Joseph and his Coat of Many Colours

Joseph: Reading

I did quite a lot of reading for this study on the Joseph of the old testament, including reading some articles online of character studies. It’s funny, because when I started this lesson I wondered if I could make it interesting enough for the girls, but when it came to it, I think this was one of their favourite lessons. I read from the Mystery of History text book and from the Family Bible:

Abs found a story online about a cat called Echo who lived in Joseph’s cell in prison. I read this to the girls and we chatted about the story, and trusting God in all things.

Joseph: Puppet Show

I found some images of characters from the Joseph stories and printed them out on card. The girls cut them out and stuck them onto ear buds:

Whilst Becca was doing that, Abigail was erecting their mini theatre:

Prepping for the show, behind the scenes 🙂

It was very very funny, and Charlotte and I (their audience at the time) were struggling not to laugh. Joseph sounded distinctly Scottish, whilst his brothers could have been from any part of the world – the accents were not easily discernible – but there were many of them 🙂

I loved their props. The box in the left hand corner is the well that Joseph was pushed into, and even had a working rope system so they could drag him out again!

And in the picture below you can see the prison that he was put into after the incident with Potifer’s wife:

And then there were the bows and curtsies:

Love it! So much fun!

Apart from the dodgy accents, their story telling was perfect!

Joseph: Storing Grain for the Lean Years

This was an activity which just sort of happened and was such a great learning experience, that I had to include it. Joseph was given the job of saving enough grain over the years of plenty, to feed the Egyptians during the years of famine.

I shared with them that I did something similar, although not in such large quantities. Each month I buy one thing in bulk, which lasts for at least six months. Right now we have Ecover Cleaner, Ecover laundry liquid, Ecover washing up liquid and hand soap. I also buy the children’s recycled pencils in bulk (best pencils ever, by the way!). But what I was going to focus on is the food I buy in bulk: the wheat berries; the oat groats; the mixed brown, red and wild rice; the pop corn kernels and the honey. That’s all so far, but I am planning tea and coffee beans, possibly pasta…

Claire’s Joseph Equivalents:

So I showed the girls the three storage vessels I use. I have a huge brown cardboard sack of each weighing in at 25 kg. These are kept as is under the stairs (very cold, very dry and very dark – perfect storage conditions). I also have tubs which hold about six kilos of grain, which are kept just outside the kitchen in the hall. It is dark and dry there, and this makes the grain easily accessible once a week for top ups:

In addition, I have glass containers of the grain which reside in my kitchen which I use every day. These are not ideal storage containers, but as the grain only stays in there for days, it is fine:

We talked about how ideal storage conditions keep the grain fresh, and therefore keep the vitamins and mineral content at its highest. We also talked about the fact that we have grain enough to last about three to six months at any given time. Meaning if Gary lost his job, we could at least feed ourselves:

Oat Groats:

Wheat Grain:

Honey (I actually only buy this once a month, but it sees to all our sugar needs for the coming month):

Joseph: Egyptian Flat Bread

The girls coarsely ground the wheat berries:

They added olive oil and water:

Mixed:

And kneaded:

Then rolled out the dough into flat small rounds:

I heated the pan up until it was smoking (very hot), and cooked three or so at a time:

They added some honey, and gobbled them up in double quick time:

Joseph: Crushing Grapes for Grape Juice

Joseph: Dolls Clothes

Of course, I had to make the coat of many colours, although it ended up being the coat of many scraps. The girls were happy enough though:

I basically hand sewed lots of felt strips together, leaving a couple of holes for arms. I made a sash out of one of the scraps, tasselling it at the end:

As Joseph was eventually taken to Egypt, I also made the first Egyptian costume for the Joseph doll:

I will make the female dress, and all the accompanying jewellery and make up during the next Ancient Egypt lesson

Joseph: Writing in Egypt

Hieroglyphic Typewriter

The girls enjoyed using this website a lot! We printed out their work and turned them into note pages:

I wasn’t sure of the activities I wanted to do for this lesson, but it seemed to work out well. The next lesson is Hamurabi

Further Reading

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