Creation Idea Cards

I made these AGES ago, for toddlers room at church but they were created from activities I did with group for children with Special Needs. You don't need to use all ideas just a few may be all that's needed. I can't find the water and land ones, sorry.

Good Samaritan - Play

Haven't posted for a while, so am going to "try" to, Im still doing stuff just forgetting camera all the time (sorry for quality of pictures)

Story scene for Good samaritan (people, sand, tree, rock, and inn) alongside books left open at Good Samaritan story.

Playmobil play ground, car and ambulance. So children could act out helping situations and make relevant to own lives.

Doctor/ first aid activities with loads of bandages and slings (very popular and I looked like I'd had a major injury by end of session)

Drawing and making - children were given option of making helping hands pictures, cards for someone or bandaging a card person. One child did the bandaging another wrote about family the others kept playing.

There were blocks left out next to the story scene to embellish the Inn or make a town this was the Inn by the end of session, and we got duplo out to make the town.

Moses in the Bullrushes (Exodus 2)

Large play scene for Moses in Bullrushes. 

(This term for the younger groups, under 7's I'm attempting to use both large dolls for the stories which is something I made for Holiday Club and worked very well, as well as using Godly Play (People of God) and small scale wooden models in sand). For this session all play resources were available at all times alongside craft materials.

The story was told first (this is not always the format of a session it depends upon the dynamics of the grouping) After the story, and a short time of wondering (which actually occurred naturally during the story as well) and then a snack (of jelly babies on biscuits and milk bottles)

After the story play options were pointed out and what craft materials were available and a few ideas about what they may make without direction e.g. "what do you think you could make?" 

 A basket for baby Moses (the first one created with much concentration - pipe cleaners were requested in addition to what was available)

Another basket for baby Moses

 A basket with Moses inside

A different take on Moses transport a boat instead of a basket (again much concentration)

The children agreed that more clay was defiantly needed.

Sock babies, really enthusiastically received by the girls. Was rather prescriptive craft and needed support but prompted lots of play afterwards. The older group 7+ got very creative with their sock Moses!

Not from this session but a previous Moses session - Milk bottle tops with Moses drawn on and floating - the children enjoyed playing with this.

Ideas Sheet for Exodus 2

Paul Heals... craft

We looked at the healings of Paul, as a craft response for the 6-11 year olds we made pipe cleaner dolls that moved to remind us that the people in the story were able to move/ jump for joy.

Guidelines for making: http://alljoinin.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/making-dolls-aka-bible-dolls.html

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

Continuing with our Bible Super heroes, this week we had three superheroes; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. 

We introduced the session with a clip from Bolt the movie, the clip when Bolt rescues Penny from the fire, introducing Bolt using super bark (or something like that) power to rescue his friend and God using an angel to rescue his friends.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of all the activities of the groups, but a few to get an idea. 

Each group had props to tell the story that were similar to this.

The three to four year olds had the following play experiences to support the story:

 Red and Yellow sensory items to talk about the colours of fire.

 Gold and silver sensory materials to support talking about a golden statue.

 They also had yellow and red play dough that was presented with wooden people, to talk about people in the fire.

The four - six year olds also had play dough as above, and a fire station complete with wooden fire blocks.

The oldest group (rising 7-11) discussed the super powers of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, which we decided were

• Bravery
• Trusting God
• Faith
• Standing up for God

We discussed whether we had ever had to stand up for God, and how we had done this or challenges with this. We had a great and very mature discussion about this. 

Crafts:

Paper plate fiery furnaces. This was an option for the under sixes and for the three and four year olds it was their only "craft" option but the play responses remained (which was the case for the four - six year olds)

 Fiery furnace stained glass window (with sticky backed plastic)

 

Fiery furnace bottles, this was a really popular craft activity with the eldest group (rising 7 - 11) and they were really enthusiastic about it. The word stickers were found on their request to relate to the super hero powers we had discussed when reviewing the story.

There was also the option of drawing/ writing words about the story on a red bauble.

We finished with the two oldest groups playing with a parachute

• Mushroom- but we were in the fiery furnace
• Fruit salad with the words "Fire" "Gold" "King" and for fruit salad the words "Trust God" (children's idea)
  
  

Super Heroes - Old Testament Heros

We are going to be exploring Old testament heroes (until we get to Jesus for Easter) 

As an introduction we thought about superheroes that we knew of and what they did. Then designed our own superhero, identifying his superhero characteristics, introducing Super Mo!

Then we explored the story of Noah and thought about what his superhero powers are. Then how we can use them skills in our own lives.

Next week Samson....

Samson Play Activities

We are going to "trial" providing children with some structured play activities I guess loosely based on montessori prepared activities. We try to support children to play around the story but some are struggling with this. I also think that it would greatly support any children who have children with autistic spectrum disorders using TEACCH principles.

The Wise and Foolish Builder Snack

Snack for the story the wise and foolish builders made from wafers, cereal, cravers, rice paper, chocolate and icing, oh and  sugar sand!
Story snacks are always well received and a good reinforcer of the story.

Ten Plagues Story Box

We did this as part of holiday club 2012 (Moses) and it was really popular with the youngest group (age 3-5) and retold over and over with very little support

For each plague we used the same refrain

"Moses said "Let my people go"

But Pharaoh said "No"

So God sent..."

When children were telling alone the cards were lined up as a guide, when an adult told each card was generally got out along with the corresponding object. This is the line up once all the plagues had been done.

1.  A plague of blood (Sensory block with red liquid, a bottle with water and red food colouring would work)
2. A plague of frogs (A plastic frog with noise of frog)
3. A plague of gnats (a jar with a man drawn on outside, filled with water and black sequins so gnats flew around when shaken)
4. A plague of flies (a plastic fly)
5. Death of live stock (a wooden cow)
6. A plague of boils (a peg with face and clothes drawn
7. A hail storm (jar with man drawn on with white beads inside)
8. A plague of locusts (a grasshopper - looks like a locust)
9. Darkness (a black scarf to put over eyes)
10. Death of first born (a tomb, but a sad face or tomb stone would work)

The cards were printed from the Mr Biblehead blog 

Playdough Sheep

Could be used to support a variety of stories e.g. lost sheep, good shepherd, psalm 23, David... 

I am regurgitating a post (almost) from all join in blog as I was thinking of this, this am when the toddlers had sheep/ shepherd play materials out and thought it would be good to follow this up with some play dough another week.

The sheep play dough has previously been well received. 

The play dough was made white to create sheep (although black could be made also, but I never have huge success creating non greyish play dough). The whitest playdough  contained only cornflour (cornstarch), using recipe 1 from the Gluten free playdough . The whitish playdough was made using a traditional playdough recipe but substituting plain flour for half self raising and half cornflour. 

The dough was supplemented with short lengths of pipe cleaner (legs), buttons, (eyes, although also used as flowers in the photo above) if I was to do again i'd probably use large goggly eyes too) and rubber mats for fields (and water).

The supplementary materials were simply there, and children were not told what to do with the pieces other than shall we make some sheep for the shepherd. 

Going Fishing

Funky Foam Fishing

Funky foam makes most wonderful fish (if a little dead, floating on water), when accompanied by a tea strainer, mini fishing net or in this case a spoon? It provides a great fishing activity. I originally did this a responsive activity in pre-school sunday group where I wrote words on one side, with affirming words about what God thought of the, subsequently a memory verse. You could equally do the affirming words with any group of children, even allowing the children to each pass thier fish to a friend. This group of fish had various emotions drawn on to allow discussion about emotions. 

This would be a useful activity for any of the fishing stories in the Bible, particularly the Jesus ones, it's easy cheap and fun (and the children could make the fish)

Just be aware little ones might bite fish and funky foam breaks with little teeth so supervise or reconsider with little ones.

God So Loved the World/ God loves me pockets

Thinking about supplementary materials for God so loved the world/ God loves me etc. or any from the love themed stories/ passages in the Bible, I've made these heart pockets. They could be used to colour match people to (I may even make a set to coordinate to the Jesus loves the little children song, we currently have pictures of children dressed in those colours to accompany the song), to put little hearts inside, crosses, matching coloured sheep etc. 

Bible Verse Cube

I was thinking of possible ways of communicating key verses to children, and thought wooden cubes/ blocks would be a great way to communicate a short verse in 6 symbols. I have attempted to draw Widgit symbols to communicate the most famous verse in the world John 3:16. The bold words are the symbols (ish)

"For God so loved the world He gave his only son, that who ever believes in Him shall not die but have eternal life."

I feel this will support all children, but will be of particular value to non readers and those who have additional needs.

Bible Sensory Bottles 1

Sensory/ discovery bottles are popular around the world with babies and toddlers (and even preschoolers) and can be used in a variety of ways; to look at and explore, to prompt a story/ song/ concept, sorting, knocking down etc. Here are a few ideas for sensory bottles relating to Bible stories, they can be used to simply explore independently or with support or to accompany the story getting each bottle out in turn (for preschoolers you could number them so they can retell the story)

Creation:

• Black tissue paper
• Neon sticks (cracked and put inside – will last few hours)
• Glow in the dark stars and star sequins
• Soil
• Sand
• Silk flowers (ones cut off a hawaiian leis from pound shop are great)
• Water, oil and liquid soap bubbles (add blue food colouring)
• Feathers
• Water and little fish beads/ sequins/ tiny plastic ones
• Tiny plastic animals (put some sand in also)
• Hand and feet buttons/funky foam cut outs and googly eyes
• White tissue paper (symbolise rest)

Noah:

• lolly pop sticks and match sticks (Noah built ark)
• Bottles filled with objects of a single colour (as above) in rainbow colours
• Rainbow bottles (fill with objects of rainbow colours e.g. beads, pom-poms, match sticks, buttons, feathers etc.)
• Tiny animals
• Water oil and blue food colouring
• White feathers (dove)
• Fake leaves off of silk flowers or funky foam (the leaf the dove returned)
• Sand/ soil