Tag: 0-3s

Creche: Welcome Songs

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Here are some songs to welcome children to a session.  For children under 5 it’s great to build up a reassuring routine and songs are an important part of this process.  Enjoy singing!

Welcome song (To the tune of Frere Jaques)

Hello, welcome,

Hello, welcome,

Friends are here,

Friends are here,

Let’s all join together,

Let’s all join together,

God is near,

God is near.

Thank you song (to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’)

Encourage children to think of something they’d like to say thank you to God for and then get singing (filling in the blank with the name of whatever or whoever it is!)

Thank you Jesus for ——

Thank you Jesus for——

Thank you Jesus for ——-

Thank you Jesus for ——

Salad Spinner Pentecost Flames

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I found a cheap salad spinner (£4 in IKEA!) and was finally able to try out some spinner art!  It’s brilliant: quick, clean (because the spinner sits in its own bowl) and each piece is unique!  The process of making the art really lends itself to Pentecost themes so here’s an idea to help celebrate the occasion…

You will need: A salad spinner; red, yellow and orange paint, small paper plates, a tub of hair gel (optional)

Put a plate on the bottom of the inside of the spinner and blob some paint in.  Put the lid on and spin!

It only takes a few seconds of enthusiastic spinning and this is what you get… I think that trying to get the plate balanced across the bottom of the spinner would have helped this one (above) to be a little less lop-sided!

Some sites recommend adding a blob of hair gel and it does make the paint a little more runny.  Experiment and see what works best for you.

I love it!  I tried it out yesterday with some 2 year olds and they loved it too.  All ages pleased in one go.

Story Bags

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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.

Nativity Story Bag

Baptism Story Bag

Good Samaritan Story Bag

David and Goliath Story Bag

Lost Sheep Story Bag

Pentecost: Fork Flame Paintings

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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…

Fuzzy Felt Story Telling

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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.

Easter: Rolling Egg Paintings

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Here’s a great activity we did that can help children to engage with the New Life theme of Easter: butterflies painted with rolling eggs!  I like the idea of rolling eggs symbolising the stone that rolled away from the tomb at Easter, so that was an added bonus that we could talk about to the children who came along. This was especially popular with boys- maybe something to do with the high activity level!

You will need: A deep sided tray, plastic Easter eggs (that you can put something inside!), marbles, paint, paper butterfly shapes.

Place your paper shape inside the tray.

Put a marble inside each egg you are going to use to paint with.  This will give it a little more weight.  Add a few spots of paint to the paper (less really is more in this case!).  Now shake the tray from side to side so that the eggs roll across the paint and decorate the paper.

The finished painting!

Try to wipe the eggs between paintings.

We also tried some crosses and egg shapes so that we could maintain the ‘New Life’ theme and also speak about Good Friday and the cross leading to a new start for Christians.