Explore & respond
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Under 5s
Crossing the Red Sea game
Stand at one side of the room and ask the children to shout out, ‘Can we cross?’ Answer with ‘Only if you have red socks/a brother/like pizza/are three years old’, etc., encouraging the children to take one stride forward if they can cross. Finish by saying, ‘You can cross if you go with God’, encouraging everyone to run across the room.
Sponge painting
Take a large sheet of paper or cloth, use masking tape to write ‘GOD’, and provide sponges and paint in different shades of blue and green. Ask the children to print all over the large sheet and letters. Remove the tape as you remember that God is with us always.
CHILDREN
Pillar of cloud E
A solid sign of God’s presence
You will need: paper plates, blue and yellow pens/pencils, lots of large white marshmallows.
- Give each child a paper plate and invite them to colour a pathway through the middle of their plate using yellow pens/pencils and then the edges, either side, in blue. This shows the path through the sea which was made when Moses held up his staff. Ask if they remember the sign God gave the Israelites. Explain that you will add this to the scene.
- Have a simple and fun competition to see who can balance the most white marshmallows on top of one another to make a pillar of ‘cloud’. Discuss how it would have helped the Israelites as they made a difficult journey, particularly thinking about how the cloud made a barrier between them and the Egyptians. What does that tell us about God?
or
Take the plunge E S
A game about trusting enough to follow
You will need: two large pieces of blue cloth
- Introduce a game where four people hold up two large pieces of cloth to represent the Red Sea. Ask them to make one whole piece of blue, with the cloths joined together.
- Invite the children to consider where they are with trusting God as they look at such a difficult obstacle to cross. Then ask them to imagine Moses with them as leader. Encourage the children to stand at the edge of the sea if the presence of Moses increases their trust in God enough to follow Moses into the sea.
- Next, describe the power of God dividing the sea as Moses stretched out his hand. Ask those holding the cloth to part it in two, making a gap in the middle. Invite the children to walk into the sea if their trust in God has increased after this miracle.
- Finally, describe the pillar of cloud showing God was with the Israelites all the way as they walked through the sea. Encourage anyone else who feels able to trust God to now stand and walk through. You could add that the Israelites were travelling as a group and maybe, even if we are still not sure, travelling with others can help us. Encourage everyone to walk through together.
Sending out E S A
Make a reminder of going with God when you leave church/group
You will need: paper, pencils, scissors, felt tips.
- Give each child paper and a pencil and help them draw round one of their feet. Ask them to cut out their foot shape.
- Next, work together with the children to think of some things God might be asking us to go and do. Encourage them to write or draw one idea on their foot shape, e.g. go and help others, go and tell people about Jesus, go and be kind.
- Go as a group to the door where the children leave the church/your space. Help everyone put their foot shape on the floor in a space and encourage them, each time they leave to step onto their footprint before they leave, as a reminder to go with God and do the things God is calling us to do.
Talk together and talk to God
Discuss the theme, then bring your thoughts together in prayer
- Have you ever been on a journey with someone guiding you?
What did that feel like?
- In the passage, the Israelites can see God is with them through a cloud.
Is there anything that helps you to feel God is with you?
- What does it feel like to think that God is already ahead of us and knows what our Monday morning will be like?
Walk and pray E S
Consider God with you on a journey
You will need: sticks e.g. bamboo garden canes, one per child; space (ideally outside) to walk in; prayer text to print out (see below).
YOUNG PEOPLE
Would you rather go… W E
A game about making a choice to go
You will need: game instructions (see below).
- Play the ‘Would you rather go?’ game.
- Discuss how God rescuing us is an active process. We have a choice about who we follow, who we go with. In our story there were two leaders – God and Pharaoh. God’s love led his people to safety. Pharaoh’s cruelty led his army to death.
- Ask: Can you think of times when we must choose who we are going to go with? For example, in school it can be easy to go with the crowd and make fun of people, or will we choose to be different?
Game instructions
Suggest two places and the young people choose where they’d rather go. Play this several times. Check out these examples of potential places below or come up with your own.
Would you rather go…
- To Disney World™ or on a city break?
- To the moon or the bottom of the ocean?
- To see a play or to see a concert?
- To the beach or to climb a mountain?
- To a cake shop or to an ice- cream shop?
- To the dentist for a filling or to the doctors for an injection?
- To the Lego™ store or to the Apple™ Store?
- To Old Trafford or to Anfield?
- To see a movie or to go bowling?
or
Sea painting S A
An individual painting activity reflecting on rescue
You will need: straws, paper, paint, paint brush.
- Use straws to create a blow painting of the Red Sea. You can find tips here. Ask the young people to blow the paint to the left and the right so to leave some sort of gap in the middle.
- In that gap, draw stick figures to represent people or groups they would like God to help and rescue.
When the going gets tough W A
An activity about God being bigger than our fears
You will need: examples of optical illusions, pens, pencils, paper, additional leader notes (see below).
- Search for ‘optical illusions’ online and show the group some examples. Discuss how optical illusions rely on people’s perspective changing. Invite the young people to make their own optical illusion.
- In our Bible passage, God’s people were in an impossible situation, but God showed that he was bigger than their fears by parting the seas. God changed their perspectives.
- Ask the young people to write down any situation in their own lives which they find daunting. How can God help them?
Additional leader notes
This could be a delicate subject. We want to celebrate times when God answers prayers without making people feel that if God didn’t answer a prayer or a situation didn’t resolve itself in a way that they hoped, that doesn’t mean that God wasn’t there for them, or somehow they did something wrong not to be rescued or helped.
If the leaders feel comfortable, it might be useful for them to share some of their own experiences as you discuss this topic. There could be stories of deliverance where God answered prayers in an amazing way or where, looking back on the situation, it is clear that God answered prayer in an unexpected way. For others, it might be a story where rescue still hasn’t happened/didn’t seem to happen and their rescue comes in knowing God is with them through difficult experiences.
Whatever stories you share, make sure they are appropriate for the age and context of the group, and they are told sensitively.
God with those who go A
A prayer activity for refugees
You will need: blankets, tarp, refugee statistics, copies of the prayer (see template).
- In our passage, the Israelites went into a scary situation because no matter how scary those walls of water must have felt they weren’t as scary as what was behind them – Pharaoh’s armies. In this activity we will connect that image with the humanitarian crises that are going on in the world at the current time.
- Put together make-shift shelters with the blankets/tarps. Would the young people want to live in these shelters?
- Across the world, millions of people are in risky situations because they are fleeing danger. Read out some of the current statistics about displaced people/refugees.
- Sitting in these make-shift shelters, write prayers for displaced people around the world using the prayer framework.
Check-in: Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues
Available by 10 am on Thursday 10 September 2026.