Genesis 6-9: Noah's ark

As a Teacher...

Noah's ark is one of the most popular stories in Bible. Hollywood even made a movie of it this year. Before I started to prepare for this story, I thought it would be easy to do so, but soon I found it's challenging. In my Hermeneutics class, our professor taught that the main purpose of Old Testament story is to understand who God is, and that is what I try to show kids through the lessons. But in Noah's story, God seemed very cruel to wipe out all men. What does this story teach us about God? Can I focus on just how God protects Noah's family and animals?
“So I went to the potter’s house, and sure enough, the potter was there, working away at his wheel. Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.” Jeremiah 18:3-4
God is like potter, has right to reset what He has done. I think that's what Noah's story tells us about God. But it's too difficult for kids to understand. So this time I shifted focus to what "fear God" means through Noah's testimony.
“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” Hebrew 11:7
Noah chose to believe God and did what God told him to do. Building ark on a dry land must be an interesting news and would scatter around. People at that time knew what's going to happen, but they didn't believe. They displeased God because lack of faith. In contrast, Noah was the only one believed and did what God commanded. His faith pleased God.
All right, so here is the lesson plan.

Lesson Plan

Topic: Flood and Noah's ark
Scripture: Genesis 6:1-9:17
Objective: The children will demonstrate their understanding of fearing God by listing how they can obeying God in difficult situations.
Memory Verse: “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” Hebrew 11:7

EEA:

• Animal matching card game - I get this card game in a dollar store. The name of the game is "Noah's ark" 

1st Based: Attention getter

• Write today's verse on paper, and cut into small pieces;  
• hide the pieces different places and ask kids to find them out; 
• after they found out all the pieces, ask kids to put together.

2nd Base: Content Deliver

• Make an ark using coffee table. 
• You can be the Noah, and ask students to be your families.
• Bring some stuff animals and take them to the ark. 

3rd Base: Interactive activity - Measure the ark

• Take them to a wide space (park, church parking lot).
• Use a meter to measure how big the lot is, I use something like this:
  
   
•  The ark is around 450 ft x 75 ft x 45 ft. Use the meter to show how big the ark should be.

Let me warn you: kids really like the wheel meter. They may be more interested in using that than knowing how big the ark is.

4th Base:

• Ask them how they will obey God even He gives them a difficult task? (will you choose to be honest even other students cheat on tests?)
• You can give example like Jeremy Lin to explain how you can obey God in difficult situations.