Recyclable embellishments

I found this abandoned kid's craft in church - and realised that the flower embellishments are made entirely of paper, so it can go in the recycle bin. 🎉

It would be nice if more kids' craft materials were recyclable - foam and gems and plastic stickers are nice, but for throwaway crafts this kind of thing is far more environmentally friendly.

Analogies are not (necessarily) heresy

Wrote this aaaages ago - finally got round to finishing and posting.

From time to time, people claim that this analogy or that analogy of the Trinity gives the wrong idea of God, or is even heretical. I'm sure that's sometimes true. But sometimes I think it's just that the people criticising it are trying to make an analogy do more than it's meant to.

For example, take the triangle. People say it's a bad way to explain the Trinity because each member of the Trinity is fully God, whereas each side of a triangle is not a triangle. But, I don't think it's bad, just - like all analogies - incomplete. It would only be a bad analogy if you were saying that a triangle says everything that's to be said about how the Trinity relates - and that's not how analogies work.

Craft we made, based on these instructions.

 

I have used the triangle analogy in Sunday school. I'm teaching people who may not yet even know that Jesus is God. So all the analogy is meant to say is that:

• The trinity is a thing.
• There is one God, made of three people, (who are all God).
• They are the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.

It's true in what it intends to teach - it's not the last word on the subject.

Actually, it's the same with the analogies of Jesus which are used in the Bible. He is variously described as our father, future husband, brother, master, shepherd, a lamb, a vine, a gate, bread, water, light... If you took any of those to extremes you could easily make a heresy. And some of them are mutually contradictory.

 

But the point is that Jesus - who is far more than we could ever understand - is a little bit like all those things (and the context usually makes it clear in what way).

Here's a quote:

We have to think about Christ using ideas and images, but if we put our trust in these symbols, rather than in the One they symbolize, we will be making a big mistake. [...] By using more than one image for God, we remind ourselves that any image we use is only temporary; it must be corrected and relieved by other images. These images serve our minds; they do not save our souls. A fork is not food.

~Michael Ward, The Narnia Code

Forks

I've wanted to use wooden forks as kings for aaages! 

King David

We made these yesterday.

With more time, glitter or gold paint on the crown would have been nice.

Out of the mouth of babes

 Haven't posted one of these for ages...

We were doing the calming of the storm in Sunday School, and Naresh taught us how to make paper boats.

My boat

One of the kids was struggling a bit with the folding, and said,

"My paper won't obey me, like the sea obeyed God."

Lydia craft

Here’s an idea for a simple, fun craft that brings out a lot of things from Lydia’s story.

All you need:

• Paper towel - I found that cheap stuff is best. If you don't have any plain paper towel, toilet paper works too!
• Felt tip pens
• Water 

What to do:

1. Make sure you are working on a surface that is OK to get wet, and to get pen on! You could put the paper towel on a plate, or on newspaper.
2. Draw rough circles of coloured dots. You can do different sizes - the space in the middle shouldn't be very big, though - 3-4cm max.
   
   I tried a heart in the middle, but you might find that too difficult.
   
   
3. Dip your finger in the water, and touch the space in the middle of each circle.
   
   
   
4. Watch as the water spreads out.
   
   
5. Larger circles will need a few more drops, but wait until it stops spreading before adding more. Use as little water as possible, or the colours will all wash out!
6. Leave to dry.
   
   

Links to the story:

• The dye from the pens reminds us of the dye that was used to make Lydia's purple cloth - but use other colours if you prefer.
• If you draw a heart, that reminds us that the Lord 'opened Lydia's heart'.
• Water reminds us of Lydia's baptism.
• The colours spreading remind us of the good news of Jesus spreading.

Truth

Just sorting through Sunday School photos for our virtual prizegiving. These two crafts, done earlier in the year, seem particularly relevant now...

Rainbow crosses

People are putting rainbows in their windows to symbolise hope. So here are some crosses that our Sunday School kids made to remind us that our true hope comes from Jesus.

All done in an appropriately socially-distant manner: They made them at home, photographed them, and WhatsApped them to me. I printed them at church, cut them out and stuck them up.

I love how different they all turned out.

Quick, easy Christmas decoration craft

Went well with the theme of our nativity being about God's gift.

You will need:

• Coloured foam. I used sparkly A5 foam, from a pound shop.
• Sticky-backed foam (or use glue, but sticky is easier). Or self adhesive ribbon, but I couldn't find any.
• Suitable stickers. The crowns and hearts were actually taken from a fairytale set!
• String
• Single hole punch. Small hole if possible - a leather punch is good, because it can cut through a lot of layers.

Teachers preparation:

1. Cut the foam into 'squares'. A5 gives 6 more or less square pieces. A guillotine is quickest.
2. Cut the sticky foam into strips. 1cm (ish). 

With the kids:

1. Stick two strips to a square. This makes it look like a parcel and also a cross!
2. Decorate with stickers.
3. Punch hole.
4. Thread string.
5. Repeat till parents come!
6. Brush up all the backing paper from the stickers...

NEW Christmas posters and colouring

Based on my Christmas stickers, I now have a full set of printable Christmas posters and colouring pictures.

Both can be printed as A4 posters or A5 bunting. Individual posters are also available (A4 only).

My aim with these was not so much to focus on the events of the nativity (there are lots of those already!) but on who Jesus is and why he came. This means that they'll be particularly useful for older kids or kids with a good Bible knowledge.

Could also be helpful for kids who think babies are boring and want to know why we're making such a fuss about this one 😁

Baby Moses craft

Haven't posted so many Sunday School crafts recently - partly because we don't do so many in the older class, and sometimes I don't get round to it.

But I like this one we did today.

I believe it was a last-minute idea. Very effective!

Jumbo lolly sticks cut in half (you can use scissors), crepe paper streamers (we attached them with a mixture of pritt stick and sellotape), foil mini pie dishes. Some of us drew a happy face on one side and a crying face on the other. Also a tin from the kitchen and the plants from the book cases.

The kids started off carefully floating them - by the end, some were deliberately trying to drown him 😂

Abram believed and went

A new poster to replace the old one.

The LORD had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

... So Abram went, as the LORD had told him

Genesis 12 v1,4

He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the sky and count the stars – if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’

Abram believed the LORD

Genesis 15v5-6

The sky is a roll of blue paper. Across the bottom is a path made from the paper you get scrunched up in Amazon boxes. The mountains are torn black paper. (It would have been better to assemble the background before class).

We drew round the children's (and adults') feet on yellow card and they cut them out. I lightly pencilled the words so they would be going in the right direction and be a suitable size, and they did them in colour.

I had pre-cut gold and silver triangles and showed them how to make stars. They stuck them on and filled the background with star stickers - they love using star stickers and wanted more!

Only three children today with the holidays, but with two adults we just managed to get it finished!

NO prep Sunday School lesson

Our Sunday School class was given this book* and matching set of cards.


Here's how we used it:

I told the children I didn't know what the story was going to be today :-)

Then I spread out the cards (face up) and let a child choose one.

She picked Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (whom I'd never heard of), and I looked her up in the book and read the story.

Nice illustrations! Child-friendly, modern, not twee, pretty good likenesses.

I then tried to do a quiz where they ran to either side of the room depending on the answer. It didn't work very well because it was impossible to ask multiple choice questions that were not blindingly obvious :-). But they enjoyed running about anyway.

Then I got a child to look up the reference of the Bible verse below the picture in their own Bible, and read it out.

We then repeated the whole thing with a second card - I got them to choose a boy this time (we got Eric Liddel). And Kerenna, who read this story, omitted the 'quiz' - instead she asked open ended questions, which worked better.

Finally, we did a craft, using things I already had - cardboard boy/girl shapes I got from Poundland, and scrap paper/pens.

On one side they wrote the person's name and dates, and some words to describe them - I tried to encourage them all to include something about Jesus.

btw 'nis' means 'nice'. 'circhn' means 'christian'. No idea about 'lusrns'

The other side they decorated to look like the person. We only had time to do one person each.

Hope you like Eric's tattoos :-)

This is also ideal to keep in the cupboard, for days when you need an emergency lesson due to a teacher being unwell (like today).

Here's a worksheet I made that could also be used.

The box is for a picture.

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*Note: I'm not sure what age this book is aimed at. I'd say the language is sometimes a little young for our 6-8 year olds and sometimes more specific details would be better for our age. But the amount of content and focus on one or two main points was ideal.

Jesus rules

We learned about Belshazzar's feast on Sunday, and made this:

Click to see big.

The photos are of our own leaders, leaders that are often in the news, and a variety of kings - mostly absolute monarchs - which I found on Wikipedia.

Interestingly, none of the children knew who Nicola Sturgeon was*.
I think they all knew who Donald Trump was :-D

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*First Minister of Scotland, if there are any international readers.

Love your enemies quick crafts

I'm making a Pinterest board for Jonah, and it was hard to find crafts that didn't focus solely on the whale/fish.

The fish is fun and all - but it's only in a couple of verses in the book.

So - while I have nothing against doing fish crafts for this story - I thought I would also mock up a couple that focussed on the more important points of the story.

These were so quick and easy, made with stuff I already had.

• Face stickers from a pound shop - or print out some angry emojis.
• Hearts from The Works - or you could cut your own heart shape from foam or card. 

The only difficulty here would be finding enough angry faces for a lot of children.
And you'd need to check the sticker set you bought - some don't have angry ones.

 

New Creation worksheets

Came across these I did for my Sunday School class last year for our New Creation lesson.

Feel free to use them for non-commercial use.

If you had time, this would be especially nice with glitter and/or star stickers.

Light in the darkness

We made this on Sunday. Vaguely Hallowe'en related.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.

Isaiah 9v2

Jesus said: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’

John 8v12

New stickers!

I've added three more sets of stickers to the collection. More coming in 2018...

Ideal stocking fillers!

The 'Christmas' set has 12 stickers focussing on who Jesus is and why he came. It would be most suitable for older children or children who are familiar with the Bible.

The 'Nativity' set is suitable for everyone, and ideal for making nativity scenes. I've provided two Mary figures for pedants like me, so you can have the wise men coming separately from the shepherds, as they did in real life :-)

And finally, a set of 6 shaped cartoon stickers on the theme of God's word, and how it describes itself. Each has a reference for the Bible passage it represents.