Story bags are brilliant at helping children to become involved in the story you are telling. They involve a collection of toys that will both help you to tell the story and also help the children to play out parts of the story afterwards. They need not be very expensive to make up (most stuff comes from the pound shop!) and can be borrowed by parents to use at home during the week. Click on the links to take you to some examples.
Here’s a fun way to get children to engage in thanking God and asking for blessing while also symbolically releasing their prayers into his hands.
Use a fork to blob some paint onto the paper and then swirl and pull or brush with the fork!
Encourage colour mixing as the flames flicker together…
Advent is a time of waiting and preparation. To fit with this, here is a play dough mat based around the idea of ‘journeying’ (reflecting the journey that Mary and Joseph went on to Bethlehem). Print out the mat, laminate it for repeated use and get creative!
Click here to print out the mat.
Visual ways of telling stories are great for all ages. Fuzzy Felt is especially good as the children can play with the pieces after you have told the story and recreate the events for themselves. The great thing is that the felt figures will stick to the felt background so you will be able to hold your felt board upright as you tell the story, making it easy for everyone to see.
You will need: A board or piece of cardboard, felt sheets, scissors, glue
Cover a board with a large felt sheet (use glue or staples) to make a ‘background’ board.
Cut simple figures out of felt to help you to tell the story. Here are some examples to give you an idea…
Nativity
Baptism of Jesus
Joseph
Jesus calms the storm
You can also make mini fuzzy felt boxes by sticking some felt to the inside of a sandwich box lid and then keeping small fuzzy felt pieces inside the box. See here for more on this.
Play dough mats are a great way to help children to connect with a story. Print off the sheets, laminate them so that they can be used multiple times and it is easy to clean off any stray play dough and let the children get creating!
Here are some play dough mats to use with the Easter story…
Click here to print the mat.
Click here For the ‘In the tomb’ play dough mat.
Click here for the ‘He is risen’ play dough mat.
The Well Creative Children's ministry 