Plague 1

Today we continued our exploration of the life of Moses by reading about the first plague (turning the Nile to blood) in Exodus 7:14-25 and looking at the Brick Testament depiction of this story. We then did a craft to depict the story for ourselves. See the pictures and videos below to get the idea.

For the craft, each child needed

• a piece of white (or beige) cardstock
• a strip of blue paper
• a strip of red paper
• a popsicle stick
• tape
• markers
• clear cellophane (optional, but very popular)

Since we had extra time at the end the children had fun embellishing the scene with miscellaneous arts and crafts supplies. They made reeds to go alongside the Nile out of green tissue paper and fashioned miniature Moseses out of corks, popsicle sticks, and cotton balls. 

To make the Nile

1. Fold the cardstock in half the short way (so it remains 8.5 inches on one side). Then open it up and fold one side in to meet the middle crease and the other side in just past the middle crease. (The creases should all be in the same direction.) Reopen the paper. You now have four panels: panel 1 and 2 are each one-quarter the width of the full sheet, panel 3 is slightly less than one-quarter of the width, and panel 4 is slightly more than one-quarter of the width.
2. Cut a river-shaped region along most of the length of panel 2 and cover the river region with cellophane by taping the cellophane over this region on what will be the inside of the panel when you fold the cardstock along the creases you've made.
3. Cover the inside of panel 1 with the strip of blue paper and draw fish on it if you like. You can now fold panel 1 under panel 2, so that you see the blue paper through the cellophane.
4. Make the strip of red paper just a little bit smaller than panel 3 (the smallest of the 4 panels) and tape the top half-inch or so of the popsicle stick to the red paper in the direction that gives you a really wide "popsicle". If you like you can draw dead fish on the red paper.
5. Cut a small notch, just big enough for the popsicle stick to fit through, in the middle of the crease between panels 3 and 4 and slide the popsicle stick through the notch so that the red paper hides under panel 3 when the popsicle stick is pulled as far out as it will go. Now, when you push on the popsicle stick, the blue Nile is covered with the red version.
6. You can now tape panel 4 to panel 1 under the river and tape up at least one of the sides to hold the contraption together. The kids thought it would be a good idea to leave one side untaped in case they needed to deal with any technical difficulties.
7. If you like you can decorate the top of panel 3 to look like the bank of the Nile and, if you've got time, supplies, and inclination, can make a Moses to stand there!