teaching about "the fall" and sin at what age do we start

[Kaylene]

trying to think ahead post day 7 for my lessons ( 2yrold may, 3yr old feb and 2.75 yr old nov) trying to work out shall i do garden of eden /fall/sin/snake or not? open for comments thanks

[Valerie]

Kaylene,

I can tell you that after reading extensively about the stories of Jesus, this was one of the first stories I read to my children. I think that after children learn about Jesus, and how he loves them, it falls right in with "why he came" and that goes back to the first sin. So I would say that after you feel your children are rooted in the fact that God loves and cares for them, then this would be a great place to start.

We talked about the definition of "sin" meaning disobeying god, and that Adam and Eve sinned because they ate from the tree. The snake was very tricky too, and we talked about him, but not very extensively.....our focus was more on the fact that Jesus came because mankind sinned.

I used a lot of the printables here

However, you could also just start at creation and read on through as well. I'm not really sure what the "technical age" is for learning about Sin, but my son is about 2.75 (lol) and he's very familiar with the Adam and Eve story, and that sneeky snake.......not quite sure he is really grasping the concept of sin (lol, sometimes I myself have trouble grasping the full concept.....ha ha!) but every child is different, and when we do see a "Sin" we can at least refer back to that story and remember that God loves us and wants us to obey.

Hope that wasn't too full of ramblings for ya, I'm interested to hear what other people think, or have experienced with their own children!

Blessings,

Valerie

[hewittmom]

I also have wondered this. And b/c I have have wondered this so much, I try to stick to stories more about being helpful and caring and loving other people. (and I love to teach on being respectful to your parents! ha-ha!!)

The whole thing about someone sinning is so confusing to little kids. However, with that said, I did just go over Adam and Eve. My 4 y/o had a very confused look on her face. So, its back to plan A, I believe.

[Kaylene]

i decided to take a bad apple and a moldy slice of bread and mouldy cheese along . once i got to the part in story i said to the 2 children present would u eat this and what would happen if u ate this? later on i asked them about times they dont do what they asked eg putting toys away or doing homework and we inclded that in prayer time. FYI we had a brand new 8 yr old boy that wk and at start oif story time he started to say abit about the later part oif the story which as i said to my helper that night, showed he had some background - we had no idea of background at all until them! kaylene