Another great resource from Sunday Software

Advent and Epiphany
Software Suggestions
and Lesson Ideas
Updated November 2011
This page has many good Advent software lesson ideas. But... let's start with our best idea to date: Every year during my first 12 years of teaching in a Bible computer lab I wished I had a better piece of software that dug into the "story behind the story." A few years ago, I went out and made Fluffy and God's Amazing Christmas Adventure CD as my solution. Don't let the name fool you, this software has plenty of content for older kids too

Fluffy & God's Amazing Christmas Adventure CD
from Sunday Software, ages 5 to 15.

Fluffy has six lesson areas: Old Testament Promise (teaching the concepts of Kings, Messiah, Emmanuel, Isaiah 9 expectations),  The Angel's Announcement to Mary and to Joseph, Elizabeth and John the Baptist -including Mary's Magnificat (Song of Joy), the Trip to Bethlehem, the Birth -Luke 2, the Shepherds, the Magi --they're all in this CD.

We specifically set out to build a Christmas CD that concentrated on the story-behind-the-story. In fact, the Old Testament Prophets section of Fluffy is the biggest section on the CD. Fluffy & God dig into "Why" God chose to come into the world, and what it means to us today.

We also specifically set out to build a Christmas CD that was re-useable year after year by a wide age range. Unless your class spends three or more hours using the CD, there will be plenty left over for next year ~and even if they do cruise through everything --several of the reflection activities are re-useable.

Here are three printable pdf handouts I've created for three of the sections in Fluffy Christmas CD. They include a page for your students, and a page of content for the teacher. The Magi section,  Shepherd's Night,  and Promises, Promises (prophets section)

We also did one other important thing... we made Fluffy F-U-N.

Click here to read all about Fluffy CD

MORE LESSON IDEAS WITH FLUFFY CD
(these are additional activities to use in conjunction with Fluffy)

1. Guide your students down "The Road to Bethlehem" (section 3 in Fluffy CD) with a worksheet that has questions about the presentations they'll see. ex: Why were they on the road? How were they thinking about along the journey? Then, once in Bethlehem, tour Bethlehem House and ask, "who's house/stable might they have been staying in?" How do you think Mary and Joe explained to themselves that this was all part of God's plan? Then, after using the software, have students create their own "road signs" and "billboards along the road to Bethlehem". Words of encouragement, warning, what's up ahead, etc. Decorate these like real road signs and billboards and post on the wall for discussion. 

2. Dress up your students as shepherds for your lesson with area #4 on the CD, "Shepherd's Night" Discuss: "How can we be shepherds to others --bringing the true meaning and message of Christmas."  Note: After you answer the Shepherd's quiz, there are several roll-over discussion questions to be found inside the manger.

3. Project the Magi.  Several teachers and pastors have projected Fluffy lesson area #6 "Following Yonder Star" to a large group of children, or in children's worship, using an LCD projector attached to their computer.  The sub-sections of this Magi area have numerous discussion questions and interesting background notes about the Magi, their gifts, and Herod.

Other Software in our Catalog that Helps Cover the Christmas Story...

 

Life of Christ CD has three Advent lesson presentations in it. You can read more about this program by clicking here. Comments: Good for older children and youth. However, if you've been using Life of Christ a lot in your lab (and who hasn't) your kids might be bored with it. Click here to check and/or print the brief listing of Life of Christ's Advent lesson content.

Play & Learn Children's Bible CD --For preschoolers and early readers.....Play and Learn's 50 Bible stories and Children's Activity Bible's 40 stories include Christmas stories. Click here to view the story list and graphics from each program.

Charlie Church Mouse --for preschoolers thru 2nd grade. CD #3 has "Birth of our Savior."  CD #1 has Wisemen. These are short-story with modest activities.

Other Advent Lesson Ideas:

Isaiah 9....wonderful counselor...Prince of Peace.... it's an interactive activity built into Fluffy & God's Amazing Christmas Adventure CD

Jesse Tree.... ... we made an interactive and printable "tree" in Fluffy & God's Amazing Christmas Adventure CD.  Kids can also make their own using Kid Pix to illustrate and add text. Point: We are part of Jesus' family tree! 

Let's Talk CD... practice answering questions about "the true meaning of Christmas".  Teacher poses as the "naysayer" or "questioner" and the kids use Let's Talk to have the computer speak back answers to the class.

Use Fall of Jericho quiz game question editor to make a question set "all about Christmas."

Teaching the story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth ...Baby John meets Baby Jesus ...using software

The story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth is briefly covered in Fluffy & God's Christmas Adventure CD. It is not found in Life of Christ or Play & Learn CD. We used Fluffy CD and Let's Talk CD in combination. Total lesson time: 50 minutes.

Note: We had done the Mary's Song Fluffimation activity last year and had also used the John the Baptist section earlier, so we skipped those two parts when we got into Mary & Elizabeth section in Fluffy.

Here's what I did in a recent lesson with older children...

We began at the discussion table looking at the story of Zechariah & Elizabeth in Luke 1. The kids were surprised that Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the Temple. They had never heard that story before! Then we read about Mary and Elizabeth's encounter. The thought of the baby John jumping for joy was funny to our kids, and we talk about the joyfulness of scripture at times sharing these intimate details.  Then we jumped into Fluffy & God's Amazing Christmas CD to see the story depicted. In that CD, God pretends to do Elizabeth's voice, and you can see the baby John in her tummy jumping around. Again...the kids really liked that.

Next, we opened up another program called Let's Talk. In Let's Talk, we were going to have the kids recreate some fictional dialog between Baby John and Baby Jesus (in Mary's tummy). We used the "Conversation Now" module in Let's Talk which simulates sending "instant messages" to each other at the computer. Whatever the kids type appears on screen and is spoken aloud by the character they created in the module. (Kids loved that too!)

One person chose to be Baby John, and another at the same computer chose to be Baby Jesus. I stood in the middle of the lab and read several question to the students, and they responded through their Conversation Now module.  We also had the kids at the computer take on the roles of Mary and Elizabeth. I love this kind of "thinking through the characters" because it helps our students get inside the conversations and closer to the meanings and emotions of the story.

Here are some of the questions we had Baby John and Baby Jesus answer:

  • Jesus, what are you doing here? What are you getting ready to do?
  • John, what are you going to do to get people ready for my coming? What are you going to tell them?
  • John, ask Jesus how he thinks he'll be received.
  • Jesus, ask John whether or not he thinks people are going to listen to him.
  • John, in your best 'baby talk' voice, tell us what you have to tell others about getting ready for Jesus' birth (this was a riot)
     

Here are some of the questions we asked Mary and Elizabeth to respond to:

  • Greet each other and talk about your bellies, how you're feeling right now. (A fun intro)
  • Tell each other how you found out about the child you are carrying in your womb.
  • Ask each other how you reacted to the news. What was scary about it? What made you hopeful about it?
  • What are some of your fears about your children being born and having to preach their message?
  • How do you think your children are going to change the world?
  • What do you think people should do to get ready for the birth of your children?
  • What does it feel like to have God working through you in your life?

We finished by asking the students to turn on the TALK NOW module in Let's Talk and provide the entire class with a three or four sentence "speech" about how God might work through THEM this Christmas to share the Christmas message. What can you do? What can you say? Who can you say it to?

www.sundaysoftware.com/fluffy
www.sundaysoftware.com/lets-talk
 

Tips for older programs that are now out of print...but may be in your software library....

Walk in the Footsteps of Jesus tours many of the nativity sites as you would see them TODAY. These "photobubbles" allow user 360 degree control over the point of view. Audio clips hidden in each picture recount the Advent story. A nice program to have a small group do some "research" with on one computer while your other computer(s) are visiting another Advent area in another program (like the two below....). Click here to go to the Footsteps page at this site.

Disciple's Diary (now out of print)...Scroll or Step #1 retells the Birth Story. Some very nice videos and presentations on Bethlehem and Nazareth. Click here to view the Diary study outline and graphics. Great to use in combination with other Xmas software tidbits.

Star Chasers is a special older program which is now out of print. But many of our customers still own it so I maintain references here to it.

3 children enter the Advent story becoming "Star Chasers." They encounter the shepherds, wisemen, and birth, as well as Zechariah, Simeon and Prophetess Anna. Ages K-6th grade. The CD takes about 30 to 40 minutes to complete. Will run on CD-capable 486 or Mac Performa (or higher) but runs best on a Pentium or Power Mac level computer. Our four pages of Teaching Tips, lesson ideas and sample Bible studies come with Star Chasers. There are also several other Star Chasers lesson plans in the Teaching Tips section at this website.

Other tidbits in Star Chasers: Theres a colorful Flight to Egypt map in the Holy Land map section. The 3-D Temple section is great and dovetails nicely with Solmon's Temple section in Pathways Through Jerusalem. ((There's even a 3-D Essene Temple video in Disciple's Diary)).

The Quickverse Life Application Multimedia Bible CD (now out of print) contains the following DRAMATIC AUDIO READINGS related to Advent: Matthew 2:1-12 -Visitors Arrive from Eastern Lands; Luke 1:26-38 -An Angel Promises the Birth of Jesus; Luke 1:39-56 -Mary Visits Elizabeth; Luke 2:8-20 -Shepherds Visit Jesus
 

Other Thoughts:
Quite a few folks use their Christmas-Advent software in January instead of December. December can be a crowded month with special church events, worship services and loads of Christmas/Easter attenders.

Websites about Christmas: There are hundreds if not thousands of websites devoted to Christmas which your teens could browse. A pastor friend in Iowa sent me this link to a Christian School's Christmas Page.The page about the 12 Days of Xmas "actually representing religious subjects (4 calling birds=the 4 Gospels)" is very interesting!!

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