Plagues of Egypt

When we studied the plagues of Egypt, we drew and colored each plague in small white squares attached to a black sheet of paper. Little did I know how much fun we would have, because the children ended up drawing cartoons for each plague. They were giggling to themselves as they worked on it each day for about half an hour. It took about a week to complete this project, and all of the pages were very well done.

The first plague was blood in the Nile River. Most of the children drew water that was red, but my oldest son drew what looked like a red puddle, with a staff rammed into it. Later I noticed that the blue water around it hadn't turned red yet, so my son chose to draw the exact moment when the staff touched the water, which was the most dramatic moment. I thought that was clever.

The second plague was frogs. My youngest daughter was four when we did this, and she thought she couldn't draw a frog. I told her to make a circle for the head, and two bumps for the eyes. Two humps came out of the body like upside-down U's. A right-side-up U was put in the middle of the bottom of the frog, and a cloud shape finished off the legs. My oldest son had lots of frogs that had tons of details, so much so that they looked like black frogs coming out of the water. He thought the other children's papers weren't quite right because there were lots of frogs everywhere, not just one frog.

The third plague was lice. The children drew a person scratching his head, with lots of dots on it. My oldest son had the man yelling, I assume from irritation.

The fourth plague was gnats, so there were swarms of insects flying everywhere. What looked like a big swarm of flies came at a man's head, who was yelling, “Yikes, that's a big one!” Did he think the swarm was one insect, or were there larger gnats that scared the man? We'll never know...

The fifth was the plague on cattle. I was proud of my daughter for actually drawing what looked like a cow. My two middle sons drew cows that were so skinny, they looked hilarious! My oldest son drew a cow with ribs that showed.

The sixth plague was boils. People were drawn with red dots on their skin. My second son had one man saying, “What do you see on me?” The other guy says, “I see spots.” My oldest son had a man lying down with dots all over him, yelling, “Ooow!” (This probably actually happened in real life. I can't imagine having painful boils and not crying out with pain.)

The seventh plague was hail. The children drew what looked like rocks coming down from clouds. My second son had the hail coming down in all kinds of directions, and my oldest son drew huge hail, and a guy was being knocked over because he was hit by a large hailstone. (In real life, people actually died from the hail, if they foolishly went outside. I've seen hail on the weather channel that is as large as a man's head, that crashed through a windshield!)

The eighth plague was locusts eating all the plants. My daughter was proud to draw one grasshopper by doing an oval for the body, then upside-down V's for the legs. She added antenna and eyes. My third son drew six grasshoppers. My second son drew a leaf with grasshoppers on it. My oldest son drew a grinning grasshopper that looked kind of creepy. (I could almost hear a fake diabolical laugh in the background, coming out of that creepy grasshopper, knowing he would devour everything.)

The ninth plague was darkness. Two of the children just colored the whole square black. (“That was easy!” they said.) The other two kids had darkness surrounding them with a beam of light. I'm presuming the man is an Israelite, since there is light on him.

The tenth and last plague was “Death of the Firstborn.” Two children drew a man lying on the ground. One son drew a man falling over, with X's on his eyes. My oldest son drew a man on his deathbed saying, “Farewell, cold, cruel world!” And there you have it, the ten plagues of Egypt. No wonder the pharaoh told the Israelites to get out of there. He must have been exhausted after all that!