Asking Prayers: Cardboard Tube Cross Version!

Last week we went into our local church infant school to run a prayer workshop for each class in celebration of the 'Thy Kingdom Come' 10 days of prayer. This was one of their favourite activities!

We got the original idea from the cross in this great post at Easy Breezy Sunday School and then added a few little twists to it :-)

We wanted the children to think about God being a provider (linked to the Lord's prayer and 'give us today our daily bread') and to know that God wants good things for us.

My friend Charlotte built an amazing cross out of cardboard tubes of various sizes and spray painted it gold to make it extra special. In each of the tubes we put a sweet and then we asked the children to write or draw their asking prayers on a piece of paper, put it into one of the tubes and take a sweet as a reminder that we can ask God for things and that He wants to give us good things. We have done quite a lot of work with the children at the school and they are really familiar with the symbol of light to represent Jesus as the light of the world. Because of this we also gave them some battery operated candles to put into the tube with their prayer as a symbol of who they were bringing the prayer to.

When we went back a few days later for another meeting, the teachers told us that the children were still talking about what they had been doing!

Parable of the Precious Pearl with Under 5s: Decorated Biscuits

We had a last minute planning situation at our children's group this last Sunday, due to a leader's illness. We were not deterred however!  I got out my Godly play materials to tell the story of the Great pearl and then we had lots of activities to choose from that didn't take a lot of preparation.

As most of the children in the group are under 5, it's good when we have a craft that is a bit loose and free flowing and they absolutely love anything to do with food! This craft involved some stuff that I found in my cupboard the night before...

You will need: Plain biscuits, icing sugar (made into spreadable icing), sprinkles, cupcake cases, white fondant icing rolled into 'pearls'.

Spread some icing on top of the biscuit and then add sprinkles to decorate your 'treasure'.

Add a fondant pearl to the top of your treasure biscuit to remember that the pearl was the most special treasure of all.  

Finish by covering the biscuit with a cupcake case so that the treasure is hidden. Take the cupcake case off to show the treasure that you can't see at first but have to look for like the merchant in the story! 

When we had made the biscuits we spent some time talking about treasure and special things and thinking about heaven and what it might be like. Young children have some amazing ideas about the kingdom of God!

The Good Samaritan Messy Church Crafts

We hold a monthly Ecumenical Messy Church in the local parish hall- the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the Church of Christ working together, pooling our resources and building relationships! Messy Church has proved to be really popular with our local non-church families and this month we explored the story of the Good Samaritan. Here's what we got up to...

'Plaster' biscuits (biscuits, fondant and strawberry jam!)

Wool friendship bracelets

Playing with a toy doctor's kit and lots of bandages!

Pin the Good samaritan on the donkey

Thinking about people we have helped and those who have helped us

Colouring and acting out the story with stick puppets

We then told the story with oranges and bananas  (check out the link here)...

...and then ended by thanking God for the people who help us and sticking plasters to ourselves to remind us to be people who help others :-)

I am part of God's Big Family Play Dough Mat

For those of you who have followed this blog over a period of time, you will probably know that last month saw the publication of my first book.  I am so excited about it! The book looks amazing and has loads of ideas for helping you to introduce Holy Communion to under 5s.  There are play sessions for Creche areas, sessions for more formal children's church settings and ideas for when you have no children's groups at all. There is also a section for what families can do at home to explore the main themes.

What is extra great about this book is that it comes with downloadable and printable material.  To give you a taster, here is one of the play dough mats that links with a session exploring what it means to be part of God's big family.  To print click here

You can buy the book here (overseas postage is available) or on Kindle here. Have fun!