Baby Moses in the River: Exodus 2
What are you trusting God for right now? Can you imagine trusting God with your tiny three-month-old baby enough to send him floating down the Nile by himself in a tiny little homemade boat?
When the Jews were slaves in Egypt, God's blessing on them caused them to thrive in spite of the way they were being mistreated. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they [the Egyptians] were in dread of the children of Israel. ~ Ex. 1:12. So Pharaoh, afraid of their growing strength and power, ordered that all newborn baby Hebrew boys be put to death.
But God had a plan! Moses' mother, unable to hide her beautiful baby boy any longer, tucked him into a little basket she had waterproofed, then set him in the reeds by the river's bank. You know the rest of the story -- Pharaoh's daughter finds him, raises Moses as her own son, then unknowingly hires Moses' own mother to nurse him.
Moses' mother hid him in a basket, not a cupcake liner. But cute idea, huh?
Isn't that just like God? He asks you to offer something to Him so He can bless it about a billion times and give it back to you with a ton of other blessings besides. Instead of losing her baby, Moses' mother got him back and got PAID to do what she would've normally done if Pharaoh had not issued his evil command!
Anyway, the children love this story and can remember the details after going over them a few times. Here are a couple activities to help.
1. Moses in a Cupcake Basket Craft
2. Moses in the River Game
Moses in a Cupcake Basket Craft
Easy, easy! The only special items you need are the mini cupcake liners.
To prep
1. Copy the scene, Template A, onto white or off-white paper.
2. Copy Template B (babies) onto white or tan paper or card stock.
Supplies for Sunday morning
Scene to color
Baby to cut out
Scissors
Mini cupcake liner
Glue stick
Crayons or markers for the table
(optional) Scotch tape - 1 roll for each table is plenty
A tiny tape loop on the bottom of the cupcake liner makes it just sticky enough so that Moses can be easily moved up and down the river.
After gluing the baby into the basket, I like to put a tiny tape loop onto the back of the cupcake liner bottom so it sticks to the river, but can easily move up and down it. Go through the story again and talk about how Moses' mother must have felt when she put him in, how his sister Miriam watched over him, and how surprised the princess must have been when she found him in the water.
Moses in the River Game
I saw this idea on Pinterest, too. What a great resource it has been! (Disclaimer: I forgot to take photos of our actual "river" so I had to PhotoShop the photo below a little to give you an idea of what it looked like.)
We laid four blue posterboards end to end along one of the walls to be the river. Then got three green posterboards and folded them about 1/3 of the way down along the long side (see diagram below). We cut the 2/3 side into long grass shapes. Taped the short side under the blue "water" so the grass would stand up straight. (We tucked one of the green papers under the blue along the wall side, but taped part a couple of blades to the wall so that the rest of the blades of grass would flop over.)
We used a baby doll in our classroom and tucked him into a basket I had brought from home. We made about 6-7 game spaces on the river by tracing around the bottom of the basket. The kids took turns answering questions about the story, and when they got one right, they got to move the basket to the next space. Here are some questions you might use:
Who is our story about today? (Moses)
Why were the Egyptians afraid of the Hebrews? (They were growing in number and strength -- there were so many of them)
What did the Egyptians call their ruler? They had a special name for their king. (Pharaoh)
What evil thing did Pharaoh try to do to all the newborn Hebrew boys? (Kill them)
How did Moses' mother plan to save him? (Hide him in the river)
What did Moses' mother put him into? (Basket and/or river)
Who was watching over Moses when he was in the river? (Miriam, his sister. Of course, GOD is an even better answer!)
Who found Moses and pulled him out of the water? (Pharaoh's daughter/ the princess / the princess' servant girl)
What did the princess do after she found Moses? (Adopted him, raised him as her own son)
Who did the princess get to take care of baby Moses? (Moses' mother)
Who watches over us and protects us? (GOD!)
Have fun!