Dr. Pat's Orthodox Super Sunday School Curriculum

Zaccheus

ZACCHEUS

 

Objectives:

 

  1. Children should be able to identify Zaccheus as the short man who wanted to see Jesus.
  2. Children should know that Zaccheus’s life was changed by meeting Jesus.

 

Possible Lesson Plan:

 

  1. Open with prayer.

 

  1. Read the story of Zaccheus from the Beginner’s Bible, pages 413-417,  the Children’s Bible Reader, page 224, or the Read with Me Bible, pages 356-357. Supplement with the Golden Children’s Bible, page 422,  if desired. What did Zaccheus do for a living? Do we know another tax collector in the Bible? (Matthew, the disciple) Why couldn’t Zaccheus see Jesus? What did he do? What did Jesus say to Zaccheus? What did Zaccheus do for Jesus?

 

  1. True/False Questions:

True                                                     False

            Zaccheus was a tax collector.                         Zaccheus was a priest.

            Zaccheus was a short man.                             Zaccheus was the tallest man in town

            Zaccheus climbed a tree.                                 Zaccheus flew in a balloon.

            Jesus went to Zaccheus’s house.                     Jesus walked right by Zaccheus.

 

  1. Sing the song “Zaccheus was a wee little man…”

 

  1. Look around the room: Who is tall? Who is short? Who has blond hair? Who has dark hair? Who has blue eyes? Who has brown eyes? Have children brainstorm other physical characteristics that make us uniquely ourselves. Does God love only tall people? Brown-haired people? Blue-eyed people? God loves everyone! God loves each of us, just like we are!

 

  1. Talk a bit about hard work and persistence: Do you remember the fairy tale of the fox and the grapes? The fox found a bunch of grapes, but they were too high for him to reach, so he told everyone that they were sour. Did Zaccheus give up on seeing Jesus just because he was too short? Did he just tell people Jesus wasn’t worth seeing? Zaccheus found a way to his goal. What did he do? He climbed a tree. Was that easy? Wouldn’t it have been much easier to just go home and say that Jesus wasn’t worth the effort. What did Zaccheus receive for his hard work and persistence? Did he only see Jesus as Jesus walked by? No, Jesus stopped, called Zaccheus, and went to his house for dinner!

 

 

  1. Make Popsicle Puppets: Take the Zaccheus and the Jesus patterns. Color and cut out. Tape Popsicle stick to the back. Have students take a piece of light blue construction paper. Cut out a brown tree trunk and green leaves. Glue to make a tree. Use this as your background to tell the story with your puppets.

8. Print the Pre-Lenten Path for the children to take home and color one square each day until Great Lent. 

 

  1. Close with prayer.
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