Genesis 27:1-41
It is important in this lesson to emphasize the difference between the birthright which Esau sold to Jacob in the previous chapter and the blessing which Jacob stole from Esau. The birthright is the double-portion of the inheritance, meaning that if a man had four sons he would divide his inheritance into five portions and give two full portions to his eldest son. The blessing designated a specific son as the head of the household and generally accompanied the birthright. While I do not belong to the Church of Christ, they have an excellent explanation of the two terms found here.Our binder project shows the changes a man can make in his appearance, just as Jacob changed his appearance (as well as smell and feel) to resemeble Esau. The body template is courtesy of www.firstpallette.com with the original website found here and the downloadable version found here. To prepare, print out a few copies of the body template for each child (we chose five copies for each child), then staple them together at the top, middle, and bottom along the left hand edge to give them support. Be sure to still punch holes in the left margin so they can be placed in the binder. The children color each page to be a specific theme of their choosing, such as a clown, ninja, beach bum, cowboy, etc., then cut the bodies apart at the two drawn lines being sure NOT to cut beyond the line on the left side of the page. The example below the template is courtesy of the original website.
Our activity fast became a favorite! Since Jacob tricked Isaac, we chose a craft that tricked others--fake spilled chocolate milk. The children mixed 2 parts glue with 1 part acrylic paint in a bowl (brown for the chocolate milk, but some children chose other colors.) Then we poured some of the mixture into a disposable cup and the rest onto wax paper, setting the cup into the middle of the puddle. We let the project sit for the week, then pulled the entire set off the wax paper very carefully as some still had small wet areas. The end result can be seen below.
