If you are looking at the story of Jesus calling the disciples, here is a short stop motion video to help. Click here to go to the Youtube link for the video.
Here are some other ideas for exploring the story:
Category: Storytelling
The Road to Emmaus Play Dough Mat
One of the great post resurrection stories is the story of the journey to Emmaus and the eventual realisation of the two disciples that the stranger who has been travelling with them is actually Jesus. Here is a play dough mat to help children to explore this story. Print off the mat, laminate it for repeated uses and have fun!
Using playdough to pray and respond
Play dough is a well beloved, cheap and easily accessible material and can probably be found in most church children’s areas. There’s so much that can be done with it: praying, playing and responding to stories and teaching. Here are some ideas to get you started…
Praying with Playdough:
- Use play dough to make the shape of something you want to thank God for.
- Play dough intercessions
Responding to stories:
- Play dough faces
- Play Dough Mats
- Play dough mark making– roll the playdough out flat and use a variety of mark making items- lolly sticks, lego blocks, buttons, bottle tops, plastic knives, to make pictures of the story you have just heard. Children might want to make a picture of a key event or a key character, or write some words that relate to the story. Leave some time at the end of the activity so that they can share what they have done!
- Play dough models: provide a collection of collage and construction items such lolly sticks, pipe cleaners, buttons, feathers, card and ask children to use play dough along with these items to make models of a character or event from the story. Again. leave time to share!
Play dough recipes:
- no cook play dough
- scented play dough
- galaxy playdough (great for praying and reflecting!)
Ideas for open ended story responses
Sometimes the most significant spiritual moments with children come when they have been given the freedom to explore the things they have heard in their own time and in their own way. We often lose sight of the fact that children have incredible spiritual depth without (or maybe even in spite of!) adult intervention and we programme our time with them so that it is full of meaningful activity. Just think how stressful it can be to plan a whole Sunday session on very short notice!
We’ve experimented a lot at our church over the years and have found that giving children freedom to create their own responses to what they have been shown or told has two-fold benefits. Children are not contained by our expectations of what we want them to learn and, therefore, come up with fascinating insights or questions that we could never have predicted; and it is also less onerous for leaders in terms of preparation.
There are several options we offer children for the response time and, as they create or explore, we spend the time chatting to them about the story and what they think. Children will often take this time as an opportunity to retell the story in their own way, or to pick out something that was particularly significant to them. We don’t do this every single week, but children are familiar now with using open ended responses and the results are fascinating and often quite humbling for leaders!
Here are the top ten activities we like to offer on a rotating basis (maybe 3 or 4 options each time).
- Playdough
2. Fuzzy felt
3. Lego
4. Building blocks
5. ‘Loose parts’ box
6. Junk modelling box (using e.g. recyclables)
7. Pens and paper
8. Paint
9. Chalk boards and chalk (or chalk boards with paintbrushes and water)
10. Play people e.g. playmobil, lego, wooden
I’d love to hear from you if you give this a go or are already doing something similar!
The Parable of the Pearl Lesson
When you have a range of ages in a children’s group, it’s great to provide a range of activities that are more open-ended that children can choose from. This means that children are more likely to find something they can get on and do independently and to their own level! Here is a session we used this month with a group of children ranging in age from 2-12.
First we organised a hunt for coloured paper squares which we had hidden around the room. Children worked in small teams to find specific colours.
Next, we told the parable of the pearl. I used my Godly play set, but a version from a children’s Bible or a video of the story would work just as well.
Children could then choose from a range of related activities that helped them to explore the story themes of ‘treasure’, searching for something precious and what the kingdom of God would be like…
- Making pearl ‘treasure’ biscuits. Click here for the link to show you how.
- Drawing a picture of the story
- Using play dough to make a scene from the story or to make a ‘treasure’
- Using a range of collage materials to make ‘treasure’
- searching in moon sand for ‘treasure’ (glittery foam shapes, buttons, pom poms)
As the children created, we used the time to talk to them about heaven, treasure, what it must be like to give up everything for something incredibly precious and what they would have done if they had been in the story. We had some fascinating conversations!
Noah’s Ark Story Bag
I’ve put together a bag of times to help tell the story of Noah’s Ark to some children under 5. Bags like this are great because the children can then play with all of the items when you have told the story and you can also lend them to families to play with at home. This bag contains…
- A big gold gift bag,
- a ribbon rainbow
- blue and white ‘water’ streamers
- blue tinsel ‘waves’
- rain stick
- wooden Noah’s ark with parts of animals
- a fabric heart
- blue fabric
I usually include a story book and then you are good to go!
Have fun storytelling 🙂
The Well Creative Children's ministry 