Solomon’s temple activities

Most Solomon’s temple activities revolve around making your own model of Solomon’s temple, and I have to admit that’s a great deal of what we focused on in our lesson this week at home (our family discipleship), though in my Sunday School class, we spend a lot of time talking through his bad decisions.

Last week Solomon got wisdom

Where did Solomon go wrong?

Because let’s face it, we don’t want to focus on what Solomon did wrong.  We like to focus on the big grand temple he built.  The amazing wealth and prestige he brought to his country.  But, that’s not the whole story.

When did Solomon go wrong?  Was it when he had 40,000 horses?  Or, the 13 years it took to build his palace that was bigger and more ornate than the temple?  At what point did his wives’ idolatry overtake his love for God?

I don’t know, But I learned from Solomon that wisdom isn’t everything.  You can be incredibly wise or smart and still make stupid decisions.  Just look at the newspaper to see proof of that.

Supplies for our Solomon’s temple activities

• plaster of pairs or soap (I’ve heard that can also work)
• building blocks

But back to our Solomon’s temple activities.

First, we made a temple out of blocks, and reviewed our tabernacle lesson and the pieces in the temple.

As you can see from the video they had a fairly good memory of what was in the tabernacle and why these items were important.  I was greatly amused that they chose to add in a “Bible heroes” section to their temple, so ours may not have been Biblically accurate (adding in after the fact, something which someone commented about on YouTube).

Then we moved on to what it might have been like to work on the temple.

We tried carving statues like they might have had in the temple out of plaster of paris.  Originally it was going to be soap, but I had some plaster of paris hanging around, and thought that could be pretty fun to try (and it was for a while).

As we worked at carving our own statue for Solomon’s temple we talked about how difficult it was, and how they must have to concentrate an awful lot to carve out of stone.

It wasn’t too long before the kids discovered this is a ridiculously hard task, and we aren’t particularly skilled at it.  Which led naturally into our next question.

What skill will you serve God with?

Right now the kids are quite set on opening a breakfast restaurant when they grow up, you know, because they know how to cook breakfast.

Superman is going to make scrambled eggs.  Batman is going to cook bacon, and Princess will make toast.

Here’s my challenge:

How will you serve God?  What skill will you use? Do you have a plan?

Ultimately, Solomon didn’t have a plan.  He had tasks, but he lost sight of God in the midst of those tasks.

Get Solomon builds the temple lesson here, or click on the picture at the top.

Resources for Solomon’s temple

(these are affiliate links)

•  Rose Guide to the Temple (I want to buy this)
• Rose Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Time Lines(we used this)
• Solomon’s Temple Model(also want to buy this, all the other models I found cost a lot more)
• Solomon’s Temple Board Game(because I need more board games)
• Solomon Builds a Temple picture book(I highly recommend this series of picture books)
• Wooden Castle Block Set(I want a set like this, our blocks are just ordinary Jumbling Towers blocks)
• Mystery of History 1 (great Solomon lesson in there as part of their history that year)

Learn how Solomon’s son did in King Rehoboam’s Folly.