Flame: Creative Children's Ministry

 We are gearing up for Epiphany on Sunday and have a great all age service planned. At the side of church, for those who want to be a bit hands on, we have a few crafts ready and this new craft will be one of them. This craft is really effective but will need some help for very young hands. You will need:    3 x A6 size yellow/orange  paper, scissors, glue, 2 lolly sticks. Start at the short end one of the pieces of paper and make concertina folds all the way down. You should now have 3 concertina-ed papers. Snip the ends off of each concertina, as shown in the photo. Fold each concertina in half. Open out and glue together the bits of paper closest to the fold line. This will make your concertina into a fan. Glue the three fans together as shown. You will now have a large fan! Let the glue dry for a moment. Squeeze the fan shut and point it with the snipped ends downward. Glue lolly sticks to each side of the fan as shown here. Wait for the glue to dry. Hold on to t...

As part of our all age carol service today we had a creation station, and one of the activities was to make a host of angels. Adults and children took part at any point in the service they wanted to and we ended up with a great display. This was easy enough for even the youngest children to do and was very popular.  Indeed, it was more popular than I imagined it would be and I got into trouble when we ran out of pieces and had to improvise! You will need: A5 pieces of coloured paper or card, triangles slightly less tall and wide than A5, small triangles for wings, small circles for heads, glue sticks Stick the 'wings' point down, somewhere about 1/3 of a page down from the top of the card. Stick the large triangle over the top and add a circle for a head. As you can see, some chose also to add faces and speech! As they were being made, we gathered the angels together and created a heavenly host for the congregation to see :-) 

On Sunday we are holding our all age carol service and one of the activities will be Christmas story bingo. Anyone who wants to participate can take a sheet as they come in and can then cross off every word on their sheet that they hear in the readings, talk and carols. There are 10 different word sheets and, for young children who can't yet read, there are 6 different picture sheets. If people are paying attention there will, of course, be multiple winners who have crossed off all of the words at the same time, but that's part of the fun! Click here to print off the Christmas story word bingo. Click here to cross off the Christmas story picture bingo. When I printed the sheets off, I printed 4 to an A4 page, but go with whichever size works best for you!

  This is a fairly easy and impressive looking paper cutting activity that can be used to explore any passage or story focussing on God's love. I especially love the fact that the hearts form both a circle and a star because those ideas lend themselves to thinking about God's love being all encompassing and never ending, and also draw attention to the star that leads to the baby who is the ultimate expression of God's love. You will need: Scissors, a square of paper (mine was patterned on one side and blank on the other), a pen or pencil, a flat, hard surface. Lay your paper square flat on a hard surface. Fold the square in half... ...and in half again. Open out the last fold you made. There will now be a line down the centre of the triangle. Fold one side of the triangle to line up with the centre line. Now fold the other side of the triangle over the top of that. Be aware that the folded sides will not be of an equal size, but don't worry! This is what will lead the ...

If you're looking for a simple retelling of the Nativity Story, especially one that's suitable for under 5s, here is a short video for you using a widely available Nativity set.  Have a lovely Christmas everyone!

 I work with a group of clergy and lay leaders who (in non-Covid times!) go into a variety of schools for collective worship and lots of other things. We got together this afternoon to film a Zoom Nativity to show in our schools, since we can't be there in person. The whole nativity is 3-4 minutes long and is suitable for primary school audiences. It works by everyone naming their Zoom profile with their character name and switching their video off unless they are taking part in the scene. The script is very clear about when to switch on and off! Click here if you'd like to use the script :-)

I try to buy or make a new nativity scene every year and this year I decided to have go at making some story spoons. These can either be displayed or used to retell the story and are a good size to be held by little hands! You will need: 10 wooden spoons (you can buy some quite cheaply for crafts) , a copy of the print out, colouring pens and pencils, scissors, glue or sellotape. Print out the story spoons sheet and get children to colour in the character pictures. Cut the pictures out and glue or tape each of them to the back of a wooden spoon. I used sellotape so that I can remove the pictures easily and make a different story. Tell the story using the spoons as props!

We're getting ready for Christmas and one of the things I'm most excited about is our upcoming crib service.  It's a new venture for our church, but it sounds as if the community are really getting behind it!  We have invited families to turn up dressed in nativity character costumes and everyone can join in the tableau that is formed during the narration. For people who don't have a costume, tea towels, tinsel and crowns will be at the ready. This is a script written with children under 5 in mind.  It can be narrated by a single voice but if you have older, more confident children, they might like to say the lines of Mary, Joseph, the Angel and the Innkeeper. The songs are all to the tunes of well known nursery rhymes, so everyone should be able to join in.  Click here to print off the script. Have fun!

This year, the Church of England has launched a campaign called Follow the Star, which is encouraging churches and local groups to engage in star related activities in Advent and Christmas.  If you are joining in, and even if you aren't, here are some 'star' ideas to help you out! Star tea light mats and Advent prayer Nativity star reflective colouring page Nativity Star craft and prayers Messy Christmas Star Ornaments Epiphany star finger print prayers Epiphany play dough mat

This year I have seen a variety of lovely ideas online for helping children and families to get involved with the Advent season.  Drawing on some of the ideas I've seen, I've come up with a little bag of things to give out (along with prayer ideas for each item) which will take people through some of the main Advent themes.  Putting the bags together doesn't take all that long when you have everything you need and it's quite therapeutic to paint a whole load of Baby Jesus stones! If you want to find out a bit more about the baby Jesus stones, click here. For each bag you will need: A prayer sheet ( click here to print), A felt or paper star, a felt or paper heart, a pipe cleaner, a baby Jesus stone, a tea light candle, an organza drawstring bag (I used purple bags to reflect the liturgical season. First paint your baby Jesus stones. I used white and brown paint and a black paint marker (but a sharpie would probably work too). I also covered the finished pain...

Advent is nearly here and Christmas is coming!  Here are my top 10 ideas from the Flame archive to help you with your preparations... Printable Nativity Character Prayer Cards Jesse Tree Advent Journey Play Dough Mat Emmanuel Reflective Colouring Sheet 24 Things to do in Advent: Printable Booklet for Families Nativity Story Bag Advent Hope Ribbon Prayer Christmas Card Snow Globes Nativity Discovery Box for Under 5s Nativity Story Cube (Full Colour or Colour-in versions)