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Kids love puppets.. They love to watch puppet shows and the antics of character puppets. They love to use puppets and they love to make puppets.  But generally, we think of little kids when we plan to include finger puppets. 

And yes, younger kids enjoy finger puppets. We've previously mentioned finger puppets, how to use finger puppets with little ones in your Bible lessons and listed some good examples... here.

These cardboard Farm Finger Puppets are an amazing variation and would be terrific for older kids to use because they can 'talk'. The kits include 4 puppets (cow, donkey, pig and chicken) and there is a safari animals and dino kit, too. I must admit, I had wondered if they would work or maybe they would just balance on the end of your finger, but they do. You just need to curl your finger up and down and the mouth will open and close. So.. how about including these in your kids church Bible story lesson or having the kids retell the story with finger puppets. Animals are often involved in these stories.. Balaam's donkey, Prodigal son, Samson, and more. You can find Bible character figures HERE to print off and include in the stories as needed. Attach a small dowel to the back of each to create a stick puppet.

You can find them online here.. and here..

This Sunday afternoon, our church is presenting a special family concert as a community outreach event. A large part of the community has no connection with church, has never attended a church service and many do not even know a church exists nearby.

We hope and pray that this free concert, one of a number of community family events planned over the next few months, will create an awareness of the church and will encourage families to come along and enjoy  this event.

The concert includes a meal (BBQ) with plenty of  fun, kids' activities- jumping castle, music, face-painting, balloons, inflatable activity centre and more. We will have a live Christian band and a guest presenter- Christopher Wayne, a gospel illusionist. I've included a clip about Chris below.

A community outreach event can be a daunting task but just requires a bit of planning ahead of time. If you need a little assistance with this, check out the Children's Ministry Easy Planner Pack. It includes plenty of set-by-step checklists for your kidmin event planning. See here for more information.
I've also included a Special Invitation ppt slide for an event that can be easily altered to your needs.

Highlight Mother's Day, this year, with a special Chocolate Rose for each mother. Following our kids' item during the worship service, the children will be handing out these roses to every mother and lady in our church family. They are quite simple to make- see the instructions below and the slideshow of images.

MATERIALS- per rose:
* 8 x  10cm circles of tissue paper. (You can use all the same colour or a mix of colours.)
*1/2 length of florist wire (#20)
* small chocolate
* 12cm square of clear cellophane
* florist tape
* 50cm length of ribbon (per rose)

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Wrap the square of cellophane tightly around the chocolate and secure by twisting the end of the florist wire around the base of the chocolate. It should look like a chocolate ball on the end of a wire.
2. Holding the circles of tissue together, cut 2 small slits in the centre. 
3. Gently push the wire of the chocolate and cellophane ends through the slits in the tissue circles.
4. Holding the tissue circles firmly around the chocolate, start winding the florist tape around the tissue circles, cellophane ends and wire and continue along the length of wire to the end.
5. Gently crush the tissue circles around the chocolate to give it a rose-like shape.
6. Tie a ribbon bow around the wire beneath the rose.
7. Finished.. ready to give out on Sunday!

For some basic information about how to get started with Pixlr, check out the clip of How to Use Pixlr tutorial.

There's no escaping it- we're a visual generation. Forget quotes like, 'Don't judge a book by its cover'. Today, headlines, blogs, anything with text requires an image or it's unlikely to be read.

So images, and working with them, is likely to be a big part of your life and work with kids ministry. You probably source, format and use images for your kidmin Facebook page, your Pinterest boards, your newsletters, your announcement slides and more.

Previously, I've used Powerpoint or Publisher for most of this type of work but no longer. I've discovered pixlr.com.  What a great little site! This is the graphic I worked on for our church Vision Dinner. If you haven't tried it, then I'd encourage you to check it out here..

On the first page of pixlr.com, choose the Express option. It give you plenty of tools to work with but it's not too difficult to use.