Jesus Feeds Five Thousand

Bible Verse: 

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:19

Object Lesson:

Adapted from here. "How many corners does this piece of paper have? Four. But what if I want to give someone a corner? Cut off a corner of the paper, and hand it to a child. Now that I’ve given a corner away, how many corners do I have? I have five. You see, the more times Jesus divided the bread and fish, the more he had to give away." Have the children count the corners on the cut-off piece they each have. Not only that, the people had more than enough. Encourage the kids to each cut off more corners, each time counting the multiplying corners.

Bible Lesson: 

Adapted from here. I brought Swedish Fish candies and crackers to represent the loaves and fish for the kids to enjoy while they listen. 

People followed Jesus and his disciples everywhere.  They had seen the miracles He had done and wanted to see more and learn about him. Jesus spent all day long teaching a huge crowd about God’s love.  

It was starting to get late and none of the people had supper yet.  The disciples came to Jesus and said, "There is no food around here and its already getting late.  Maybe we should send everyone home.”

But Jesus replied, "You give them something to eat." 

The disciples were confused. They didn’t have any food to share!

One of the disciples named Andrew noticed a small boy walking by with a small lunch. He said to Jesus, "This boy had five small loaves of bread and two small fish, but that’s not enough for everyone.”

Jesus took the loaves of bread and thanked God for it. Then the disciples passed around the bread and everyone could take as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. All five thousand people ate until they were full!

They gathered all the baskets of food, they counted them up. There were twelve baskets full of leftovers! Even when it seemed hopeless, Jesus took care of all the people. He loves us so much!

Video Links: 

"Feeding of the Five Thousand"  - A cute video of kids telling the story and adults reenacting it.

"Jesus Feeds the 500"  - A song and animation retelling the story

Crafts: 

Sequence the Events from Teachers Pay Teachers. Cost is $4 for the whole packet. Or a free paper craft from Crafting The Word of God