Chalkboard story spoons for Bible storytelling

Using wooden spoons painted as story characters is a great way of helping to tell stories to younger children. Unfortunately, it means that you need a lot of spoons if you want to tell lots of different stories! It struck me that a little bit of left over chalk board paint might solve that problem...

I painted some craft spoons with  couple of coats of paint on both sides. I then got the chalks out and drew on some pictures to help tell a Bible story.  The great thing about spoons is that they are double sided, so if you want to tell a story like Jesus calming the storm, you can put storm on one side and sun on the other.

Children could make their own drawings to retell a story and the best part is that, when you have finished, you can wipe them clean and use them again for a different story!  

Enjoy some story telling and do post any photos of your creations :-)

Ask, Seek, Knock Reflective Colouring Page (Luke 11:9)

We are running a series on parables at the moment so this week I have made a colouring sheet for the parable of the persistent neighbour in Luke 11. 

To print the sheet, click here.

Have fun!

Meal time grace placemat for under 5s

This is a resource I have created while putting together my book on introducing Holy Communion to under 5s. More will follow in due course on that subject!

Anyway, this is a very simple idea prompted by a remark on this blog's Facebook page.  Thanks Nicole Hall for telling me about having placemats with prayer prompts on them so that children could join in with prayers over mealtimes!

The idea with this placemat is that you print it off and laminate it so that a child can use it on the table and it can easily be wiped clean.

The first time you use it, talk about the different pictures and what they symbolise. When you come to pray before you eat, ask your child to choose one or two of the pictures and to thank God for that thing. For example, if they choose the 'drink' picture, they might thank God for their favourite drink or for what they are going to drink at the table.  Gradually they will build up the repertoire of what they want to say thank you for!

To print off the placemat, click here.

Pray-Ground Box for Church

We've recently been investigating how we can include and engage younger children in our worship on a Sunday morning because we really want everyone to be a part of what is happening.

While we have a selection of flags that the children can dance to the music with, the only space that allows this is at the back of church. Because we don't want to relegate the children, by default, to the back, we have hit upon creating a 'pray-ground' or interactive space for them at the front of church, where they can be involved in a variety of worship focussed activities while the service is going on.  If you want to find out more about 'pray-grounds,' look at this great post by Traci Smith.

Because we want to make it clear to everyone how valued the children are, one of the clergy or leaders will often sit in the pray ground while sung worship is happening or during the sermon, so that they can interact with the children and take part in what they are doing.

Each of our churches now has a box of activities and three or four are chosen each week for the children to use. That way there is a bit of variety.  If there is anything particular to the service then that might be included in the pray ground activities too. We have a communion treasure box that we bring out during communion services and this week we are looking at the parable of the sower so there will be some gardening sensory play!

Here is a run down of what we have put in each box:

Sequin Boards

Reflective colouring sheets

Play dough and play dough mats

Some paper windmills (we're going for an 'awe and wonder' feel!)

Reflection bottles

Chalk board and chalk

Felt cross shapes with little scraps of felt the children can use to decorate them.

Bubbles!