God Controls The Weather Children's Lesson

This is the first of two children's Bible lessons about God's control over the earth.  This first lesson is about weather and the second one is about the seasons. I chose these two topics because there are plenty of Bible verses and stories and plenty of hands-on activities for both. I had broken each lesson into two sections: one for all the kids (as young as three) and one for the older kids (probably 8 and up).

While I created this lesson for a children's Bible class at a Bible conference, it could easily be used for homeschooling either as a whole lesson or just selecting some of the activities or printables with your curriculum. 

God Controls The Weather

Introduction:

To introduce the topic of God being in control of nature, I read Psalm 104 and had them draw what I read. I had a large tablet (like an easel pad). Here are some of their drawings. 

Water Cycle Video:
We watched a video to introduce the water cycle. I used "The Great Aqua Adventure" by Crash Course Kids. You could use a different video about the water cycle.

Water Cycle In A Bag:
I found this awesome experiment that lets kids see the water cycle with their own eyes. All you have to do is pour some water in a bag and tape it to a window that gets lots of sunlight. Then you can just sit back and watch the water cycle.

Rain In A Jar:

I just included this activity because it looked like fun and illustrated to the younger ones how clouds can get "full" and start raining. The best part is they get to use pipettes or eye droppers - and kids love pipettes. All you need is jars or cups of water, shaving cream, pipettes or eye droppers, and food coloring.

Weather In The Bible Activity:

Print out a set of the Weather Icons for each student (or you could give each student one icon) and glue them to popsicle sticks. Then, read the Bible verses from the list on this matching sheet and have the students hold up the icon for each weather when they hear it mentioned or described. Alternatively, you can print on the matching sheet and just have them match, but I usually like to give the students a chance to move around instead of just complete worksheets. The point in most of these verses is that God used weather to accomplish His purposes. 

God Controls The Weather - For Older Students

How Much Does A Cloud Hold:

I found this fun experiment from the National Weather Service that helps kids visualize how much water is in clouds. And they get to use pipettes again! Basically, you count how many drops you can drop onto a cotton ball before it reaches capacity and starts dripping. You can have them hypothesize beforehand how many drops will fit and also see who can get their cotton ball to hold the most. Of course, clouds aren't made of cotton (actually a cloud is formed by water droplets bonding to dust and pollen in the atmosphere), water droplets are much smaller than the drops released from pipettes or eye droppers, and an updraft helps a cloud hold more water, but this activity gives them an idea of just how much water a cloud can hold. 

The Water Cycle In The Bible:

If you are focusing on teaching the vocabulary for the water cycle (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and runoff) and demonstrate that each of these is discussed in the Bible, this activity will work well for older students. Print out this worksheet. Then, have them cut off the vocabulary words and Bible verses and glue them to the proper location in the picture. 

Discussion:

It's great to see if the students can process the ideas from the lesson, so I ended this lesson with a discussion about the purpose behind the water cycle (in other words, Why did God create water to go through the water cycle?).

1. Who needs water? How do they use it? (plants need water; animals and humans drink it)
2. What does the water cycle do to the water? How does it benefit the water and us? (it purifies it - like distillation - and moves it to different locations; this gives us fresh water and brings water from oceans to inland)
3. What else does the water cycle affect? How else does it change nature? (Runoff causes erosion and sedimentation which causes in geography like deltas at mouths of rivers and canyons exposing new minerals)

Here is a printout of the whole lesson, but feel free to pick and choose from the activities for what best fits your students and your time. You can also check out my pinterest board on this subject.

If you liked this activity, check out my God Controls The Seasons Bible Lesson.