rebuilding, they made a lot of progress. Sanballat and Tobiah were the enemies of Israel, and they taunted and made fun of the Israelites for rebuilding the walls. They said that if a fox stood on the walls, the walls would topple down.

sanbalat-and-tobiahMy son who drew this picture of Sanballat and Tobiah has another guy hiding in a bucket. I’m not sure why the short guy is hiding in the bucket, but I just wanted you to know that it’s not a disembodied head. There are plenty of disembodied heads in Scripture (John the Baptist, Goliath, Saul, etc.), but this is not one of them.

nehemiah-rebuilds-walls-of-jerusalemThe people of Israel worked really hard and finished building the walls of Jerusalem in 52 days! That’s just crazy incredible! It showed that the power of God and His blessing was on this project.

nehemiah-unit-study

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Ezra Unit Study

Wednesday, September 17th, 2014

Ezra-unit-studyFor our Ezra unit study, we dramatized the events of the book, rebuilt the Temple with blocks, and made a craft to represent leaving Babylon and going to Jerusalem. We are creating unit studies for every book of the Bible, which you can enjoy in the Unit Study Treasure Vault.

First we acted out the different scenes from the book. King Cyrus issued a decree that the Jews could return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. He even gave Ezra money for the supplies he would need, as well as returning the precious Temple goblets and utensils to be used in the service of God.

Here is a drawing of Ezra leading the Jews back to Jerusalem:

ezra-leads-israelites

We made a model of Babylon (the gorgeous blue gate of Babylon), and we placed it on one end of a long table. (For instructions on how to make the Babylon model, watch the Daniel Unit Study inside the Vault.) On the other end of the table was a model of Jerusalem that we made. (Watch the Lamentations Unit Study to see how we made that model.) We grabbed some toy soldiers, and from one end of the table to the other, we moved a big group of people. Those were the Jewish people, thousands of them in real life were returning with Ezra to Jerusalem.

My son snapped pictures of the soldiers moving little by little from Babylon to Jerusalem, and when I edited the video, I had less than 2 seconds for each slide, fading into each other. It was really cool!

ezra-unit-studyAnother great activity that we did was to build the Temple with blocks. The block Temple should be a long rectangle made of 3 squares. The first square is the Holy of Holies blocked off from the other two thirds of the building. My sons wanted me to film and then speed up the video to make it look like they were building it fast. It was great! I thought I was going to have to strip off the sound and add a sound effect, but the sound of the blocks clunking in fast motion sounded like construction work! I praised God because I have felt His presence and blessing on each of these Bible unit studies!

After the Temple was constructed, the people rejoiced. Some of the older people who had seen Solomon’s Temple before the Babylonian captivity were wailing with sorrow while the younger people were shouting for joy. Here is a drawing of people rejoicing over the construction of the Temple:

ezra-unit-study-2

Ezra then read the entire Word of God to the people while they stood with their wives and children in the rain. They cried when they heard the Word of God because they hadn’t heard it in so long, and they had been walking in disobedience. They were convicted of their sin.

ezra-reads-in-the-rainThe book of Ezra ends with him listing all the offenders who had married outside the faith. The disobedient people decided to obey God and only marry people who loved the Lord.

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