Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

Story Cubes are a great way of both telling and recalling parts of a story. With this cube, tell the story of Holy Week and then throw the cube to remember individual events. There are 2 versions- a colour your own page and a page that is already coloured and labelled. Use one or both! Click here to download and print. Think about all of the things that happen- Palm Sunday, Last supper, Garden of Gethsemane, Crucifixion, Burial in the tomb and resurrection and wonder about them. I wonder... ...which part of the story is your favourite? ...which part of the story makes you ask a question? ...where you are in this story?

 This craft is really easy to make and helps to emphasize the enthusiasm of the crowd's Hosannas as they waved their palms. You will need: White A4 paper, green paper or card, glue, scissors, stapler. Cut a sheet of white A4 paper in half lengthways. On one of the halves, write the word 'Hosanna' and colour in. Start at one end of the paper and make a concertina. Fold an A5 sheet of green card or paper in half and cut out a palm leaf shape. This will give you two leaves. Glue a strip down the middle of each leaf. Stick one end of your concertina to the glued strip on one leaf and glue the other end to the stip on the other leaf. Press down firmly. This makes your Hosanna sandwich. Staple the bottom ends of the leaves together. Make sure you are not also stapling your concertina! Open your palm leaves to see the Hosanna!

Celebrate the new life of resurrection with this butterfly craft. You will need: two squares of coloured paper (one smaller than the other), string. Easter Egg Prayers Easter Day colouring sheet Easter Day Play Dough Mats

A craft to help you to explore the events of Holy Saturday. You will need: Shiny or holographic card, coloured/ patterned paper, sticky back plastic or lamination pouch and laminator, dark coloured paint, washing up liquid, paint pot, paintbrush, cocktail stick.

Crafts to help you explore the events of Good Friday. You will need: Hammer, nails, piece of wood, wool, paint, oil, paper, paintbrush, paint container. Good Friday Play Dough Mat Tape resist cross

Watch to see 3 crafts that will help you to explore the events of Maundy Thursday.  You will need: squares of paper, paper plates, card, paper, scissors, wool, foil, play dough and the play dough mats (below) Last Supper Play Dough Mat Garden of Gethsemane Play Dough Mat Special Cup Craft

I've put together a discovery basket for younger children when we do our Easter family activities morning. This basket looks at the story of Palm Sunday and I'll have some story books with it so that parents can help children to engage with the items! Contents include:  Donkey puppet, plastic palm leaves, palm crosses, a crown, strips of fabric of different textures (to represent the cloaks put on the ground). Coconut halves (donkey hooves!), bells to make some noise, a heart, a stone (to represent the road Jesus travelled along) and a small tin with magnetic letters spelling 'hosanna' and 'Jesus.'

In a couple of weeks we are going to be hosting a community pizza making event and Easter Egg hunt.  Because our pizza making project is about building initial trust and relationships in the community amongst those who have never been to a church, we are never the first to mention God (even though we make Pizza in the church itself!). We wanted to have a Christian flavour to the event, though, as it is in celebration of Easter!  We are going to use pictures of the Easter story in our egg hunt and I thought I'd share it with you here. You will need: Print outs of Sheet 1 and Sheet 2 (1 of each), Print outs of the competition sheet (1 per person), marker pens, hole punch, string, pens or pencils, Easter eggs and copies of the Easter story as prizes. Cut the egg shapes out of sheet 1 and 2 and laminate them.  Pictures show: A palm leaf, a crown, a cup and bread, a cross, a sad face, a cave and a rock, a happy face, the word 'alive.' With a marker pen, on th...

Palm Sunday is fast approaching and we will be having an intergenerational service to mark the occasion! Here is a colouring sheet I have put together so it can be used as part of what we do.   Click here to print off a copy and please do share one photos on our Facebook page if you use it!

Here are some prayers you could use in a group, a family or even in a whole congregation if you have enough chocolate to go round!  The prayers are very simple and help to pick up themes of the Easter story. You will need: a hollow chocolate Easter egg per group Show the children the unbroken egg (if it comes in two halves, you may need to hold them together!) Relate the closed egg to the tomb where Jesus' friends put his body after he had died.  Talk about what it feels like when we are left on our own, one of our friends goes away or someone we know dies. Ask God to help everyone who is sad, upset or lonely or who has lost someone that they love. Now break the egg into pieces and reveal the hollow inside! When Jesus died it was not the end of the story- he rose to new life and was no longer inside the tomb.  Something amazing had happened!  Talk about where in life the children would like a chance to start again- maybe with someone they have ha...

This talk is suitable for smaller groups of children or even for a larger group as long as you have plenty of resources to go around!  The talk goes through key events of the Easter story and involves touch, taste, sound, sight and smell.  Beware allergies!! You will need: bread, some stones, salt water in a pot, nails, a piece of wood, salt and vinegar crisps, a bandage, a hollow, chocolate Easter egg, scented candle and lighter bread - Talk about the last supper.  Jesus gathered his friends around to share a last meal, to prepare them for what would happen and tell them how to remember him.  Share out pieces of the bread stone- Gethsemane.  After the meal, Jesus went to a garden to pray for strength and that God would help him in the coming days.  Children take a stone and hold onto it.  Think of things in their life that are hard.  Ask God to help them. Nails-  After being arrested, Jesus is led out to ...

Playing a game is a great way to help children to familiarise themselves with the different parts of the Easter Story.  Here are some cards to print out to help you with that very purpose! There are 8 cards, all showing a different part of the story: Entry into Jerusalem, The Last Supper and washing of feet, Gethsemane, Pilate, crucifixion, tomb and resurrection.  Use all or some of them depending on the elements you are exploring.  Tell the story and speak about the pictures, then play a game to help reinforce the key happenings.  Click here to print out the sheet. There are loads of ways you could use the cards...  Pass the parcel with a different card in each layer Hidden around the room Print out a set of cards per child.  Use 6 of the cards (perhaps leave out foot-washing and Pilate) and number them 1-6 in order of happening.  Children throw a die until they get a 1 and can collect the first picture.  After they have the first ...

Story Stones  are a great way to help children to interact with the stories we tell them.  Symbols and pictures on the stones help us to tell the story and then children can use the stones to retell or interact with different elements of what they've heard. They have so much potential! Making story stones can seem a bit of a chore, though, if painting is not your thing or if you just don't have a lot of time. Here is a possible solution... The end result might not be as pretty as hand-painted stones, but they do the job! Print out the sheet of pictures ( click here ), cut out and stick onto stones (flat, polished stones work best).  Now you are good to go!  As you can see, the sheet has stones to help tell several Bible stories so there is plenty of opportunity to test them out.  Let me know how it goes if you decide to test them out!

Here are the final two play dough mats for the Easter Story.  Click here  For the 'In the tomb' play dough mat. Click  here  for the 'He is risen' play dough mat. Print out, laminate and get started with the play dough!

Here is the next play dough mat in the Easter Story set. This time, we are looking at Good Friday and thinking how Jesus' friends would have  felt when they saw the cross.  This is a very tactile way to help younger children to explore the shape of the cross.  Use play dough to fill in the cross shape and to put expressions on the faces of the people.   Click  here  to print the mat and Laminate it so it will last repeated play dough sessions!

Here is a play dough mat that would work well with older children as a prayer activity. Click here to print out the sheet Speak about Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane.   Think about the hard thing he knew he had to do but that he wanted to do God's will anyway.   Ask children about times when they face hard things.  How might they ask God to help them?   What does it mean for 'God's will' to be done in our lives? Encourage children to make leaves for the tree.  For each leaf they make, pray for someone they know, asking that 'God's will' be done in their life.

Here's another play dough mat- this time to help children to reflect on the last supper.  It might also come in handy when helping children to understand what communion is about. Click here to print, then laminate if possible (to make it reusable!) then get the play dough out!  

Here's the first in the series of Easter Story Play dough mats.  Thanks so much to Lindsay for giving me this idea! There will be mats to help children play and explore with play dough the events of: Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, The Crucifixion, The Burial of Jesus and The Resurrection.  This is the first: Palm Sunday! First click here and print off a copy.  If possible, laminate it so it can be cleaned and used again.  Now let the fun begin! Talk to the children about the events of palm Sunday, including the joy of the people to see Jesus and the hosannas they were calling out.  Let them use play dough to make smiling faces on the people and even more palm branches!

This is one of the activities we did yesterday when some classes from school came to do the Easter journey at church.  We used it to help talk about the garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus prayed to God to help him do the difficult thing he was faced with. We showed the children a long length of rope and talked about its strength and the fact that sometimes, when people are in trouble we talk about 'throwing them a rope' to help rescue them.  We used this to talk about the times in our life when things are hard and we need to ask for help because we can't do it by ourselves.  This led to talking about how Christians believe that God will help them and give them strength to get through.  We asked each child to think about who they would ask for help.  Would it be a particular person?  Would it be God?  Then each child came to tie a length of ribbon to the rope (held between two adults) as a symbol of thanks for the person who helps them to be strong...

Today we had classes from one of the local schools into church to do an 'Easter journey' of activities.  This is the activity we used to introduce the Last Supper and the children loved it (from the 5 year olds up to the 11 year olds!) First I collaged a picture and scanned it so it could be reproduced.  Then I printed some copies off, laminated them and cut each sheet into 10 pieces.  Click here if you want to print off the picture to make your own jigsaws. We gave each group of 3 children one of the jigsaws, before we said anything about what happened at the Last Supper and they worked together to put the puzzle together. When everyone had completed the puzzle, we asked them about the symbols they saw in the picture- bread, cup, heart- and the words.  They explained what they thought they were about and then this led onto telling the story.  They had so many ideas- especially about the symbolism of the heart!  A great conversation start...