Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Butterflies are great symbols of new life when you are talking about the resurrection.  These are really easy and really effective to make- but are probably best made by older children as the folding can be a bit fiddly! First get a brightly coloured page from a magazine, Then cut it into 2 squares- I used one 12 x12 cm and one 8cm x 8cm Starting with a corner, concertina the paper diagonally Tie the two concertinaed squares together with thread  Hang the butterflies up!

Here is a link to a printable PDF script for use with the Easter prayer stations if you want to use them with a whole group of children! Click  here!

Today we've been doing our Easter prayer stations with one of the local schools.  For details of all the prayer stations click  here. Here are some photos of the stations set up and in use! Palm Sunday-The people we look up to and admire Palm leaves to wave The last supper- water for foot washing and bread to share The Garden- flowers and lavender to smell and stones to help us discuss the hard things in life Good Friday Butterflies showing our hopes and dreams for the future Butterflies on a string! A poster of things the children learned or remembered most...

This term in creche we are telling stories about Jesus.  We don't do anything incredibly formal but we do sit down for 5 minutes while we eat a snack and as we do so, we tell the children a story.  We try to base some of the activities we have on offer loosely around the theme of the story.  This is what we did this week... Our story was about the man who is lowered through the roof and is healed by Jesus. Tins with lids to take off and put on (taking off the roof!) Boxes with lids to scoop up and play with rice and lentils Mega blocks top build with.. ...or to put in the tins! A selection of mats, sleeping bag, blankets and cushions bandages and a toy doctor's kit We finished by singing 'Jesus love is very wonderful' and '3 little monkeys jumping on the bed' because the children love this song and now that Jesus had healed him, the man was able to jump up and down too!

We did this last year at Messy Church and when I got the Easter box down this week I found we had loads of stuff left so we did it at the school lunchtime club.  Nice and easy to make!  You need some A5 size card, folded in half, a square of blue paper smaller than the card size, an orange circle, a smaller yellow circle , a brown cross and 2 labels- one saying 'He is alive!' and one saying 'Happy Easter'. Stick the blue square on the folded card, Glue on the orange circle and glue the yellow circle on top. Stick on the green hill and the cross and then one of the labels- stick the other label inside!

We used pass the parcel at Christmas to tell the nativity story with our school lunchtime club and it worked out well!  Since we have an entirely new group this term, we thought we'd adapt it for telling the Easter story.  Here's what we did... You will need: 5 pictures telling the Easter story:  Palm Sunday, Last Supper, Gethsemane, Crucifixion, Resurrection At the centre of the parcel, wrap up a big bag of mini eggs (so there is enough for each child in the group) and the picture of the resurrection. In the next layer wrap up the crucifixion picture and a sweet, The following layers should be... Gethsemane, last supper and the top layer: Palm Sunday. Each layer should also contain a sweet- this is important for later! When you have the finished parcel you can play the game! As the music plays, pass the parcel and whoever has it when the music stops unwraps the picture and the sweet.  Discuss what the picture shows and start again...

I've recently come to hear about story stones and have become quite excited!  We're trying out different methods of story telling and I thought that we might try using some story stones, especially with our 3-5s.  The idea would be that we could tell the story using them and then, afterwards, let the children re- enact what they have heard if they choose to do so! As per usual, once I get excited about something, I have to get started right away!  Last night I painted some stones and it literally took me about 10 minutes (using our favourite Giotto decor pens and a fineliner for detail!).  Here's what I came up with... Healed Leper (reversible stone!) Leper (reversible stone!) Reversible stones- Calming of the storm Reversible stones- calming of the storm The lost sheep/ Good Shepherd Feeding of the 5000 Can't wait to test them out next term!

Today with the 5-11s, we talked about worship and helped them to explore what it meant and how they might do it!  After reading various verses from the psalms and discussing, we got out the junk box and this is what some of them came up with!   All together now, mountains sing out!  Psalm 98:8   Rivers, clap your hands! Psalm 98:8    Psalm 100:2. Be happy as you serve the Lord! Come before the Lord with happy songs! Shaker instrument! 'I pray in my head' written on a 'bed' to show that this person worships God by praying silently in her bed Praise drum kit to make a lot of noise!

We did a session on Palm Sunday at our school lunch club today and had a great time! I wanted to make flags but didn't have any appropriate sticks.  I improvised by folding a paper plate in half and stapling it over the side of some paper to make a 'handle' the children could hold when they waved it.  No one even asked where the sticks were!! Children decorated the flags as they wished... We then told the story, acting it out with our hands and shouting 'hosanna' at the tops of our voices! Next we talked about praise words for God.  We started with the word 'amazing' and asked the children to come up with words that meant the same thing.  They loved this and we soon had a long list- incredible, unbelievable, fantastic, fabulous, wonderful... We stood in a circle and children chose a word, shouted it and waved their flag.  Then we all together shouted our word 5 times and made a lot of noise for God to hear!

Our children absolutely love making anything edible and this is an activity we tried with the 0-3s who come to TOTS! After hearing the story of Daniel in the lion's den- here are the biscuits they decorated (or didn't quite in some cases!) We used: Digestive biscuits, icing, writing icing, raisins, mini smarties, yellow fondant cut into flower shapes, strawberry laces The adult made model!!