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The New Testament Bible story about Jesus feeding 5,000 men with two tiny fish and five small loaves of bread makes excellent Sunday school lesson plans and activities. The story teaches Jesus’ control over nature, compassion, and provision. These Sunday school materials can be used as presented here, or customized to suit a specialized children’s ministry curriculum.

Sunday School Lesson Plans – Fishes Loaves

Teaching these Sunday school materials takes 30 to 60 minutes. By the end of the Bible lesson, children’s ministry classes understand miracles and connect them with Jesus. They learn the story, make a craft, and sing a Bible scripture.

This lesson extends previous Sunday school materials and lessons in the children’s ministry curriculum about miracles and God’s sovereignty over nature. Here is a list of Sunday school materials needed to teach this children’s ministry lesson.

Miracle of the Fish and Loaves – Materials

 

The following materials will be required for this activity:

 

  • Bible or copy of Bible text from John 6:5-13
  • Blanket
  • Picnic basket
  • Napkin
  • 2 cooked fish sticks
  • 5 bread sticks
  • One package of goldfish snack crackers
  • One package of miniature bread sticks

Before children’s ministry class, prepare the Sunday school materials by filling the bottom of the basket with several handfuls of goldfish snack crackers and bread sticks. Cover these with a napkin and place five small bread sticks and two fish sticks on top.

Materials for the Bible Craft include:

  • Modeling clay – white, brown, and green colors
  • Construction paper cut-outs of loaves of bread
  • Strips of paper inscribed with John 6:48 – “I am the bread of life”.

Sunday School Lesson Plans – Teaching the Story

Spread the blanket on the floor and invite the children’s ministry class to a picnic. Tell them how Jesus taught the people and provided food. Tell the story of the miracle of the fish and loaves in your own words.

Here are suggestions for using the Sunday school materials as visual aids for engaging a children’s ministry class. Incorporate discussion questions into the Bible lesson to encourage class participation.

Show the two fish sticks and small bread sticks. Ask: “Would this be enough to feed all of us?”

At the end of the lesson, ask the children’s ministry class: “What did Jesus do with the fish and loaves before He gave it to the disciples?” (He blessed the food.)

Raise the basket and ask the children bow their heads. Pray this prayer: “Dear Jesus, You made everything – even fish and bread. Just as you blessed the food at your picnic, bless our snack today. Amen.”

Remove the fish sticks, bread sticks, and napkin to reveal the snack underneath. Pass the basket and let the children help themselves. While the children’s ministry class eats, ask discussion questions like:

  • How many baskets of bread and fish were leftover?
  • Was anyone still hungry?
  • How many men did Jesus feed?
  • How many people were at the picnic beside the men?

Following the discussion, the instructor can give the children the cut-out bread loaf shapes and let them decorate them. Help them use the glue sticks to glue the memory verse to the bread. Send the Sunday school materials home as a reminder of the scripture and story.

Sunday School Lesson’s Music Activity

Teach the scripture verse found in John 6:48 by singing these words to the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”: “I am the bread of life, follow me, and follow me.”

Rehearse it a few times and then let the children play “Follow the Leader” while singing.

A Tactile Activity for the Bible Lesson

Let the children make baskets, fish, and loaves with the modeling clay. Encourage them to break their fish and loaves into small pieces and share with each other. Interject some discussion questions like:

  • Where did the disciples get food?
  • What was in the boy’s lunch?
  • Why did the boy give his lunch to the disciples?

Using Sunday school lesson plans is a good way to teach children’s ministry classes. Sunday school materials and lesson plans helps the teachers stay on track and cover all the key points of Bible lessons.

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Investing in the real estate market may seem like an unreachable goal for the average person, and this is likely because of the emphasis that the media places on purchasing “high profit” urban homes and land. In order to invest in metropolitan areas, it is usually necessary to be willing to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, there is another market out there, and it is an investor’s dream. This article will discuss the possibilities that lie within the world of the rural real estate market.

Just outside of the busy cities of America lie tiny rural towns that make up much of the nation’s population count. Because of the lack of competition between buyers in these areas, the real estate prices are extremely low. For example, a home in Dawson, GA, a quaint small town in southern portion of that state, with two bedrooms and one bath in a decent neighborhood can sell for around $25,000. These homes aren’t run down. Many have been recently renovated. The fact is, there is simply no competition whatsoever in cities like these, and therefore a buyer can take advantage of outrageously low prices!

Now, while the buyer competition may be low, there is an outpouring of rural citizens who are looking for rental property at decent prices. That same $25,000 house in tiny Dawson, GA, can rent for about $350.00 to $400.00 a month. With that kind of return, you can quickly earn back your renovation costs and start turning a profit. However, keep in mind that local renters will quickly recognize when a landlord is marking up his rental price too high to create a greater profit, and this will not be taken lightly. Small towns are all about reputations, so build one for yourself as a fair, honest rental property owner to ensure that your properties remain actively rented. The reason that these small towns can produce easy and constant rental income is that there is usually a shortage of respectable homes in these areas, especially in the Southeastern portion of the United States. The key to being successful in this real estate venture is to look for beautiful small towns, preferably with a population of 20,000 or less (make sure to take county population into consideration as well) that have a lot to offer your renters as far as conveniences and entertainment go. These busy little hubs usually attract renters from all over. Then, look for a home that needs a little bit of minor restoration. The point is to find a home that basically only needs cosmetic restoration, as these little changes can greatly increase the rental value of the home (while at the same time allowing you to pay a lower mortgage price due to these needed repairs at the time of purchase). If possible, use the profits from your first rental property to save for another home. Pretty soon, you will find that you have a full-time income through your rental properties with just a handful of investments that will quickly be paid off. If planned out carefully, this is a win-win situation. Citizens of rural areas will be able to enjoy your beautiful homes, and you will be able to sit back and watch the income flow in.

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Here are ten bridal shower games that will impress guests and will be fun for the bride.

  1. Toilet Paper Bride: In this game, the guests are split into teams of three or four. One person in each team is the model and the other team members construct a wedding gown out of toilet paper and safety pins in less than five minutes. The bride picks the wedding dress that she likes the best.
  2. Celebrity Date: Each guest is given an index card. On the index cards, guests write down the celebrity that they would choose to go on a date with if they had the opportunity. The index cards are shuffled together and everyone tries to match the celebrity with the guest.
  3. Famous Couples: The hostess makes a list of famous couples but only writes down one person in the pair. Each guest tries to write down the missing half in each couple. Whoever gets the most right is the winner.
  4. Wedding-Movie Charades: Make a list of wedding movies such as Father of the Bride and 27 Dresses. Put each movie title on a separate piece of paper. Guests take turns picking a movie title and trying to act it out without using words.
  5. The Price is Right: Purchase ten household items and record the cost of each item. Have the bridal shower guests guess how much each item costs. Whoever guesses closest to the actual price gets to keep the product.
  6. Who Knows the Bride the Best: The hostess puts together a list of questions for the bride and asks the bride to answer them before the shower. The hostess then asks the questions to the bridal shower guests to see who knows her the best. Whoever gets the most questions correct is the winner.
  7. Two Truths and a Lie: Each guest comes up with two truths and a lie about themselves. Each person tells the group the three statements in random order and the group has to decide which one is the lie.
  8. How Old Was the Bride: Get pictures of the bride while she was growing up from her mother. Post them on poster board. Have each guest guess how old the bride was at the time of each picture.
  9. Draw the Groom in His Underwear: Give each guest a pad of paper and pen. Each guest should place the pad on the top of her head and try to draw the groom in his underwear without looking. The bride picks the best drawing.
  10. Bridal Poem: As the bride is opening her gifts, the hostess begins a poem about the bride by writing down one line. Then the poem is passed around and each guest writes down another line that follows the previous line. Each time someone writes down another line they fold the paper, so that the next person can only see the line preceding the line that she will write. At the end, the hostess reads the poem to the group.

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89-year-old Reverend Harold Camping, the president of Family Radio whose hit shows broadcast internationally from Oakland, California, said that Jesus Christ will be back on earth at 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011, when roughly 2 percent of earth’s population will be sent straight to heaven–and everybody else will go to hell.

“I’m not the authority,” Camping said in an interview in April 2011. “The Bible is the authority.”

Camping said The Bible says that the Day of Rapture and the Day of Judgment will begin at the international dateline, where the day starts and where Samoa potentially made a grave mistake in crossing over last week when shifting itself 24 hours into the future. Now, Samoa is positioned to be one of the first nations to face the catastrophes that Camping predicts will occur this evening.

“May 21,” he said. “That’s an absolutely locked-in date.”

The way Camping described it, doomsday evening will fold out similarly to the way the night did in San Francisco on November 1, 2010, when the Giants won the World Series: fires, riots, zombie-like creatures raising hell, orange and black, floods and seismic activity.

Whoops!

This is Camping’s second attempt to predict the date of the Day of Rapture and the Day of Judgment. His book, 1994?, which was published in 1992, says that doomsday should have occured on September 4, 1994. Obviously, Camping’s dead wrong in that one–but many of his other books are credible, and can be found and downloaded for free at FamilyRadio.com.

“No, not a mathematical error,” Camping said, regarding his first try. “When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb it wasn’t a perfect problem.”

Where will you go?

The news of the forthcoming finale has lead some believers–many of whom are loyal listeners of “Open Forum,” one of Camping’s shows which broadcasts on Family Radio five nights a week–to sell their things and give away their children, to use the time to spread the word that Jesus will be back on earth today, around suppertime.

“Project Caravan” is their vessel, a crusade on wheels which has propelled members of Camping’s cult all over the mainland of the United States over the last four months. On May 19, 2011, Project Caravan’s four buses were scheduled to set up shop in four different states: Massachusetts, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Space shuttle Endeavour will still be in outer space on the Day of Judgment. Lucky. The crew won’t be back until June 1, 2011. There will still be time, though, because the earth and the universe won’t be completely destroyed until October 21, 2011.

Until Sunday, Lord’s Day, keep your fingers crossed–and pray for the best.

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Shiloh was a Christian commune populated with young adults in search of a spiritual way of life that did not involve drugs and alcohol.

In the late 1960s and beyond, young adults in search of a better or more spiritually meaningful life joined various communes. Some communes were nothing more than drug and sex havens. Some communes had a more spiritual purpose in mind. Shiloh was one such community that united young people through communal living, prayer, and work. Each resident contributed to the cause for the benefit of everyone.

Shiloh – Hippies for Jesus

In 1968, John Higgins and a small group of men and women started the House of Miracles in Los Angeles, California. This group of spiritual independents and visionaries were known as “Long Haired Jesus Freaks”. They went against the grain of traditional organized religion. Eventually, the community moved to Dexter, Oregon and became the Shiloh Youth Revival Center. Shiloh means “tranquility” or “rest giver”. It is also another name for Jesus the Messiah.

Shiloh was a non-denominational Christian organization focused on spiritually enhancing the lives of wayward adults over 18 years old who were lost or discontent with other organized religions. Anyone was welcome into the commune, provided that they do not use alcohol or drugs. The residents were required to participate in daily group prayer services and work to help support the organization financially. All wages were put into the communal fund for goods and services to benefit everyone.

 

Shiloh was a semi-self-sufficient enclave of young people. There was an onsite farm to help sustain the population. The residents had access to medical facilities.

Young Adult and Hippie Communes

Communal living offered young adults with alternative living and spiritual arrangements. Even though they were legally capable of forming traditional nuclear families, and belonging to traditional religious organizations, they opted to become part of large, extended families with similar ideas, interests, and goals.

Obviously, communal spiritual living was not for everyone. Many people shuddered at the idea of scores of religious hippies living together. Whether folks accepted or condemned their lifestyle, they were living the great American dream of personal and religious freedom.

Dangerous Cults

Hippie, environmental, pagan, religious, and secular communes are still in existence today. However, they are few and far between. They are generally located in somewhat isolated or remote areas. The residents tend keep to themselves.

Unfortunately, sometimes communes evolve into bizarre cults, where the leaders prey upon the members and brainwash the followers into believing outrageous religious doctrines. The Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas was a classic example of the leader, David Koresh who brainwashed his followers.

In 1993, there was a standoff and shootout between the Branch Davidians and FBI. Four federal agents and six Davidians were killed. Fortunately, nearly all communes are not violent organizations. The Waco incident was an anomaly.

Shiloh – A Safe Haven

Shiloh was not a dangerous place or a strange cult. It was cohorts of many young adults seeking their place in the world through communal activities and personal spiritual growth.

It is really no different than when young adults go off to college to discover themselves. The methods are different, but the ends are the same.

There are no right or wrong answers when selecting a spiritual path. But, your spiritual path must never hurt anyone else. Too many extremists injury and kill people in the name of God. This irrational behavior and way of life is completely wrong and is totally unacceptable.

Shiloh was a peaceful retreat and spiritual learning center. The organization dissolved in 1978 due to internal power struggles, which is unfortunate for many wayward young souls today.

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My personal story on how I bought and sold a home in this market is not exactly atypical. My family was expecting a third child – a girl this time – which made the house I sold much too small. For my wife and I and the two boys, a two bedroom rambler was tight, but livable. But when the girl came along, it was much too small. So, even in this market, we went looking for a new place to call home.

Soon, we found a place. With five bedrooms and a nice yard, it was perfect. However, we could not afford to own two houses at the same time. We quickly put the rambler up for sale.

Did I mention the rambler had been hit by lightning the previous spring? After six months of insurance problems, fixing, and re-fixing all the problems caused by the lightning had been resolved to the tune of $43,000. So the house had new paint, new light fixtures, new ceiling and new electrical wiring. At the time I went to sell the house, I though this might be a wash in terms of desirablity.

However, it increase the attractiveness of the house (and because it really was a first time homeowners house) we followed the advice of our realtor and added a home owners warranty. What this did was product the buyer for a year for any leftover electrical problems.

In the meantime, we took a second mortgage out on the house we owned in order to buy the house we wanted to buy. At this time point, I have got two mortgages with a serious urge to get one of them paid off. Each month that I did not sell the home would cost me an extra $1400. So one could call me a motivated seller.

While the bank wanted me to sell the house for the market value it was appraised at, my realtor told me that this was last years value and that I had to be realistic in what I expected due to the current market conditions. After a small amount of research in current selling prices, I followed my realtor’s advice and priced the home slightly under what other houses in my neighborhood had sold for.

Within the first week, we had our first offer. We chose to decline. It was significantly under the price I had already set slightly lower than market value. In the second week, we had two solid offers. We allowed the two potential buyers to play off each other and they managed to bid up the price a little bit. We sold the home and a few weeks closed on the home.

The moral of the story: In this market, be realistic. Do not expect last years selling price. Finally, find a realtor you can trust and listen to him.

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Making a quiz for children is not difficult. What is harder is making a quiz that will keep kids entertained and that will leave them wanting more. The good news is that putting together a successful quiz for kids can be done relatively easily and is a process that is easy to repeat for future occasions.

The key to making a successful quiz for children is understanding what types of quizzes they enjoy themselves. This can be done by looking at the television programmes they choose to watch. There are plenty of quiz shows aimed at kids of all ages and every child has their favourites in terms of format and content. The quiz that is prepared does not need to be an exact copy of a television show format but it could contain some ideas that come from the show.

The next step is to decide what subjects will appeal to the children for whom the quiz is being prepared. Some will be heavily into sports and cars. Others might have a preference for music or celebrities. Some children will enjoy questions that involve solving puzzles.

Writing Questions for a Quiz for Children

All children will quickly tire of being asked questions that they cannot answer. The person setting the questions should expect the kids to know most of the answers between them but there need to be enough difficult questions to keep allow individuals or teams to achieve different scores.

The question-setter needs to put themselves in the place of the children they are writing for. It is too easy to use subject matter that is familiar to themselves rather than the kids who will be playing the game. This is a particular problem when setting questions relating to popular culture such as music, movies and television.

 

It is a good idea to set questions that cover a variety of subjects, although it may have a bias towards those that the children prefer. Here is a list of suggested subjects:

  • Animals and nature
  • Sports personalities and famous teams
  • Stars, planets and space
  • Movies and television shows
  • Local knowledge
  • Toys and games

Suggested Formats for a Quiz for Children

The way that the quiz is played will depend on the kids involved. Most children are more comfortable in teams of two or three because it takes the pressure off them and they enjoy the process of trying to work out the right answer between them.

As well as having questions that cover a number of subjects it is also good to offer a variety of formats. Some questions could be multiple choice, where they have to pick from a list of three or four answers. Others might allow opportunities to win bonus points for providing more detail about the answer.

Some questions should be put to one team at a time, giving them the opportunity to answer before it is passed to the others to have a go. Other questions can be anwered using a quick-fire approach.

There are no shortage of ready-made quizzes for kids available from the internet. However, the quiz that is written specifically for a particular group or event is likely to be more successful because it can be tailored to suit the participants and their preferences. It will make it more fun to prepare and to play and ideally will have the children asking for more.

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BUYING FOOD

  1. Buy what you need. Some families only give the wet food variety, some only the dry food and some do both. Buying in bulk can save you money, but if you only have one cat, it may be unnecessary. Buy the brand that matches your cat (multi cat, older feline, kitten etc…)
  2. DISTRIBUTING THE FOOD – DRY

Through learning from our Veterinarian, we feed our 3 cats dry food through a self feeder so they take what they want during the day and night. Cats usually eat only what they need, which is unlike dogs who won’t stop until the food is gone. Dry food is easy for cats to eat, has nutrients and is good for their teeth.

  1. DISTRIBUTING THE FOOD – WET

At night, around our dinner time, we split HALF a can of wet food between the three cats. The wet food is a treat for them. It also has vitamins and nutrients, but the dry food gives them enough already.
If you only give the canned, wet food,however, talk to your Vet. Our Vet recommended that a friend of ours who has one cat, and only gives the wet variety, give him three meals a day – 1/2 a can in the morning, 1 can during the day and then another 1/2 at dinner. All cats are different, so don’t forget to ask first.

  1. WATER – extra info

Water is very important. Cat’s survive on water. We use a separate self feeder for the water and the cats use it a lot. Make sure water is always clean and available to your cat(s). Milk is usually NOT good for your cats digestive system, but talk to your Veterinarian for more information. Love and enjoy your pets, and they will do the same for you.

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Well I am very glad that you asked me to explain American basketball to you as I am an expert, but remember the definition of an expert is someone with a briefcase who is five miles from home. But I am just the guy to explain basketball to you as I went to a college basketball game tonight and University of Alabama at Birmingham played Memphis and it was very exciting and all the fans jumped up and down, And someone won and someone lost and

every six, or maybe seven seconds, some tall player jumped in the air and then sometimes they all jumped in the air and then someone would score a basket or maybe not and then the tall people would run up and down the court and then there would be timeouts and the coaches looked very sternly at their players and drew diagrams on their whiteboards and all the players would nod very wisely and they would run out onto the court and they must have not listened to the coach, as they did the same thing, they all jumped in the air and ran up and down the court and made some baskets and missed some baskets and then the ref every now and then would blow a whistle and point at a player because that player had fouled another player and I am thinking, that has to be bad for the player’s self-esteem when the ref points out his mistake in front of thousands of people. And sometimes the ball would be rolling on the floor and all the players would dive for it and roll around the floor and the tall guy that got the ball would pass it to another tall guy who would run down the court with it and maybe make or miss a basket and if he missed a basket a LOT of tall people jumped very high and someone got the ball and he would pass it to another very tall player who would run up and down the court and maybe pass it to another tall person, but sometimes when they were passing, the ball would be stolen by the other team who would run up and down the court and jump high in the air and sometimes all the running would stop and a player would take a free throw and either make it or miss it and if he missed it, a bunch of tall people would jump in the air and fight over the ball and run up and down the court and that was the basketball game and I don’t know how I can make it any clearer. Oh yes, someone won and someone lost. I think the tall people won and the tall people lost. And another very important thing to know is that they don’t serve liquor at college basketball games which is a shame as the game might be easier to understand if they served alcohol, or at least it might be more fun to watch tall people keep jumping up and down.

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Gone are the days when kids spent their summer days splashing in the backyard kiddie-pool. With so many parents now working full time, many children spend much of their summer months in summer camps and day camps.

Sleep Away Camp or Day Camp?

Generally speaking, there are two types of summer camps for children: overnight or “sleep away” camps and day camps. Sleep away camps are best suited for older children but can afford wonderful opportunities to fully immerse in the camp experience. They are also considerably more expensive.

Day camps, on the other hand, offer many of the same advantages as sleep away camps, but give families the chance to come back together at the end of the day.

What Type of Day Camp is Best?

The most important consideration when looking at summer camp is what interests the potential young camper. Is the child into the outdoors? Does he or she love sports? Has the child shown promise in drama or music? Is he or she an animal fan? To coin the phrase from the popular phone commercials, “There’s a camp for that”.

Although organizations like the YMCA still offer day camps that provide a little bit of everything, there are many more interest-specific options now than ever before. A well-chosen camp can not only combat boredom, but can even give a child a leg up in his or her chosen sport or field of interest by the time the new school year starts.

 

Where to Find Quality Day Camps

The school district is often a good place to start when looking for a list of quality area day camps. Many camps provide information to the schools for this purpose.

Other places to search include:

  • Local colleges and universities
  • Local music schools, dance schools, karate schools
  • State parks and recreation departments
  • City parks departments
  • YMCA and YWCA
  • Area sports teams
  • Athletic clubs
  • Churches
  • Museums, planetariums, aquariums, etc.
  • Public libraries
  • Word of mouth!

Friends, neighbors, and searchable databases like kidscamps.com and summer-daycamps.com can also be great resources.

What to Consider When Evaluating a Day Camp

Once a camp has been selected, the real work begins. Even a day camp whose description looks great, may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Parents should ask plenty of questions and the camps should be ready and willing to answer them.

Depending on the personality of the child and whether or not he has spent time in camps, after school care, or day care, he may or may not be enthusiastic about the idea. Don’t give up! Camps with well-trained staff are well equipped to deal with reticent campers and can usually help ease the transition for even the most resistant child.

Questions to Ask of a Summer Day Camp

In addition to the background and training of the staff, parents should know:

  • How long has the camp been in operation?
  • What is the counselor to camper ratio?
  • What is the setting like? Is it clean, well organized, etc?
  • Will campers be transported anywhere during the day and how?
  • What procedures are in place for emergencies?
  • What is the daily schedule?
  • Are there additional costs involved, besides the registration fee?

Some camps may also provide the names of past campers for reference.

By doing some digging and asking a few questions ahead of time, parents can help ensure not only a great camp experience for the kids, but a less stressful summer for the whole family.