How to Teach Parables to Children

The Bible portrays Jesus as using parables, or stories, to teach others about morals and values. Adults and children alike still study this Biblical material today. However, it can be difficult for young children to understand the messages behind the imagery of the parables and link it to their experience. The key lies in making parable study an interactive experience in which the children can demonstrate their knowledge through the use of a variety of activities and media.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Ask the child to draw a visual representation of the parable after reading it. This method of testing comprehension can involve a single drawing, for example a wolf with the physical characteristics of a sheep. Alternatively, the child can create a comic book-like strip that depicts a sequence of events, for example a man being attacked by robbers and eventually saved by a Samaritan.

2. Assist the children in staging a role play or simulation of a parable. Guide them in assigning characters to the other children, adapting or creating lines and representing the actions of their characters. Keep in mind that you can adapt the parable so that it presents the moral to the children in a more modern context. For example, the moral involved in the Parable of the Faithful Servant can be conveyed by a story of a student who does not do his homework because the teacher does not check it.

3. Organize a group discussion after the children have read several parables. Ask each to tell the others which parable they feel relates the most to their own lives and to explain why.

4. Ask the children to write their own didactic short stories after they have studied the form and content of several of Jesus' parables. You may wish to assign a specific theme that the children must portray through their own parables--for example, respect for others.

References

• Teaching the Bible
• What Jesus's parables reveal
• Introduction to the parables