Jacob and Esau

For those of you who aren't familiar with this story, in short, it's about a Jacob, Esau, Isaac, and Rebekah.

Jacob and Esau are twin brothers, Esau being older and hairy, and Jacob the younger and smooth skinned. Isaac is their dad, and Rebekah is their mom. When Isaac is old, blind, and dying, Rebekah tells Jacob to go get his older brother's blessing. To trick Isaac, Jacob wears a fur coat/pelt/hide thing to feel hairy like Esau is naturally.....and that's where we get the craft. 

Super simple and a great way to engage their sense touch, which helps them remember it much easier.

Here is the coloring sheet we used.

To save it, right click and click "save image as"

We also put a verse from the passage, Genesis 27, at the top so the parents could help talk to their kids about the story at home.

We used Gensis 27:11, but any from that chapter would work.

"Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin."

To enhance story time, we brought in a piece of fake fur and let the kids close their eyes and feel it, like Isaac did.

Since Jacob fed his father soup, we served "soup crackers" (more commonly known as oyster crackers).

At first, I thought this would be a hard lesson to teach them, but they understood it and the touching of the fur/pom poms really made an impression on them. Though we couldn't explain the significance of the blessing in full, they understood that Jacob lied to his father and that we don't want to do that. They also understood very well about how Esau (eventually) forgave Jacob and how we need to forgive each other,

 I'm forever amazed at the many things we can learn in just a short story.

xo,

Lauren