King Josiah lesson

We’ve almost finished all of the kings of Judah in our Bible lessons, all 2 of them that we study in-depth. Our final king is King Josiah, the boy king (last week we covered King Hezekiah). There are so many fun things to do with his lesson, that I’m always digging deeper and finding more to do for King Josiah, but we concentrated on 3 big activities:

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King Josiah craft: make a book of the Law

Supplies: paper, popsicle sticks, glue, quill pen (if you want to be fancy), felt, needles, embroidery thread, buttons

We did a couple of activities with this, one of which will lead into our second activity.  But our big time-consuming activity for the week was making our own Scroll of the Law for King Josiah to find.

It was the usual tea-dying and crumpling activity we’ve done before, if you haven’t done this then instructions are included in the printable.  The kids always find this to be fun and made several extras so they could make secret maps and hidden clues and generally goof off.

Once our scrolls were prepared I got out my quill pens I bought at Colonial Williamsburg way back when I was pregnant with Princess.  It’s always a special treat for the kids to use these, especially because I get jumpy watching them play with my fancy quill as they dip the quills in too deep.

Then we added in an extra fun element.  A year or so ago we went to Passages, a Biblical history museum.  It’s a traveling museum, and if it’s ever in your area I’d highly recommend going.  I happily spent most of the day there last time I went.  One thing we discovered is the Jews used to (and in some areas still do) create a protective cover over the scrolls of the Law called a mantle.  For some, the mantle is fairly plain, and just a protective covering, but in many Synagogues, it’s very ornate.

We set about making our mantles using felt and some embroidery thread, and the kids happily embroidered their designs on it and then sewed on a button to close the mantle.  If these were true mantles, they’d actually completely enclose the Torah so no dirt could get into the scrolls, but my kids do not have the skill nor the patience to attempt that.

Help King Josiah find the Book of the Law

Well after we made our Books of the Law, we had to put them to use.  Aside from reading them out loud to Aunt Tara during one of her brief stints hanging out with us rather than at the hospital.  I sent the kids to clean our loft while I hid their scrolls for them to find.

Then they set to finding the scrolls.  They were all over the game room and the kids had fun pouncing on the scrolls and happily exclaiming over what they’d found.  It made me smile too.

Help King Josiah destroy the idols

This seems to be a never-ending problem the Israelites had.  They’d always forget God’s teaching and create God’s of their own hands.  Not that we can claim to do much better in this time, our idols are just more socially acceptable.

The kids and I built their idols to destroy and talked about what we might put in place of God, what do we treat as more important?  I have to admit I often put my free time and my “downtime” as more important than God or actual real duties.  The kids slowly admitted some of their own.

Then we got to destroy idols.  Of course, this was the kids’ absolute favorite part of the activity.  Throwing bean bags and knocking down stacks of cans.  Who wouldn’t love that?

What I love about King Josiah

King Josiah is a rare example of a king who follows God.  Judah had exactly 8 good kings after the split.  Most of them were bad.  A few did okay, with some serious mess-ups.  But Josiah from the moment he becomes king after a very bad king follows God.  I want my kids to follow Josiah’s example.  I want to follow Josiah’s example.  I pray that comes true.

As always get your King Josiah lesson by clicking on this link or on the picture up above.

Extra King Josiah resources

• What’s in the Bible? Volume Six – A Nation Divided
• King Josiah video
• King Josiah lesson and worksheets
• Kings and Chronicles pinterest board

What happens next?  Well, things don’t end so well for Judah, and we find out how bad it is with Jeremiah the weeping prophet.  Wonder what happens with the rest of the kings of Israel and Judah?  Check out Kings and Chronicles for kids.