Free Bible Scroll Story Printables for Children

How a scroll story works

Each page holds two strips of numbered panels, one to six on the left and seven to twelve on the right, with a CUT HERE line above each. A child cuts out the two strips, tapes the end of panel six to the top of panel seven, and has the whole story on one long strip. Roll it from both ends onto two pencils, craft sticks or dowels and it becomes a small scroll that opens one picture at a time.

Every panel carries a short caption, such as They left their boat, He remembered his father, or The disciples were together. The captions hold the key words and the pictures hold the order, so the scroll prompts a retelling without doing it for the child.

Twenty stories in Bible order

Seven come from the Old Testament: Creation, Noah’s ark, the plagues and the Passover, Ruth and Naomi, Elijah on Mount Carmel, Jonah, and the fiery furnace. Thirteen follow Jesus and the early church: His birth, His baptism, the calling of the fishermen, the calming of the storm, the feeding of the five thousand, the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, Lazarus, Zacchaeus, the triumphal entry, the cross and the empty tomb, the road to Emmaus and the Day of Pentecost.

The table above gives the passage for each story, so you can read it from the Bible before anyone picks up the scissors. The Creation scroll gives one panel to each day, and the Pentecost scroll shows the disciples speaking in other tongues, with speech bubbles in four languages.

Why retelling matters

Retelling a story in order, in your own words, is one of the surest signs that a child has understood it, and it is a skill every reading lesson builds on. The scroll gives a young child a way in: the pictures hold the sequence, the captions hold the key words, and the child supplies the rest. Older children can write their own sentence on the back of each panel, or cover a panel and see whether a younger brother or sister can tell what goes there.

Because the strips are cut, taped and rolled, the story is also something a child holds and handles, which helps the children who remember best when their hands are busy. Twelve panels is a good length, too: long enough to carry a whole story from the problem to God’s answer, and short enough for a young child to keep the order in mind.

In Sunday school and at home

In a Sunday school class, a scroll story is a craft that doubles as the lesson review: read the passage together, make the scroll, then have children roll through it and tell the story to a partner. At home, one scroll a week through all twenty covers the great arc of the Bible, from Creation to Pentecost, in about five months.

Keep the finished scrolls in a box and they become a small library a child can use to tell the stories to younger children. The scroll of the cross and the empty tomb shows the crucifixion simply and reverently, beginning with the Last Supper; with very young children you may want to make that one together. The Bible Games collection includes What Comes Next?, a sequencing game that works the same skill with different stories.

A retelling routine

After the scroll is made, let the child be the storyteller. Roll the scroll closed, then open it one panel at a time and have the child tell what is happening before the next picture appears. If they skip something, ask what happened next rather than telling them. At the end, close the scroll and ask for the whole story again from memory, then read the passage once more together and see what they remembered and what they missed.

A shoebox makes a simple theater: cut a window in the side, slide a pencil through holes at each end, and wind the strip past the window like an old picture roll. Children love performing a story this way for the family after dinner.

Stories for the church year

Several scrolls fit the seasons. Make the birth of Jesus in December. In the weeks before Easter, work through the triumphal entry, the cross and the empty tomb, and the road to Emmaus, and finish with the Day of Pentecost fifty days later. The Creation and Noah scrolls make a strong start to a new school year.

What you need

Scissors, tape, and two pencils or craft sticks for each scroll. Printing on cardstock makes the strips sturdier to roll, but ordinary printer paper works well for a one-week craft. Each story is a single letter-size page; the download at the top of this page holds all twenty.