Prayer Rockets!

May 31, 2015May 31, 2015Leave a comment

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.

First, get children to write and draw their prayers on a small slip of paper (about the size of an average till receipt).

Next, roll the paper tightly round a straw (the long straight part rather than the bendy part!) and secure it with sellotape. Fold the top of the paper over and secure it with some more sellotape. The paper will now have made a sealed pocket around the top of the straw.

Talk to children about releasing prayers to God and trusting in His love and His power. Say a short prayer, giving your prayers to God and then blow on the free end of the straw. Watch the prayer rocket fly as you release your prayers!

All Age Easter Talk: Pinata

May 30, 2015May 30, 2015Leave a comment

Before the service:

First of all, make a pinata or buy one! If you fancy making one, there is a link to some instructions here.

Fill the pinata with sweets so that there will hopefully be enough for everyone there. This is important!!

The aim of the talk is to help people to see that, out of something that seems hard and sad, something amazing can come.

Talk (after having previously told the Easter story)

Show the Pinata and ask if people know what it is. Tell them how long it took you to make it and how proud of it you are. Do they know what to do with a pinata? INvote someone to come up and show you. Hopefully they will bash it and break it open to get to the sweets in the middle.

I feel a bit sad now! That was a beautiful pinata and it took ages to make! I’m really quite upset that it’s broken and ruined now. At least we got something good from it- lots of sweets!

It reminds me a bit of today (Good Friday). Something really terrible happened- Jesus died. It felt like everything had gone wrong and was ruined but actually it was not the end of the story. Something amazing came out of the bad thing! Jesus rose to new life and he gives us hope of a new life and a new start too! Sometimes we feel like things in our lives are broken and ruined because we’ve done things that we wish we hadn’t but, because Jesus died and that terrible thing happened, it means that he will take those wrong things away and we can have a new start with God. Like all of the sweets that came out of the broken pinata, God wants to give us something sweet and show us how much He loves us and forgives us. He also wants us to share His love with other people and to let them know that they can be forgiven too so let’s share out the sweets and make sure that everyone has a reminder of the Good thing God wants to give us!

8-11s: Lord’s Prayer Session

May 30, 2015May 30, 2015Leave a comment

Here are some ideas for helping children to connect with the Lord’s Prayer.

Lord’s prayer ordering game– How well do you know the prayer?

Prayer printed out and cut into strips, mixed up so they can be put in the correct order. We made this a race!

‘Hallowed be your name’: Play names of God dominoes, exploring the different names and characteristics of God. Click here to print out the dominoes.

‘Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven’: Talk about road signs in this country- triangle signs are warnings and circle signs are orders. If God made some order signs to show how He wanted people to live, what would be on them? Let children draw them in the circles.

‘Forgive us our sins’: Forgiveness prayers such as ‘washing away sins’

‘As we forgive others’: Forgiveness fizz prayers

Reflect on the prayer with this reflective colouring sheet:

Pentecost: Fork Flame Paintings

May 30, 2015May 30, 2015Leave a comment

This is a really great idea for all ages. We ended up working on the kitchen floor and even the adults decided to join in. Some of the children got incredibly creative…

You will need: yellow, red and orange paint, foil (for easy clean-up afterwards!), plastic forks, card or paper (we used black for a great effect).

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 Playdough Mat

May 30, 2015May 30, 2015Leave a comment

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.

Fuzzy Felt Story Telling

May 29, 2015May 29, 2015Leave a comment

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.