Before class
You will point at four ribbon ends again and again, so mark them in your own copy of pp. 32–33 ahead of time: Enos 1140, Cainan 1235, Mahalaleel 1290, Jared 1422. The night before, read pp. 32–35 and Genesis 5:28–6:22. Print Big-Print Stretch 4 (sheets A–D) and tape it up. For the ark, bring masking tape and a tape measure, and keep the ark card on p. 34 open; its measures come straight from Genesis 6:15.
Opening · 5 minutes
“Who is the oldest person you have ever really talked with? What did they tell you about when they were young?” Open with that, let two or three answer, and enjoy the stories. Then lean in: “Now imagine you could sit down with an old man who had sat down with Adam himself, and ask him what the garden was like. On today’s piece of the chart, that is the world Noah grew up in.” Point to the green ribbon on the wall and read the first words written along it: “talked with CAINAN 179 yrs.”
At the chart · 15 minutes
1Noah is born. Ask a student to find NOAH 950 YEARS and the place where his green ribbon rises from Lamech’s, “2948 B.C. 1056 A.M.” (pin 2 on p. 32). Then go back to the left edge and find the end of Seth’s ribbon with the little dashed 14 beneath it: Seth missed Noah’s birth by fourteen years (pin 1). Read Genesis 5:28–29 and ask why Lamech chose this name. Write the word comfort on the board and leave it there for the rest of the lesson.
2The ribbons thin out. Give four students one ribbon end each: Enos at 1140 A.M., Cainan at 1235, Mahalaleel at 1290, Jared at 1422 (pin 4). Each one finds the end on the sheets and stands beside it. Then ask the class who is left at the right edge. There are three: Noah, Lamech and Methuselah. Read Adams’ note that Lamech is “the first man on record, who died a natural death, before his father” (pin 5), and let the class work out what that means: Methuselah outlived his own son.
3The men Noah knew. Read the words along Noah’s ribbon: he talked with Cainan 179 years, Mahalaleel 234, Jared 366 and Lamech 595 (pin 3). Check one of them with Key 6 · Same column, same moment: from the end of Jared’s ribbon at 1422 A.M., take away Noah’s birth at 1056. The answer is 366, the number Adams wrote (p. 35). Then show the chain of eight lives across the top, from Adam to Moses, and read Psalm 78:4 together.
4Measure the ark. Finish with the ark card on p. 34. A cubit is the forearm, elbow to fingertip, so every child carries one. Let the class pace out a few cubits along the floor with masking tape, then talk about the whole ark: 300 cubits long, 50 wide, 30 high, roughly 450 by 75 by 45 feet at eighteen inches to the cubit. Whatever cubit you use, the ark stays six times as long as it is wide and ten times as long as it is high (p. 35).
Talk it over · 15 minutes
Lamech named his son for comfort. What comfort did Noah actually bring, and to whom?
Listen for: Listen for answers that reach past Noah’s own family to what God promised after the Flood in Genesis 8:20–22. If the class stays with the ark alone, ask what God said when Noah came out of it.
Noah talked with men who had talked with Adam. Why might God let the story of Eden travel through so few hands?
Listen for: The point to land is that the record stayed close to its source. Point to Adams’ chain across the top of pp. 32–33 and to Psalm 78’s picture of fathers telling their children.
Jesus compares his coming to the days of Noah, when people were eating, drinking and marrying. What in that comparison is a warning, and what is a comfort?
Listen for: Listen for both halves: ordinary life was not the sin, being unready was. If the class hears only the warning, remind them that Noah and his house were saved.
To close
“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”Genesis 6:22 · KJV
Lord, make us people who do what you say, as Noah did, even before anyone else can see the reason.
With younger children (6–10)
Elbow to fingertip: every child already carries a cubit. Let each one measure theirs, then count together how many cubits it takes to cross the room. Tell them the ark was 300 cubits long and let them imagine it. Back at the wall sheets, have them find Noah’s green ribbon and count the ribbons that stop before the right edge. They go home with one sentence: Noah found grace, and Noah obeyed.