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

CD Fish

I just found these and thought actually of all "perscriptive" crafts (which are not my preference to  do with children but some certainly love them so I do) CD fish are one of my favourite! And there are a log fish stories in the Bible! 

Easter Play

On Easter day in church these resources were available for the youngest children to play with. In the afternoon I returned to church to collect items to play our way through the story.

These cubes accompanied the resources, pictorially telling key parts of story and identifying emotions to relate to each part of the story

The triumphant entry, again "Hosanna" was immediately shouted! (note how the gates/ arch are held up :)

The last supper (the cube has another use) 

At this meal there was also chocolate cake!! (perhaps chocolate on brain since we had easter egg interludes)

Praying in the garden - the friends are actually sleeping!

 The saddest of days! 

 Still a sad day,  Jesus buried 

 A very happy day Jesus is alive!!

Palm Sunday/ triumphant entry!

I'll let the picture speak for self, simplicity to tell and simple but wonderful story.  My 22 month old niece picked up each person some time after hearing story saying "Hosanna" "Hosanna"

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)
  
  

Thank You God for Colours

 I made this book some time ago but have actually never even used it. It was supposed to be used within church services as part of a busy bag for colour. With other items relating to colour included. Maybe I'll sort that some time.

Esther The Superhero

Today's session at Junior Church we looked at Esther, here are some of the activities...

Royal play dough faces

 Cardboard tube Kings, queens and castles

a blurry picture but hopefully you can get the idea

 

Plastic bottle crown pots (again not great pic- sorry)

 Super hero/ Royal capes

Decorating the castle walls (the walls were covered with brown paper outside the entrance with a turret and a fake draw bridge. To enter children could only get in by crawling into the door and entering in though the castle which was made from card into the room (big enough to comfortably fit about 8 children and adult in) then of course a door into the main room and the other activities.

Mmmm... what are these? They are gingerbread men decorated in their royal finery :)

Other activities include:

Making lego castle

Taking turns to put wooden block castle without it falling

Wooden castle and people

Happy land castle

Dressing up - including royal clothing (not very popular)

To introduce the story we used this short video which was really well received

 Esther Video on Youtube by Tailrace Kids

I then began to tell the story and ended up handing over to two wonderful 9 and 10 year olds to competently tell the story and all the children listened brilliantly. We had some giggly crazy moments but I've been told even the youngest children could tell the story back to parents!

We then thought about Esther's super hero powers which we decided were bravery and courage, which she used to help people. How could we be brave and help people this week?....