September school holidays.. beautiful, warm, sunny days... and so many families away on holidays... Many churches opt for no kidz church program over this holiday break, and indeed, many leaders feel tired and stretched to the limit by the end of third term and really appreciate a break.
If you have decided to continue presenting a children's program over the holiday period, you may find yourself with a smaller number of volunteers available to assist. With so many families taking advantage of the beautiful weather to go away, you may also have smaller classes on Sunday. Then again, the holiday period may bring holidaying families along to your church on Sunday.
So... what sort of activities can you include in your program that will mean easy preparation, needs few volunteers and can be easily customised for any number of children?
Here are a couple of ideas that can be used in conjunction with any Bible story presentation and can be used with any sized group.
1. Create a wall mural of your Bible lesson. Simply pin large sheets of paper on the wall. If you have a large number of kids, divide them into groups with specific scenes of the story to create. If you only have a handful of children, they can work togther on the wall mural. If you're really adventurous, they can use paints. And, to be perfectly honest, kids love painting wall murals and signing their name with their handprint. If not, use crayons or even chalks for a different effect.
2. Guess who. Create life-sized characters from your Bible lesson. Again, you’ll need large sheets of paper. Kids can work in pairs to trace around each other onto a large sheet of paper. Then each child can turn their silhouette into one of the characters from your lesson. After they are completed and cut out, attach them to the wall and see who can guess which characters have been created.
3. Drama activity. You may need to gather a few props for this activity, but kids love it. Give each child a particular character, or maybe they can be part of a crowd of onlookers, and ask them to act out the Bible lesson. You can extend it even further by taking pictures of the drama and popping them into a powerpoint presentation.. more work but a lot of fun and a great way to review the lesson.
4.Create a comic strip of the lesson. This one is really no-prep, other than cutting up some strips of paper for each child. Then they can create a comic strip of the lesson. Now, if you only have a small number of kids, and access to computers or iPads the kids can create their comic stories using technology. Bitstrips website allows you a free 60 day account- plenty of time to create some wonderful comic-book style Bible stories with the kids. If you wish to continue using this online program, it costs $10/month. There are a couple of apps that will produce comics, too. Strip Designer, Comic Strip and Pop Dot Comics use your photos to create the images so you’d need to have some photos ready to use or take some of the kids acting out the story to include. Zoodle Comics uses your drawings to create the comic, and the kids will love doing that!
Another app is Toontastic and this app provides backgrounds, posable characters and allows the story to be recorded while the characters move. It can then be played as an animated comic- great fun! The kids will really get into it.
5.You may be going away yourself, these holidays, and need a simple activity for someone who is filling in for you. Simple- print off this basic book jacket handout. (See below) The kids can design their own book cover for the Bible story and include the Bible point and reference. They can even provide a summary of the story on the back of the book jacket.
Enjoy these September holidays!
If you have decided to continue presenting a children's program over the holiday period, you may find yourself with a smaller number of volunteers available to assist. With so many families taking advantage of the beautiful weather to go away, you may also have smaller classes on Sunday. Then again, the holiday period may bring holidaying families along to your church on Sunday.
So... what sort of activities can you include in your program that will mean easy preparation, needs few volunteers and can be easily customised for any number of children?
Here are a couple of ideas that can be used in conjunction with any Bible story presentation and can be used with any sized group.
1. Create a wall mural of your Bible lesson. Simply pin large sheets of paper on the wall. If you have a large number of kids, divide them into groups with specific scenes of the story to create. If you only have a handful of children, they can work togther on the wall mural. If you're really adventurous, they can use paints. And, to be perfectly honest, kids love painting wall murals and signing their name with their handprint. If not, use crayons or even chalks for a different effect.
2. Guess who. Create life-sized characters from your Bible lesson. Again, you’ll need large sheets of paper. Kids can work in pairs to trace around each other onto a large sheet of paper. Then each child can turn their silhouette into one of the characters from your lesson. After they are completed and cut out, attach them to the wall and see who can guess which characters have been created.
3. Drama activity. You may need to gather a few props for this activity, but kids love it. Give each child a particular character, or maybe they can be part of a crowd of onlookers, and ask them to act out the Bible lesson. You can extend it even further by taking pictures of the drama and popping them into a powerpoint presentation.. more work but a lot of fun and a great way to review the lesson.
4.Create a comic strip of the lesson. This one is really no-prep, other than cutting up some strips of paper for each child. Then they can create a comic strip of the lesson. Now, if you only have a small number of kids, and access to computers or iPads the kids can create their comic stories using technology. Bitstrips website allows you a free 60 day account- plenty of time to create some wonderful comic-book style Bible stories with the kids. If you wish to continue using this online program, it costs $10/month. There are a couple of apps that will produce comics, too. Strip Designer, Comic Strip and Pop Dot Comics use your photos to create the images so you’d need to have some photos ready to use or take some of the kids acting out the story to include. Zoodle Comics uses your drawings to create the comic, and the kids will love doing that!
Another app is Toontastic and this app provides backgrounds, posable characters and allows the story to be recorded while the characters move. It can then be played as an animated comic- great fun! The kids will really get into it.
5.You may be going away yourself, these holidays, and need a simple activity for someone who is filling in for you. Simple- print off this basic book jacket handout. (See below) The kids can design their own book cover for the Bible story and include the Bible point and reference. They can even provide a summary of the story on the back of the book jacket.
Enjoy these September holidays!
| book_jacket.pdf |
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