Playdough Angels

Playdough angels. They may not all quite resemble angels but it was a mixture of ages, and allowed to create from the resources available.

• skin colour play dough (obviously), there were two shades
• plastic gems
• white feathers
• pipe cleaners (metallic)
• eyes
• pom poms
• match sticks

The story we were doing was Joseph is told by an angel that Mary is having God's son, but it would work for any angel story. This was our most popular angel activity with the littlest ones.

CD Angel

Not a prescriptive craft super fan but I quite like this CD angel and left lots of scope for creativity! Was REALLY popular! And I know which one I prefer (one was done by me!)

Family Advent day 10

Family Advent day 9

Family Advent day 8

Finally on time!

Family Advent day 7

May have just made it on time for some

Family Advent day 6

still late

Family Advent day 5

family advent day four

Late (sorry)

Family Advent Day 3

I thought I'd be organised and attempt to post day prior!

Family advent day 2

Family Advent TIme

To celebrate advent as families I have created a set of cards for daily reflection/ activity time. I have tried to leave room for some creativity, whilst giving possible ideas of exploring the story together.

Church in a Box

Wanting some "little" play sets for in church I was going to make a nativity scene in a box but thought a church would actually work well. Here's the result and it all fits nicely into the little box for transport. The box is a turkish delight box/ 

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.

Toy Story Junior Church (friends of Jesus-Mary, Martha and Lazarus)

 That's it folks, until next (this) month, when we are doing Mr Potato Head (The Body of Christ.

Moses Story (Part 1)

For this holiday club we did the story of Moses. Here are snippets of the story telling and the play to support this.

Close Up of the Story Photos.  

Play Resources

 God Hears: Matching two shakers of the same sound, and ELC sound cubes.

God Sees: Kaleidoscopes, distorting mirrors and lenses, colour paddles and torches.

Jesus Friend to All

We were doing the story on the Ten Lepers, with a focus on how Jesus was friends with all (a holiday club message we were revisiting) and even though they had leprosy He helped them and didn't shy away. We photocopied our hands to tell the story (one way we told it) drawing straight mouths on each of the hands turning to happy when healed. Moving on to write our own thank you's around the hands.

The photo above is something we thought of whilst photocopying, noticing our hands were all different and little details were being captured led us to talk about how Jesus was all of our friend's even if we are different. So we made posters of group of hands, which turned out lovely!!!

I think we will use the hand photocopying idea again!!

Junior Church Format

I have blogged about Junior Church/ Children's Church on many occasions but don't think I have ever written the order of the session any where! So I thought I'd take this opportunity to do so. The times are variable and a very rough guide, we move times/ adapt to the needs of the group and each session.

Light Show

Further to last post thought I would add this wonderful light toy that is designed for under water e.g. in the bath, but works equally well outside. It can be used for exploration of for themes e.g. light, stars etc.

It projects well onto ceiling and walls but even better onto close surfaces e.g. an umbrella or chiffon or indeed both as in one of the photos. I placed it in a large shiny Ikea fruit dish that reflected well.

It can be purchased from specialist SEN retailers or ebay and Amazon, search around under the heading "under water light show"  the vary in price from £5-£50 (depending on size/ amount of light sequences/ or just difference)

Here is a link to the one featured here (possibly not the same retailer)