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.

The Good Shepherd, World Communion and Unleavened Bread

 A "loose?" version of the Good Shepherd and World Communion.
When it came to asking "Have you ever came close to this table?" some said "no" then said "yes"
"It's like what we just did in church" another said "Yes a bit but it can't be because it doesn't have a white table cloth or a white covering over the bread and the wine."
Agreed but it could still be that table. They then asked why the clothes were there and some joint wondering ensued...? The considered replies as follows: 

• So we don't know its communion.
• So its a surprise
• To think about how Jesus was hidden in the tomb and couldn't be seen but then was alive
• To remind us that Jesus is not seen but is here with us when we have communion
• White is a pure colour.

After a time of prayer, unleavened bread was made as a group (there were other options but this is what was decided) cooked (by a very nice adult) and then our feast was shared!!! As we discussed communion and bread some more, e.g. the types of bread used for communion, the pass over feast et.c. 

The service was a communion service (which the children were part of prior to going out for their group) which is why this was planned.

Salt and Light

The church went away for a long weekend to a big house by the sea. The adults had some time together each day for teaching and discussion on Matthew 5, whilst children and youth broke away for their own related sessions. The children were  fortunate to have a wonderful space for their sessions, and I wish I had have got a photo of the whole room (shame about the busy carpet). The other fortunate thing was it was situated next to the main meeting/ communal space so was utilised  at all times and the children independently accessed the play space over and over and the craft supplies were used constantly to make a range of things, related to the stories and also to make boats to sail on the pond! Which brought up lots of boat, bible story discussions (we have been doing those in children's church, so good to act it out in reality)

 

First sessions we looked at the Salt and light passages (Matt 5:13-16) We started the session hiding glow sticks in a darkened room and children finding them. The children LOVED this but a huge mistake to do this at a beginning of the session, who knew just what an exciting activity this was for children but cue VERY lively children who were already excited to be at the seaside!!!!!
And it was a good activity (for the end of a session!)

Here are the rest of the activities we had available relating to Salt and light (some of these were left for the course of the weekend)

Projector with a clear tray of salt to draw images on that would project onto ceiling - this was great shame aboutI didn't get any photos. The other warning on this one is needs to be done near windows as there was a lot of fine salt dust coming off this!!

Dark Den with light up toys and glow sticks

I came in to find this note written by one of the children, who had removed all the light toys leaving a dark empty space (we later talked about a world without Jesus, being like the darkness)

Ingredients for making play dough (which was supposed to be black, we used a whole tube of colouring!!!)

This is an eye shape about use Looking for the light/ seeing the light!

We had a glitter fest, the glitter was supposed to symbolise the light in the darkness of the play dough.

One child asked why we had glitter and I started to say that it was like the light, and one of the children said because I think it means Christians are supposed to sparkle!!!

One of the children asked to make a world, so we made some green and blue play dough...

And some people out of pipe cleaners, they were going to be lighting up the world! On the top there is a massive gem, I enquired what that was thinking it may be profound and it was (in a different way to what I was thinking) Thats where Father Christmas lives!!!! Oh I love children!

Salt dough for making  holders.

Candle holders in the process

Light houses (paper cups with electrical tape, and a battery operated candle) I love the variations and individual twists! The man on top of the white and green one is Jesus, and the words on the top say "Jesus Light of the World"

 Salt and Ice painting. I froze bowls of ice and provided salt to sprinkle on and food colouring. When you sprinkle the ice it cracks and melts and when you pain it the food colouring spreads into the cracks making beautiful patterns...until you use the salt to attempt to melt the ice then you have lots of fun, a mess, wet floor and a good understanding of the power of salt.

For snack we made pop corn and had salt and shake crisps, first we tried without salt and then added salt, everyone decided they preferred it with salt! I will post tomorrow about our general conclusions about salt and light and what we thought Jesus meant by being salt and light in the world!

Camel through the eye of a needle

Today's post is actually from the older children's group 6-11 yr olds but I just wanted to share a few fabulous examples of what we made. As usual this craft was only an option but it was seriously well received! 

Today's session was obviously, Matthew 19: 16-26 The Rich Young Ruler, or Camel through the eye of a needle or even what one of the little ones called it "The threading story"

In the older group we also had a who can thread a needle quickest competition. A needle challenge: can the team get a cube of jelly through the eye of a needle? I gave them a cup of cold water that said the world I had a cup of boiling water that said God, they couldn't get the jelly through but I was able to pour mine through because with God all things are possible! (I had planned on using paper camel shapes to get through the eye and myself rice paper and melting in water but couldn't find any)

We did spiders web prayers, taking lengths of string to symbolise something we wanted to pray for that may seem impossible! We put them in the shape of a spiders web then symbolically cut them to say God has herd. 

I will see if I can post the little ones activities another day - I don't have photos at the moment!

The Lost Stories

As a review of the children doing all the "lost stories" (lost sheep, lost coin, lost son) this is an overview of the activities available in this session (I am going to post in two lots because the Fruits of the Spirit post was too big to repeat)

 "lost game" children have to put their hand in the bag and find the missing shapes from the bag.

Find lost coins in sand!

Farm set and people relating to lost sheep and lost son (pigs)

"Special" boxes, little boxes decorated with gems. To fill with things in side (we later hid love heart sweets inside that were in the centre of a game of pass the parcel)