Week 3 · about 45 minutes
Noah, the Ark, and the Rainbow
Genesis 6–9 · Memory verse Genesis 9:13
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Noah and the Rainbow), the matching word search and answer key (Noah’s Rainbow Ark), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a blue towel and a ribbon
Hold up a blue towel and a ribbon. In about five minutes, tell the class this: Noah trusts God, cares for the animals through the flood, and sees a rainbow promise. Show the prop and ask, “What does this have to do with Noah, the Ark, and the Rainbow?” Let two children answer. Then read Genesis 9:13 together: “I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.” Close by asking one child to say the lesson back in their own words, using the prop.
Story script
The world had become cruel, and it grieved God’s heart. Noah was a man who still listened. God asked him to build a huge boat called an ark, with room for his family and for animals of every kind. Neighbors may have laughed. Noah hammered anyway.
When the rain came, it came for a long time. The ark lifted. Inside, it would have smelled like wet straw and warm animals. Noah’s family fed, scooped, and waited. They could not see the ending, but God had shut them in safely.
At last the water went down. Noah sent out a dove, and the dove came back with an olive leaf, a tiny green flag that said the world was growing again. Then the dove did not need to come back at all. They stepped onto dry ground, and Noah built an altar to say thank you.
God set a rainbow in the clouds. It was a promise that he would never again flood the whole earth. Every rainbow is a reminder that God keeps his word. When you see colors after rain, you can say, “God remembers.”
Group game
The towel is the flood. Children step onto a chair-ark two by two. When everyone is safe, hold up the ribbon as the bow in the clouds.
Craft
Paint or color a rainbow over a simple ark. Write Genesis 9:13 on the cloud.
Memory verse
Genesis 9:13
“I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.”
Take-home prayer
God, thank you for keeping Noah’s family safe and for painting promises in the sky. Help our family trust you when we have to wait. Amen.