Games to Play With Children About Moses

Part the Red Sea

• Blow up blue balloons, which will represent water from the Red Sea, and put them on the floor. Split the children into two teams, and have them stand on opposite sides of the room. Tell the children how when Moses was leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, the Red Sea miraculously parted so they could escape. Show the children that you can rub a balloon on your clothes or the carpet to generate static electricity, and how it will then stick to the wall. On your mark, tell the children to each pick up a balloon, rub it on their clothes and stick it on the wall on their side of the room. As soon as a kid puts up a balloon, she can go get another one. The team with the most "water" on their wall wins.

Climb Mount Sinai

• Mark a triangle measuring about 10 feet long at the base and about 25 feet long on the sides, using rope, tape or chalk. Make prop tablets with the 10 Commandments and put them at the apex of the triangle, which represents the top of Mount Sinai. Remind the children that Moses went up the mountain and received the 10 Commandments from God, and them brought them down to the people. Divide the children into two teams and have each team line up on either side of the "bottom" of the mountain. Instruct them to climb up the mountain, by walking or hopping. Each child climbs the mountain, grabs a tablet, and then comes down the mountain and hands the tablet to the next player, who carries it up the mountain and leaves it for the next player to grab and bring down. Continue until every child has climbed the mountain and returned.

Hot Potato Commandments

• Have the children pass a regular potato around and around from one to another while music plays. With your back turned to them, stop the music. Whoever is holding the potato when the music stops must say one of the 10 Commandments that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. If a child cannot name a commandment, he is out of the game. The game is over when all of the commandments have been stated, and whoever said the most commandments is the winner.

Gather Manna

• Tell the children about how when the Israelites complained to Moses about being hungry, God told Moses he would send manna for them to eat. Put a bowl on a table, and surround the bowl with cotton balls. Tell the children to pretend they are Israelites, but that they have gone blind. Give the first child a spoon and then place a blindfold over her eyes. Tell her to try to pick up "manna" cotton balls with the spoon in a certain amount of time, such as 10 seconds, and put them in the bowl. Let each kid take a turn, and see who collects the most manna in the allotted time.