Bible Truths with Playdough

This past week for school, we discussed Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, yes, the same guys that demanded Jesus be crucified. This Pharisee, however, was very intrigued by Jesus' wisdom and teachings. So one night, he sought Jesus out away from the sight of the other Pharisees. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 "no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again [born from above]." This puzzled Nicodemus because it doesn't make sense for a grown man to be born from his mother again. Jesus told him, though, that this is a new kind of birth, one from the Spirit. Just a few sentences later, Jesus says the ever-popular "For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

Our kids have each celebrated at least one rebirthday (with the exception of Gabie, of course), so we thought post-Easter was a good time to discuss and review this on a deeper level. This is where the playdough came in!

For our "reborn" culmination project, I did a demonstration with red and blue playdough. The blue playdough represents us, with the spirit we are born with, full of sin already. The red represents the Holy Spirit, given to us through Christ's blood on the cross. When you believe Jesus died for you and ask Him into your life, you also accept the Spirit and the two spirits are molded together within us. At first, you can still see the different colors, slightly mixed together but all in one clump. As you mold them together more, the playdough starts to turn: PURPLE! Finally, we have God's Spirit to live a new life as children of the King, hence the color of royalty. As we were molding the colors together, we discussed some of the ways we let God's Spirit show us how to live and not live by our old spirit, such as praying, reading the Bible, seeking God's plan for our lives, and reaching out to others with the Good News. The kids all really got into it, and then of course just had lots of playdough fun!

Since the boys have really been into frogs lately, it was a given that they would choose to make one out of Playdough. This is Vince's masterpiece.


Vince also started making fraction pies with it, so we made it into a math lesson for Dylan since he hasn't started fractions yet. Vince could be a really good teacher someday! (Well, I suppose he already should be considered one! He's taught Dylan and Faith each how to do addition upon turning age 3, and I suspect he'll do the same with Gabie!) We all had a blast and it was so much fun for me to be a part of this instead of leaving it up to a sunday school teacher!PS: Don't blame Vince for the hair! We keep meaning to take him in for a haircut, so it's really not his fault!!!!!! (Truth be told, he's also really nervous about having someone other than Stacy from Total Image in Zimmerman cut his hair!)