Sunday 30 September 2012

Harvest Messy Church: Creation Prayer Activity

After telling the creation story, we thought it would be great for everyone to thank God for something in creation they really loved.  

Someone had donated a large plastic map of the world which was just perfect!  We held the map up and thanked God for the world He created.  Then we played some music and asked people to come up and choose a picture of food, plants or animals and place it somewhere on the map to thank God for that thing.  Then we rounded off with a big thank you and Amen!  Even the toddlers could join in this activity easily :-)



Saturday 29 September 2012

Harvest Messy Church: Creation Story

Today we had our Harvest Messy Church and looked at the story of creation from Genesis 1.  

Here are the crafts we did...
Some of these crafts and other harvest ideas can be found on my Harvest Messy Church Pinterest Board

Day 1: Light and dark tent.  A pop up two man tent, covered in drapes to make it dark inside.  Children were then given glow sticks to take inside.  The toddlers loved this!

Day 2: Separating the waters and the sky.  Water play.
Day 3: Separating the land and the sea.  For this day we had two crafts using food and the seeds food is grown from...

Play dough seed patterns


Spaghetti painting


Day 4: Sun, moon and stars- suncatchers for windows
Day 5: Fish and birds- paper plate birds
Day 6: Animal hunt- pictures of animals hidden round church for children to find
Biscuit people
Day 7: focussing on God.  What would you like to thank Him for?

And an area for babies to play in...



Thursday 27 September 2012

This term's lunchtime club prayer box

As the children tend to trickle into our school lunchtime club depending on when they finish their dinner, we try to have some prayer station activities available to settle them until everyone has arrived. We have no permanent prayer space, so whatever we bring has to be easily portable!  The prayer box has gone through various incarnations!

This term we've settled on 6 activities that fit into a large hessian bag and need minimum tidying!

Magnetic words to make phrases about God (kept in a metal biscuit tin!)


Reflection question ball

 Play dough- shaping it into something they want to thank God for



Laminated A3 maps.  Children ask God to bless a place and stick a little sticker over the place name.


 Pipecleaners- children shape them into a symbol of who or what they want to pray for.

We also have a wallpaper roll we have as a graffiti board where they can write or draw prayers to God.

Depending on the day and the mix of children, different stations prove popular.  Today it was the play dough and the question ball.  

Children attending the club are aged 7-11 so, obviously these are age appropriate activities.  We'll have to think again next term when we have the younger children!

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Getting the crèche room right

By Catherine Ward

We’re really lucky that we’ve got enough space to have rooms set aside for children’s work. We’ve been working on turning the crèche room into a really enabling environment for our under threes. It has taken quite some time, the whole church has just been reordered, and the old church offices (originally the rectory), now being transformed into our children’s centre, has been used as storage space. It’s been a job some weeks just getting the space safe for the children before a Sunday morning with all sorts of furniture stacked up in the corner. Finally though, the extra things have been cleared out and it’s feeling like we’re really getting somewhere.

We’ve thought really carefully about what we want in the space and why and the first thing that was really important to us was comfy, adult-sized chairs. We’ve been left with the old clergy chairs out of the chancel. They’re not the most comfy things in the world, but they are big and with enough cushions you can get settled with a child on your knee for quite some time. We don’t want to find ourselves having to choose between putting down a child who would prefer to be held or leaving ourselves with a sore back for the rest of the day. Eleanor Goldschmeid and Sonia Jackson write at some length about the knock on effect of making sure that those who care for children are well and happy in themselves. It’s also lovely to have a bit of space where we can sit and read to the children. Jenny Lindon writes about supporting children’s language development best by reading and talking with children on their own or in two or threes. She describes the ideal size group to work with as ‘a sofa-full’. Supporting children in becoming confident communicators is really important to what we do. Mina works a great deal with the older children encouraging them to ask questions and wonder together about questions which don’t have easy answers.

Supporting children in exploring for themselves and guiding their own learning is so important to us. Anyone familiar with Montessori early years provision will understand why we’ve chosen to have some open shelves in our room. Had we been buying them new we’d have gone for lower ones so the children can reach down whatever they wanted, but these tall ones were already in the building. We keep treasure baskets and rattles at the top to lift down as and when we have babies in crèche and the lower shelves are full of books and toys for the toddlers to help themselves to independently. We do choose some of the things that we have out every week, particularly when we can link play to a theme in the song or story that we have planned for our little five minutes of carpet time, but there is constant access to books, blocks and cars as well as a couple of other favourite things. This means that children can revisit familiar things and favourite stories. The books are in little baskets so the children can see them face-forward and we also have some big crates for blocks and over-sized books.
What we also have is a quarter of the room floored with lino rather than carpet. We really love our messy play, tactile play and mark making. We have sand out most weeks and we’ve also experimented with rice and lentils, trays of shaving foam, bubbles, all sorts of play dough, wax crayons and chalks. That’s just the beginning though, now that we have a practical space for it we can have fun with water, corn flour, and paint too. The Community Playthings website has, along with it’s beautiful (but not inexpensive) furniture and toys, lots of article that are useful, including one on flooring. It’s well worth a read if you’re in a position to be choosing flooring for an early years space. If you’re not in that position then let me recommend a cheap shower curtain to go under a table or large tray so you can experiment with some different play opportunities.


We have just one table at child height. We do make good use of it but at the same time we wouldn’t want any more. The children love to have space to move around and space to play on the floor. It’s really sad when early years settings have too many tables and chairs as it makes spaces look cramped and small as well as giving the false impression that children are only learning (or even behaving) when they are sat still. It happens more with settings for three to five-year-olds but we’re keen to begin how we mean to go on by engaging with as many different ways of learning as we can. We have space for some big motor movement, with a little slide, a tunnel, and a rocker and that’s every bit as important as our messy play space or our cosy corner.
Last but not least we have an empty bit of carpet which we can use for different things each week. It often has heuristic play things out or a simple role play cue linked with our song or story. The aim is to provide lots that is familiar and allows the children to revisit their learning and space for something new too.        

Monday 24 September 2012

Play and Explore: Abraham with 3-5s

One of the best bargains I've recently bought is my pop up two man tent- reduced to £15!  When I'd spent an hour figuring out how to collapse it again I was sorted!

The children absolutely love the tent so, when we had a story when we could legitimately use it we did!

We told the story of God calling Abraham out from the place he lived and sending him on a journey.  Of course, Abraham had to live in a tent!  After we'd walked, run, hopped and jumped round the room, we popped out the tent and got inside.

Next we got the stars out on the floor of the tent and talked about God promising Abraham that he would have children as many as the stars in the sky...

Then we told of the three men visiting Abraham, sharing food and telling him that next year he would have a son even though he was very old...

We all practised laughing which was fun!

Then we got the baby doll out and celebrated because Sarah and Abraham had had a child even though they were very old.  It was much easier to tell the story in an active way as we went along and the children enjoyed being involved.

We made hats out of paper plates and paper stars, colouring the plates with black and blue crayons to represent the night sky:

And then we let the children choose play activities to help explore the events of the story...

...playing in the tent and playing with the stars or acting out the story with paper tents and little people.
 Best of all, they loved looking after the baby dolls!  As they played we were able to re iterate parts of the story and explore what they thought and felt.
We finished by putting stars into our special treasure chest and saying thank you to God for our families.  Some of the younger children decided to kiss the star as they did it and this caught on with everyone else!

Sunday 23 September 2012

Seeing ourselves as God sees us: words of encouragement

A lot of children suffer from some degree of negative self image and one of the things we'd really like them to do is learn to see themselves as God sees them- loved and precious.

This is an activity we did both in our school lunchtime club and (with a bit more elaboration) at our church mid week club for 8-11s.  Once we'd established the rule that only 'good'  words could be used about ourselves and others this turned into quite a joyful and encouraging session, though one or two children struggled to begin with!


First we told the story of Gideon hiding in the winepress (click here for details of how to tell the story with a folding picture).  Out of the story we drew the idea that, even though we feel small, weak and useless sometimes, that's not how God sees us!  He sees how great we can be with His help!

Next we drew round our head and shoulders on A3 paper.  We sat silently for a short while and asked God to give us encouraging words about how He sees us.  We then wrote them into the shapes. After praying for encouraging words for each other, we then went round and wrote on everyone else's sheet the positive words that came into our heads.


To finish, with the midweek church group, we tried something new and asked God to give us pictures or words for someone else in the group (we've only really done this before for ourselves!).  I wrote each person's initial on a separate piece of paper and folded them all over so that no one could see who they had.  I then randomly redistributed the papers, we prayed for encouragement for our mystery person and wrote or drew what came to mind.  We had fun giving them back and sharing.  Only one person got themselves!  We had a rule that if nothing came into our head we could just write 'God bless you', but everyone came up with something to draw.


The children took their words and pictures and went away buzzing and positive and we, as leaders, really felt that something of God's love had been shared!

Exciting news!



Exciting news!  This blog has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Best Newcomer Blog category at the Christian New Media awards 2012.  Thank you so much to everyone who has supported the blog so far!  For more information about the awards and the shortlist, click here.

Thursday 20 September 2012

Praying for Joy (Fruits of the Spirit)

Thanks to Sam for this great idea!

Here is the second prayer activity for our Fruits of the Spirit theme this term: Joy!


Children take a pipe cleaner and twist it round their finger to make a spring.  Springs are bouncy and fun, reminding us of the feeling of joy!  As they make the spring, children can pray that God will grow the fruit of joy in their lives.  They can then take it home as a reminder to keep asking God for joy in their lives, families and relationship with Him.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Gideon in the wine press: Telling the story with folded pictures

This week in our mid week group we're going to look at the story of Gideon in the wine press, trying to bring out the point that even if you feel small and that you can't do much, God sees you for who you really are and what you can really do with His help.  Here's how we will tell the story...

I'm using an A4 sheet with simple drawings on it. 

Before folding, the sheet looks like this: 

Side 1

Side 2
The first picture is of a small sized Gideon (you will see how the folding works as the story progresses!


Gideon was an Israelite.  The Israelites lived in a land that was invaded by people from another land who came and stole their food and everything they had.  The Israelites cried out to God for help.


(Fold the paper over to hide Gideon inside the wine press)

One day, Gideon was in the wine press, threshing corn so that his family could have something to eat.  He was doing it in the wine press so he could be hidden and the invaders would not come and steal it from him! An angel appeared an said 'God is with you, mighty warrior!'

Gideon, still hiding in the wine press said 'How can God be with us if He has let all of these bad things happen to us?'  
God said 'I am sending you to go and save Israel!'

But Gideon replied, 'How can I save them?  My family is the weakest family in this area and I am the weakest in my family!' (open again to show small Gideon)
But God said to him 'I will be with you and we will do it together!' (open paper out to full extent to show that with God's strength, Gideon can be more than he thinks possible!)

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Moses and the Burning Bush Assembly (New Beginnings)

Yesterday we were in school to do a SEALS assembly about new beginnings.  We decided to use the story of Moses and the burning bush to speak about God giving us new starts...

We began with a game.  Two children came out the the front and each had a minute to build a tower with plastic cups like so:
As expected, each tower fell down several times during the minute and the children had to start again.  This was great fun and led on to our story which was also about starting again.

With more volunteers we acted out the story of Moses and the burning bush, focussing on the fact that Moses had messed up in Egypt and run away but God still had a job for him to do.  He could start again with his people!  We used ribbons on a stick to show the fire, waved about by the child pretending to be the bush.  Very effective, but next time we'll use a shorter stick.  Moses was in danger of losing an eye at one point!
After the story we used an illusion to make the point of the story clear.  I crumbled a dry ryvita into a dove pan to symbolise the times when things go wrong and life seems to be falling apart and then (my favourite part!), using lighter fluid and a match we set fire to the ryvita (fire symbolising God's power), put the lid on the flames and opened the pan again to reveal that the ryvita had been turned into sweets- something new and exciting had happened!  Even the teachers were excited by this part!  The dove pan is well worth its price...

Next we talked about times in our lives when things had gone wrong but we had a chance to start again and shared the verse from Jeremiah 29:11 about God having a plan to give us hope and a good future.  This then led to a little reflection time about where we needed new beginnings in our lives.  We had a great time and can't wait for the next assembly, though I don't think we'll ever top the dove pan illusion!

Monday 17 September 2012

Worship 3 in a row game


We're looking at worship with our children and encouraging them to think about what it is, why we do it and how we do it.  One thing that's proving difficult is getting them to understand the difference between prayer and worship.  

Here is a little game I've made to try and get the children to practice thinking about who God is and why He's amazing!

Play the game in pairs.  Each person uses different colour counters.  Choose a square and when you have completed the little task, you can put your counter there.  The first person to get 3 counters in a row is the winner!

For a printable version click here.