Elijah Unit Study Overview
In our Elijah Unit Study, we perform skits, do crafts, and create hands-on activities to understand the life of Elijah, the greatest prophet who ever lived. You can do these activities with your own children, or teach a Sunday School lesson to a group of kids at church. They will never forget the life of Elijah!
Elijah is wearing a simple cloak with a hood, but you can easily just wrap a white sheet around yourself. A stick from outside is your staff. If you have a wig, wear it. If you have another wig, tie a string around it so that it can become a beard. Or just buy a beard at a costume shop.
No Rain: Ravens Feed Elijah
We first see Elijah in I Kings 17, where he said that there would be no rain, and God answered his prayer by sending no rain on the land for three years. He ran to a blue blanket brook, where God fed him with ravens. If you have a small stuffed animal that is a bird, you can break off a piece of bread and hold it in the stuffed bird’s beak as it flies to Elijah. Elijah should eat the bread. God miraculously fed Elijah in this way until the river dried up. Pull the blue river blanket off the scene.
Miracle: Oil and Flour Not Running Out
Elijah finds a widow preparing her last meal for her son, and she fixes something for Elijah first. As a result, Elijah says that her oil and flour would not run out until after the famine. You can use the hands-on activity of pouring flour into a bowl and pouring oil from an olive oil jar.
Raising Widow’s Son from the Dead
Later the widow’s son dies, and Elijah prays that God would raise him from the dead, and He did! (One child lies down, and Elijah prays. The child sits up.)
Altar Show-Down: Fire from Heaven
Meanwhile Obadiah hid some prophets of the Lord, because wicked Jezebel was killing all the prophets of the Lord. Obadiah found Elijah and told him that King Ahab was looking for him. So Elijah appeared before King Ahab and told him there would be a show-down between the prophets of Baal and the Lord. Whoever had fire come down to consume their sacrifice would be the real God.
Place two chairs on the stage. One had the prophets of Baal going around it. They shouted and cut themselves, and Elijah mocked them and said, “Maybe your god is sleeping. Yell louder to wake him up.”
Then Elijah builds an altar (the second chair), and people pour lots of water on it. Elijah prays, and a cardboard lightning bolt strikes the chair altar. Elijah commands the priests of Baal to be put to death. Then he escapes before Jezebel hears about it.
Here are some activities for Elijah and the altar:
Your kids can also draw a picture about this powerful event. Here are some examples from my children’s drawings:
Elijah Encounters God
Elijah sits under a tree and wants to die because he is the only one who loves the Lord. God encourages him that there are thousands who have not bowed down to Baal. An angel prepares a meal for Elijah, and after the meal, he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Horeb.
On Mount Horeb, Elijah encounters God. He is not in the fire. He is not in the earthquake. He is not in wind. But He is in a gentle breeze that has a quiet voice. Here is a lift-the-flaps printable that illustrates this event:
Rebuking King Ahab: Naboth’s Vinyard
Jezebel had Naboth murdered so that her husband Ahab could take possession of the vinyard. Elijah met Ahab in the vinyard and told him that God would punish him. Ahab repented, and God said He wouldn’t punish his family until after his death. (The vinyard can be represented by house plants.)
50 Men Struck with Fire: Elijah’s Prayer
King Ahaziah sent 50 soldiers to capture Elijah, but Elijah called fire down from heaven to consume them.Throw a cardboard lightning bolt onto the soldiers. Do it again for a second group of 50 men. The third group’s commander asked Elijah for mercy, and Elijah went with him to see King Ahaziah. He told the king that he would die of his sickness because he had not consulted God.
Chariot of Fire: Elijah Never Dies
Elijah never had to die. He was taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire. Elisha saw him go, and he was granted a double portion of the Spirit which was on Elijah.
To illustrate the chariot of fire, here is a printable:
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If you enjoyed this Elijah Unit Study, you will love the Unit Study Treasure Vault, which has a huge Bible section full of ways to bring Scripture to life for kids. I’m filming all of these activities and putting them into the Vault!
This next drawing shows lightning, thunder, wind, and waves demolishing the house built on the sand. The house built on the rock, however, stands firm.
What materials you use for building your house also matters. My daughter drew a man building a house with sticks rather than bricks. She might have been thinking about the second and third little pigs from the Three Little Pigs story. But it’s appropriate spiritually that we not only have a strong foundation for our house, but that we build our house out of things that will last.
When Jesus explains this parable, He says, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.” Matthew 7:24-27 NASB
