Getting Started

Choose the activity that best fits your family’s interests, age levels, and availability. Or, do multiple if you’re having fun! Words in bold are for you to say out loud: feel free to paraphrase, if you prefer.

Activity 1

Maze

Build a maze or path out of pillows, couch cushions, sheets and blankets in a room or through several rooms of your house. Use the pillows, cushions, sheets and blankets as the borders/walls of the maze. Wind the maze around, building several dead ends that veer to the side. Place a bowl of M&Ms at the end of the maze, but build a wall at the end in front of the M&Ms, creating a dead end. Have your child/children begin at the start of the maze.

Today, I’ve set up a maze for you to follow. There is a treat at the end of the maze, but in order to eat it, you must follow the maze rules. You may not, at any time, go outside, climb over or reach over the sides/walls of the maze. You must always stay on the path.

The idea is that there is no way to get to the bowl of candy without reaching over the ending wall of the maze. It is a dead end.

After your child/children have gone through the maze and reached the dead end…make sure they do not reach over to get the candy…say:

Ah, you’re stuck! There’s no way to get to what you want…that bowl of candy…unless you choose not to listen to me and you break the rules of the game. Looks like you’ve reached a dead end. Unless someone helps you, you can’t have that treat. All right, everyone jump over the end and come to me.

Hand out a few treats as you say:

In today’s story, God’s people, the Israelites, were traveling to the land the LORD promised to give them…a wonderful land. They were so excited. But, after walking for a long time, the Israelites looked up and realized they could not go any further. They had reached a dead end. Let’s listen to find out what happened.

Activity 2

Turn Around

Take a drive together. Have a destination in mind…the library or a grocery store. Driver, go down a few dead end streets. Each time you get to a point where you can go no further, talk about how it would be possible to get to the next street or to get to your destination from that point.

We can’t seem to go any further…there are houses in the way. What do we do? How do we get to the next street so we can continue our drive? How do we get to the library (fill in your destination)? (We have to turn around and go back). The only way we can get to where we want to go from this point, from right here, is to turn around and go back down this dead end street. We’re stuck…there is no place to go from here except to go back. This is what happened to the Israelites, to God’s people. They were traveling to the land the LORD promised to give them. Then they looked up and realized they could go no further. They had reached a dead end. But, the Israelites didn’t have to turn around and go back. The LORD was about to do something mighty!