Objective: Help students recall and sequence key events and people in the biblical story while identifying gaps in their knowledge.

Instructions:

1. Formation – Have students line up in a horseshoe shape.
2. Starting the Story – The teacher or a student at one end begins retelling the story of the Old or New Testament.
3. Adding Details – Each student, moving sequentially around the horseshoe, must contribute:

• • An event or person from the biblical narrative.
  • One important detail about that event or person.

4. Limited Assistance – Students may ask their immediate neighbor (on either side) for help but cannot consult anyone else.
5. No Backtracking – If a student skips part of the story, the activity continues forward. The teacher notes gaps but does not correct them during the exercise.
6. Stopping Point & Review – When students can no longer continue, the teacher leads a review:

• • Filling in missing sections.
  • Discussing key themes or patterns in the story.

7. Repetition Throughout the Semester – Repeat this activity periodically to reinforce learning and see improvement in students’ ability to retell the biblical story.

Objective: Help students engage with Scripture by visually representing key events, reinforcing comprehension and recall in a fun, interactive way.

1. Assign Passages & Distribute Materials: Secretly assign each group one or two short passages from Scripture (e.g., a story from Genesis). Give each group 1-2 blank comic strip templates (each should correspond to a different passage).
2. Drawing the Comic Strip (10 minutes): Without using words, groups create a comic strip that illustrates the main events of their assigned passage. Encourage clarity in storytelling so other students can recognize the scene. Each group writes their group number at the top of their comic strip (but not the story title).
3. Guessing the Stories (15-20 seconds per strip): Groups pass around the completed comic strips to other groups. Each group gets 15-20 seconds to look at a strip and guess which biblical story it depicts. They write their answer on an answer sheet (provided by the teacher).
4. Scoring & Winners: Once all comics have circulated, the teacher reveals the correct answers. The groups with the most correct guesses win 1st and 2nd place.

Assign a day of reading in groups, having the groups read aloud to each other in common spaces. While reading they are to underline something fascinating and circle something they have a question about or is frustrating.

When students return to class, give each group a vertical writing surface (whiteboard/window/cabinets/poster board paper/etc). Have them identify either what they circled or underlined by summarizing it, then go around the room and read their comments and ask why they chose that particular part to underline/circle.

Alternatively, you can create spaces for just underlined and just circled items and have them write their choices in those two locations. If someone else already wrote down what they underlined/circled, have them put a check mark beside it. Once everyone is done, focus on interacting with the items that got the most checkmarks.

(1) Clay scenes: Using clay or Play-Doh, have students work in groups to mold a scene that depicts what they gleaned from the reading for that particular day. This can be especially fun to do with books like Revelation that use apocalyptic imagery, or parables from the Gospels that draw on the imagination.

(2) Small whiteboard drawings: If you use tables in your classroom and have small whiteboards on hand, assign each table the task of drawing a scene from the text for that particular day and challenge each group to have their drawings go in chronological order (this works especially well with narrative-based sections of the text).

Using building materials (blocks/Kapla Blocks/cardboard/construction paper/etc.), have students reconstruct something from their reading that pulls them into the details of the biblical text (Temple construction/1st century home/Ark of the Covenant/Herod’s Temple/etc.). 

Assessment Option: assess based on attention to detail, how well it represents the text, and use of time.

Create “video questions” with fill-in-the-blank or general questions that follow a Bible Project video. This helps students pay attention to the video and they also function as notes.

These can be a fun tool to use to review material from particular weeks of reading, whether it’s a comprehension check part way through or a summative review at the completion of a book.