We do a lunch time club in one of the local schools on a Thursday and, when we were making recycled Christmas cards, we discovered that the children were absolutely fascinated with the Nativity scenes and wanted to take the spare cards home with them!
I wanted an interactive way of telling the Nativity story, as the group can be a bit lively so I decided that we would use some of the left over cards.
- Christmas cards showing 1) the shepherds, 2) the Wise Men, 3)The angels, 4) a Bethlehem scene, 5) a scene where Mary and Joseph and Jesus or a combination of characters are in the stable, 6) possibly a 'peace on Earth' card
- A chocolate bar
- Newspaper or wrapping paper and sellotape
- CD player and music
In the centre parcel wrap the stable scene and the chocolate. In the other layers wrap a card and maybe a sweet! I used this order for the layers- angels, shepherds, Wise Men, Bethlehem, Peace on Earth, Nativity group scene and chocolate.
Play pass the parcel and, as the layers are revealed, discuss what the picture shows and why those figures are part of the story. What part did they play? Lay the cards out so that they make a visual story. The final layer will reveal a stable group scene and the chocolate. We have got to the centre of the story. Each layer gave us a taste of Christmas (and a sweet!) but the centre is for everyone to share. Jesus is a gift to everyone, and whoever unwraps him needs to share the news and spread the joy (share out the chocolate!)
Thanks for this great idea! The kids were singing in church today, and I wanted some way of keeping their attention during Sunday School, as I knew they'd be rather high!
ReplyDeleteI used mostly pictures from the wise men story (not christmas cards), as we'd already done Jesus' birth and Simeon & Anna, so that was the next installment.
And because they were young children who were ever so slightly wound up, I pochled it to make sure that I got the final prize - I wasn't sure how any of them would take being told they had to share it with everyone else :-)