Joshua and the Spies (Numbers 13)

This is the story where Joshua sends 12 men to find out what Canaan looks like, and gets mixed reports - giant fruit, but also giants!  I went for the theme of "exploring" from this story.

We started with plastic fruit "hidden" all round the room (mostly under chairs, in plain sight!).  As the children came in from church, I told them all that today's story was about exploring, and I needed some explorers to find the fruit hidden all over the room - then bring it back to the mat.

When all (well, most) of the fruit had been retrieved, we handed out drinks & biscuits, then looked at all the fruit we had found.  Could we name it all?  What's this one called?  How many pears do we have?  Etc.

Then it was story time.  I recapped where we had got to last time (Israelites had escaped from Egypt, and had got the the desert, on their way to the promised land). I used the "Beginners Bible" version, which has the giant bunch of grapes on one side of a double spread and the rest of the spies looking scared on the other side.  We talked about feeling hopeful vs feeling scared, and how we should trust in God, even when we're scared.

Then it was time to act out the story.  I had prepared a giant bunch of grapes, using a net bag filled with green ball pit balls.  With a chunky stick from the churchyard through the handle of the bag, I got two of the children to carry it round as we all went exploring together.  I used the tune/pattern of "We're going on a bear hunt":

Chorus:
We're going to the promised land. (children repeat)
But we're not scared. (children repeat)
What a beautiful day! (children repeat)

Uh, oh - grass!  Long, swishy grass!
We can't go over it. (repeat)
We can't go under it. (repeat)
We've got to go through it! (repeat)
Swishy, swashy, swishy swashy, etc. (with actions of sweeping the grass out of the way)

Chorus

Uh, oh - a river!  A deep, wide river!
Splish, splosh, etc.

Chorus

Uh, oh, mud!  Sticky, squelchy mud!
Squelch, squelch, etc.

Chorus

Uh, oh, giants!  Big, scary giants!
Quick, back through the mud, squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch,
back through the river, splish, splash, splish, splash
back through the grass, swishy swashy, swishy swashy
Back to our tents; zip up the tents (mime, and crouch down)
Phew, safe back at home!

We then had craft and playing time.  We had a colouring sheet with two men and the big bunch of grapes, where you could cut out the grapes and the stick, and stick it onto the pair of men.  We also had a communal craft, with a big sheet of paper with the outline of a bunch of grapes, and lots of green crepe paper to screw up into grapes and stick on.

For toys, I went with the food theme and got out the kitchen set and the farm set.  I also got out the ball pit, so we could empty out the "grapes" from the net and play with them in the pit.