Genesis 27 - Jacob Steals the Blessing Quiet Book Page

   In Genesis 27, Jacob deceives his father and steals Esau's blessing.

Memory Verse: "And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him." Genesis 27:23 (NKJV).

 

Materials needed to create the Jacob Steals the Blessing quiet book page:

• A4 felt background sheet - I used pale peach
• my Jacob Steals the Blessing Bible quiet book free template pattern
• fake/leather scrap
• fake fur fabric scrap
• decorative trim scrap
• felt scrap
• sewing thread to best match the page

Cut out the hand shape from the fake leather piece and sew it down in position. Cut out the fake fur piece and zig zag around all edges to prevent it from fraying, folding back the fur as you go. Sew it down along the sides of the hands and between the thumb and fingers, leaving the top edges along the fingers open so you can feel the smooth leather underneath. 

Sew the decorative trim scrap to the edge of the arm end of the fur as the edge of Esau's good set of clothes that Jacob is wearing using zig zag stitch. Sew a section of felt to the edge of the page to finish the arm.

Finished!

Difficulty Level = Easy, plus No Sew version.

A very easy quiet book page!
Just use hot glue wherever sewing is recommended for a no sew version (except on the edges of the fur - you will just have to hope it doesn't fray too badly, which it probably won't, but I like to be extra careful). Or you could fold and glue the edges of the fur, but will have to include seam allowance for that.

Key Learning Areas and Skills

• Genesis 27 - Jacob, the deceiver, deceives his father and steals Esau's blessing
• Touch and Feel - Jacob's hands were smooth, but Esau's hands were hairy - touch the tactile elements of the page (leather, fur, and decorative trim)
• Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
• Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination

Read the Chapter

Genesis 27

Devotional

I think this is the first tactile quiet book page I have made, and I think it is quite fitting for this story. I was having trouble trying to think how to illustrate this story and thinking about a dress-up Jacob page with Issac in bed or something. But it was seeming too complicated, and as they say, simple is best. So when I thought about how I could simplify this page, this idea came to mind. I really love how something so simple can demonstrate the whole story so well.

This is another instalment to the Jacob the deceiver story-line. Originally Rebecca is surprised to find out she is pregnant with twins, and when they are born Jacob is a bit of a deceiver in that his fist came out first and a scarlet thread was tied to his wrist to mark him as the first born, but then he withdrew his fist and Esau was actually gets born first. That's how he got his name. Then he convinces Esau to sell him his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew. A dumb thing to fall for, but I guess Esau feels gypped by Jacob, and now when he actually lives up to his name and deceives his Dad and steals the blessing, which Esau still has to look forward to, Esau gets mad. In a few chapters time, Jacob ends up getting deceived into marrying what may have been the wife intended for Esau. 

I read in the Mishna that since Issac and Rebecca had two sons, and Rebecca's brother Laban had two daughters, that there had been some kind of agreement or arrangement made that the older son would marry the older daughter, and the younger son, would marry the younger daughter. But to Rebecca's dismay, Esau never went to claim his bride, and married locally instead. Rebecca at least wants Jacob to marry right, and uses Esau's anger as motivation to finally convince Jacob to go and claim his bride. By this stage, Esau had two wives already. Apparently Jacob was already about 77 years of age when he went to Haran (you can work it out from his age when Joseph was born and how long he stayed in Haran).

There is a big Mamma's boy theme going on here too. Issac says to his son, and Rebecca says to her son... Esau seems to be Issac's favourite, and Jacob, Rebecca's. Esau is a hunter, a real man. Jacob is a dweller in tents, a home body who does domestic things like cooking lentil stew.

So Jacob buys, steals and is tricked into getting everything due Esau. He wants the birthright, he wants the blessing, but not so much the wife. But it seems that they come as a package. And that God had plans for Leah too. 

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Have you made a tactile page? What unusual materials have you found to include?

Genesis 29 - Jacob's Wives Quiet Book Page

In Genesis chapter 29, Jacob has run away from his brother Esau and gone to his mother's family to find a wife. After agreeing to work seven years in exchange for the younger, more beautiful daughter Rachel, he is tricked into marrying the elder daughter Leah, and must work a further seven years to pay for Rachel. Leah bears Jacob four sons.

Memory Verse: When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?” Genesis 29:25.

Materials needed to create Jacob's Wives quiet book page:

• A4 felt background sheet. I used mid blue.
• felt scraps
• sewing thread to match each colour of felt
• sew on press studs
• material or lace for the veils
• two small blue beads and four small brown or black beads
• embroidered flowers, I got a fairly big bag full for $1 from Theo's Discount Craft in Melbourne
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• the template

Use the template to cut out the pieces from felt in appropriate colours. I used purple for Leah because she was the mother of Judah, through whom the royal line of King David, and thus Jesus, descended. I gave her blonde hair and blue eyes, and gave Rachel brown hair and eyes for reasons outlined in the devotional section. I used the darker shades for Leah and Rachel and used lighter shades of the same colours for Bilhah and Zilpah in the next chapter, so you might want to keep that in mind if you are doing a double page spread like me. Jacob was allocated red clothes because that's what I had already given him in the previous chapter, Genesis 28 - Jacob's Ladder Quiet Book Page.

Next, lay out your pieces and position everything on the page so you know where you want everything and to make sure it fits on your page. Pin so you can peel back as many layers as possible to sew underneath. Make sure you leave enough room for the son's names labels if you are using them.

For details on how I made the son's names labels with press studs, please refer to my Genesis 30 - Jacob Increases Quiet Book Page. Only do this part if you are making a double page spread with these two chapters.

Sew each piece down in the order listed below, matching your threads to your chosen colours.

1. large hair sections for Leah and Rachel
2. torso/arm sections - remember to insert the girl's dresses underneath the arms and on top of the torsos before sewing
   
3. heads and feet
4. dresses and tunic
5. rest of the hair pieces

Cut two sections of material or lace for the veils and sew them on. Then add the beads for eyes. Finally, hot glue down your embroidered flowers over the spot where the girls hands meet.

Finished!

Difficulty Level = Intermediate

Sewing Leah and Rachel's arms is the most difficult part of this page because they need to be sewn over the top of the dress before it has been sewn down yet, and you may get issues with lining them up properly. It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be though!

Key Learning Areas and Skills

• Genesis 29 - this page tells the story of Jacob marrying Leah and Rachel
• Visual Discrimination - spot the difference between Leah and Rachel
• Peek-a-boo - lift the veils to see their faces
• Press Studs - learn to line them up, push them on and pull them off
• Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
• Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination

 Read the Chapter

Genesis 29

Devotional

In this chapter, Jacob the deceiver - his name actually means that, gets deceived himself. He gets tricked into marrying the wrong woman... not a nice surprise I imagine. I had thought that he actually had to wait another seven years to marry his beloved Rachel, but it turns out he married her the next week, and had to pay her off for the next seven years.

For some reason, Jacob actually looks quite puzzled and cross standing next to Leah, but when you compare the shot of him standing with Rachel, he looks quite happy. I think it might be due to some body language caused by the one-shouldered tunic... What do you think?

Anyway, I drew their tunic and dresses with one shoulder because that is how they are depicted in ancient records. See the example below:

Image Source

Verse seventeen talks about Leah having weak eyes, but Rachel being both beautiful and having a hot body! There are two theories I have come across regarding Leah's weak eyes. The first says that she had blue eyes, which were considered weak and unattractive in that culture, where brown eyes were dominant. The other theory says that Leah's blue eyes were her only redeeming feature. She was perhaps blessed with a fertile, child rearing body... not a hot bod, and was not beautiful, and the only nice thing they could say about her was that she at least had nice eyes.

Interesting!

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Are the veils in this page captivating enough for your child?

Standard Attendance Cards

If anyone has any unused standard attendance cards and seals (stickers), please contact me! Scanned and printed onto felt, they would make awesome quiet books and would be reusable, unlike the paper version.

I have tried unsuccessfully to contact the owner of the files, and it seems they no longer exist. Standard Publishing have told me that they did not buy the files from the company now called Christian Standard Media from whom they bought a lot of their products. After contacting them, they told me almost the same thing, except that the company they bought from, RCL Benziger, no longer exists, and that the attendance cards essentially died two years ago.

If anyone still does own the files, I would love to buy them off you!!

This card was given to my Mum in her Bible class as a child. They are copyrighted to the sixties, so they have been around a long time. I remember them myself in my own Bible class and would love to be able to share them with Tahlia.

On the back is information about sixteen cards in the lot Jacob's Dream belongs to. I am not sure if there are any more or not, but here's to hoping! It seems to skip numbers in spots, so perhaps some were deleted along the way.

1801 - Jesus, Our Shepherd - to be used with 1801-S - Lambs seals
1804 - Fishing in Galilee - to be used with 1804-S - Fish seals
1809 - Bird Bath - to be used with 1809-S - Birds seals
1810 - Entering Church - to be used with 1810-S - Bibles seals
1812 - Match the Animals - to be used with 1812-S - Animals seals
1814 - The Harbor - to be used with 1814-S - Ships seals
1815 - Noah and Rainbow - to be used with 1815-S - Rainbow seals
1816 - David and Goliath - to be used with 1816-S - Soldiers seals
1831 - Jacob's Dream - to be used with 1831-S - Angel seals
1832 - Jesus and Bible Children - to be used with 1832-S - Sheep with Lamb seals
1833 - Daniel in the Lion's Den - to be used with 1833-S - Lions seals
1834 - Announcement to Shepherds - to be used with 1834-S - Silver Stars seals
1835 - Driving to Church - to be used with 1835-S - Automobile seals
1836 - Jesus and Children of the World - to be used with 1836-S - Children's Faces seals
1837 - Juniors Study the Bible - to be used with 1837-S - Open Bibles seals
1838 - Church in Community - to be used with 1838-S - Frame House seals

Even if the seals can't be sourced, the backgrounds would still be useful as a lot of the seals could be replaced with clip art or something similar.

Anyone else have fond memories of these?


Click on the image below to read my post on the Genesis 28 - Jacob's Ladder Quiet Book Page I made.

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Do you remember these attendance cards from your childhood?

Genesis 30 - Jacob Increases Quiet Book Page

In Genesis chapter 30, Jacob goes on to have all the rest of his children bar Benjamin. Interestingly, because Dinah is included in this list, the number still adds up to twelve, together with the four sons mentioned in the previous chapter. God also blesses Jacob with wealth through flocks of sheep and goats.

Memory Verse: Jacob said to him, “You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?” Genesis 30:29.

Materials needed to create the Jacob Increases quiet book page:

• A4 felt background sheet. I used black.
• felt scraps in two tones of purple and two tones of green, and some white, dark, spotted and striped felt for the sheep and goats
• sewing thread to match each colour of felt
• press studs
• ribbons
• a font template - I printed out the alphabet in capitals in a Word document using Cooper Black, size 120
• a sheep and goat template like this image from Shutterstock
• a lamb template from American Felt and Craft

Cut out your font templates, and cut them out of felt. Sew them down on the page, and write the rest of their names with a sewing machine (my sister's machine has a font setting) or embroidery machine, or hand embroider it. You could also print them onto iron on transfer paper and do it that way, but remember to flip the image first.

I also asked my sister to write out each of the children's names on her machine, and cut them out in 2cm strips. Lay them on top of the same colour of felt and sew them down. Sew one side of a press stud on the back of each, making sure not to go through to the top layer of felt. Sew the bottom halves of the press studs onto the page near the corresponding mother's name.

Melt the ends of some ribbons and sew them down for grass. I used a green ribbon with white spots, and a plain white ribbon with green ric rak over the top for a streaked effect to emphasize the spotted, speckled and streaked sheep and goats which were Jacob's wages during the six years he stayed on with Laban (following the fourteen years he worked for his wives).

Adjust the animal templates to the size needed for the page and in relation to each other. Cut out the templates as whole pieces. Cut them out of felt and sew them down onto the page as you would like them arranged. Cut out the sheep from pure white felt, but layer another spotted and striped felt on top which has had the legs and face cut out of it. Again, I used spotted and striped felt to accentuate the spotted, speckled, and streaked sheep and goats, and used a dark blue for the dark coloured lamb as stipulated for Jacob's wages.

Finished!

Difficulty Level = Intermediate

The press studs are the slightly harder elements of this page. You could simplify it by using sticky dot velcro instead and hot gluing it on to make sure they don't come off easily. The sheep and goats are a bit fiddly due to the small size I made them. As this page should be used together with Genesis 29, it kind of doubles the work needed too...

Key Learning Areas and Skills

• Genesis 30 - This page tells the story of the rest of Jacob's children's birth's (except Benjamin). It should be used in conjunction with the Genesis 29 - Jacob's Wives quiet book page because Jacob's first four children are born in this chapter. It also tells the story of Jacob's wages post the fourteen years he worked to acquire his wives - the speckled, spotted, and streaked sheep and goats, and the dark coloured lambs, and how God blessed him with such things.
• Colour matching - match the children with their mother
• Ordering - the older child can learn Jacob's children's birth order from memory
• Press Studs - learn to line them up, push them on and pull them off
• Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
• Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination

Read the Chapter

Genesis 30

Devotional

The similarity of Bilhah and Zilpah's names had me guessing that they were also sisters. Turns out that they most likely were, and may even have been the half-sisters of Leah and Rachel (through Laban's concubine). You can check out the Jewish folklore stories on the Jewish Women's Archive encyclopedia entry on Zilpah. As if there wasn't enough intrigue going on in this story already!

All the intrigue and goings on in the Bible really points out the fact to me that God can handle all of my problems. He has had plenty of experience.

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What do you learn from this Bible chapter?

Genesis 28 - Jacob's Ladder Quiet Book Page

In Genesis chapter 28, God appears to Jacob in a dream at the top of a ladder stretching from Heaven to Earth, upon which angels are ascending and descending, and promises to bless him.

Memory verse: "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15.

Materials needed to create the Jacob's Ladder quiet book page:

• A4 felt background sheet in a dark colour. I used navy.
• felt scraps, in skin colour, grey, dark brown, mid brown, and red
• 36 angel beads, make sure the hole goes through them horizontally not vertically - I used these, you could also use these (not affiliate links)
• yellow or gold ribbon/s
• sewing thread to match each colour of ribbon and felt
• a sleeping Jacob template - I used this colouring page from azcolouing.com

Cut out the template as a complete Jacob and position it at the bottom of your sheet of felt. Cut two lengths of your ladder side ribbons and burn the ends so they do not fray. Position them so the ends will be underneath the template of Jacob and run off the upper edge of the page. You can tuck them in when you sew the pages back to back to make a book. Pin the ribbons in place temporarily. Cut eight lengths of your rung ribbons to fit the width of the ladder and burn the ends so they do not fray. String on your angel beads, one on the highest rung ribbon, two on the second and so forth until you have eight on the lowest ribbon. Pin the ribbons so they are evenly spaced and the ends will lie underneath the ladder side ribbons. You can remove the ladder side ribbons, then sew down the rung ribbon ends. Re-position your side ribbons and sew in place.

Cut out each section of Jacob to use as a pattern out of a new template (you will have to print it out about 3 times):

1. torso, adding a small allowance along the edges that will be covered by his blanket, arm and face
2. blanket
3. face, adding a small allowance to what will be covered by his hair and the rock
4. hair, forget about the ear, just make his hair follow it's course had their been no ear sticking out, add a small allowance for what will be covered by the rock
5. rock
6. arm

Sew each piece down in the order listed above, matching your threads to your chosen colours. Use the complete Jacob template to make it easier to line up the pieces. 

Finished!

Difficulty Level = Intermediate

This page is rather easy, but things can go wrong, particularly when sewing down the ribbons which house the angel beads. Try to get it tight so the angel beads don't hang down, but sit straight on the page.

Key Learning Areas and Skills

• Genesis 28 - This page tells the story of Jacob's ladder, where God appeared to Jacob in a dream and reassured him that the promises of land and descendants given to Abraham and Issac would be fulfilled through his line
• Counting - count the angel beads
• Directions - up, down, left, right - flip the angels so they are ascending or descending the ladder, and move the angels left or right across the ribbon
• Gematria - the meaning of the number eight in scripture. See the devotional section below
• Angels - there are different types of angels - archangels, seraphim, cherubim, guardian, etc
• Fine Motor Skills - all quiet books encourage fine motor skill development
• Hand-eye Co-ordination - all quiet books encourage hand-eye co-ordination

Read the Chapter

Genesis 28

Devotional

In the previous chapter of Genesis, Jacob has just stolen his brother's blessing, not to be confused with his brother's birthright which he willingly sold to Jacob in Genesis 25. He now has to run for fear of his life. His father sends him to his mother's family in search of a Godly wife, and on the way, Jacob has this dream. I assume Jacob was feeling rather guilty and unworthy of the blessing he has just stolen, and God takes pity on him and reassures him that he is the one who will fulfill His purposes.

I have a feeling that Jacob desired to be chosen by God so badly that he was willing to steal to get it. I can relate to this because I wanted to be baptized so badly that I was willing to lie in order to have it happen. I do not fully agree with all the tenets of my denomination, but I said I did in order to get baptized. Looking back, I can see many ways to get around this issue, and indeed, you no longer need to pledge all these things prior to baptism. But I can definitely relate to Jacob's situation here, and I guess it is encouraging to see God's response!

I chose to have eight rungs on the ladder. The number eight in scripture has to do with new beginnings, and I suppose that is just what Jacob is getting here. Also, the gematria of Jesus is 888. I am not talking about numerology, but numbers in scripture can deepen your understanding of the plain text. Of course, it can be taken too far... You can read about the relationship of Hebrew and Greek letters and words to their numeric values (similar to Roman numerals) in this brief article on gematria by Matt Slick on the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry website.

As I mentioned earlier, the ladder represents Jesus (John 1:50-51), and I will refer you to this very short but very good explanation by LaVista Church of Christ.

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Have you met Jesus in your dreams?