All posts tagged kids

Lesson Ideas for Judges

By Lindsey | August 18, 2011 | Ministry Ideas | Comments Off

We’ve been making our way through the Bible, covering all the “Big Stories” this summer. I wish we had time to cover all the great details in God’s Word, but we’ll do what we can! I was talking with one of our regular attenders the other day and she had never heard the story of David and Goliath. As a “raised-in-church” girl, sometimes I forget that not every kid knows the basics of the Bible. So, hopefully by the end of summer, we’ll covered most of the “main characters” of the Bible. Stay tuned for lesson ideas based on the Big Story of God’s Word.

For the book of Judges, we covered three of the main judges during story time (Samson, Gideon, and Deborah) and then dove into the details of a few other judges during station time (I was dying to share this poem about Ehud with the kids, but I refrained!)

To help tell the story of Samson, we used a mop for Samson (old school style, no swiffers!) and a broom for Delilah (this idea came from Forget Me Not Bible Stories, I think!). One my team members drew these great faces to attach to our props:

It was a big hit!

During Station time, we gave kids the following options:

Puppets Recreate Story: Kids would look up an account in the book of judges and then collaborate with a fellow class mate to write a script and perform it with puppets.
Make Gideon’s Torch
Use Cool Bible Tools for Hero Posters: Kids would look up one of the judges using our Cool Bible Tools and make a Hero poster. They could write what the Judge was best known for, his strengths, his weaknesses, or a great quote from Scripture. Of course, drawing pictures was encouraged!

What about you? Got a great idea for teaching about Judges? Leave me a comment and let me know (comments close automatically after two weeks). I’d love to hear your ideas!

The Big Story: Lesson Ideas for Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph

By Lindsey | June 21, 2011 | Bible Study, Elementary Age, Ministry Ideas, Preschoolers | 2 Comments

For our summer Wednesday night program, we’re doing a Story Time approach (check out all our summer plans here). We will be covering the major stories in the Bible and showing how they are all one big part of God’s redeeming plan of love. Sometimes I read out of the Read and Share Bible, sometimes the kids act out the story using the Big Action Bible Skits book, and sometimes leaders act it out for the kids. After the story, the kids head to stations.

What are Stations?

Each night, kids can choose from between three and five stations, all of which relate to some part of the night’s story. For our most recent night, the focus was on the Isaac & Rebekah, Jacob & Esau, and Jacob & family. Here’s the stations we had available:

Logical: Ask the Pastor

For this, kids wrote down questions about our story to try to “Stump the Pastor”. This was a great to use whenever kids asked a story during story time. I would simply say, “That would be a great question to ask the Pastor!” Pastor made a guest appearance and talked with the kids at this station about different aspects of the story.

Drama: Recreate the Story

I assembled a variety of props that related to the story and set them all out on the table. I was hoping the kids would free play a little more, but they wanted me to read the story again (out of the Read and Share Bible) as they acted along. Either way, they are getting into the Bible, so it suits me fine! Here’s some of the props we used:

Soup bowl and spoon
Gold Coins
Play mustaches and beards
Egypt head dress (left over from our Egypt VBS last year!)
Tulle
White sheets
Bathrobe of many colors
Rock

Cooking: Cookie Map of Egypt (from Forget Me Not Bible Stories, Group Publishing)

At this station, kids used an overhead projector to trace a map of Egypt onto a piece of wax paper. Then they shaped some sugar cookie dough (we just used a roll, premade from the grocery store) to look like Egypt. They baked it and then added details with frosting such as the Nile River, etc.

Art: Joseph’s Fancy Coat

A classic Bible craft, kids used a coloring page of Joseph and his coat to start. After they colored Joseph, they cut out felt to design a coat for him. They could also add little embellishments such as glitter, sequins, etc. Needless to say, this was a popular station. They don’t call them “old standbys” for no reason!

Piecing the Story All Together

Next week, I think I’ll help the kids put together a family tree based on the stories we’ve heard so far. I want them see how the Bible is connected throughout the Old and New Testament, and this might help solidify the continuity between stories. We’ve also been working on the Bible Timeline for the same reason.

What About You?

Got a great idea for these Bible accounts? Send me an email and let me know!

Minute to Win It: Million Dollar Redemption

By Lindsey | June 8, 2011 | Games, Minute to Win It | 1 Comment

In this episode of NBC’s hit game show “Minute to Win It” (Season 2, Episode 30), former contestant Heather gets a second chance at the million. I wasn’t able to catch the first half of this 2-part special, so these games will be a bit harder than usual. Use them for adults or your youth group!

Level 5 Challenge: On the Hook

In this game, contestant must hold a chopstick in their mouth, attached to a string and open paper clip. She has to fish 4 keys of a stand (or stool) in front of her. Heather got a bonus 10 seconds for this game, and it’s good thing too — she finished with just 4 seconds of her 70 seconds to spare!

Level 6 Challenge: Laying Track

In this game, contestant must use staples, flipped upside down to build a track for a marble on a tilted table. The track must go over 3 pairs of erasers and drop into a glass at the end of the table. The lady nailed this one for $75,000!

Level 7: Caddy Stack

Heather is starting to get pretty worked up, but she feels confident about this game. For the next level, she has to stack three golf balls and they have to stay for 3 seconds. Sounds easy right? Go ahead, try it at home! She nailed it quick. Way to earn $125,000! Now, will she go on?

Level 8: Mag-Nutstacker

Of course she will! This classic nutstacker game gets spiced up a bit at this level. Contestant must alternate stacking nuts and magnets with a chopstick. The whole pile must be then moved to a different table before winning a quarter of a million dollars! And she does it again! Amazing! With $250,000 in the bank, of course she’s moving on!

Level 9: Get Forked

In this nearly impossible task, contest must roll a quarter 15 feet towards a fork. The object is to get the coin catch a coin in the prongs of a fork. This tough task did Heather in, but she still walked away with quite a wallet-full.

That’s it for now!

Bible Dictionary for Kids

By Lindsey | June 3, 2011 | Bible Study, Spiritual Milestones | 1 Comment

In our quest to find some Cool Bible Tools, I stumbled across Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary for Kids and man was I impressed! The pages are nice and big (around 8×10), great for when you want to show the class a certain page or two. The illustrations are colorful and bright, but very realistic too.

Some of the cool features include maps and reconstruction of Bible-time towns, illustrated charts, pronunciation guide, photography, and easy to understand definitions. Almost every entry provides supporting scripture so kids can read more about a certain person, event, or thing. Lots of entries have extras too — like a map of Abraham’s journeys next to his name or the descriptions of each apostle next to the “apostle” entry.

This book errs on the side of more information for each entry instead of many many entries. It’s very complete on the things it does cover, but may leave out a lesser known places or people. As far as I can see, though — it has everything a kid might be looking for when using a Bible dictionary. It covers all the major things and quite a few obscure things such as Mezuzah and Mother-in-law.

Overall, a really great resource to have, and very reasonable priced. Pick up your own copy here on Amazon for about $11 and start using it in your ministry!

Other Reviews for this Book:

We Love to Homeschool Blog

Download a PDF Sampler here!

Peace Creek on the Prairie Blog

Minute to Win It: The Family that Plays Together

By Lindsey | May 31, 2011 | Games, Minute to Win It | 3 Comments

What a family! In this unique episode of Minute to Win It, the whole Canter family (mom, dad, and four daughters!) compete for the million. Here’s some games that might be good for your family or kids ministry (lot of classic games in this episode):

Knock It Off: Click on the title to watch a video about this one. I’ve always thought this game was ridiculously hard (especially for a level two!), but this 12 year old girl nailed it in 30 seconds, so it might be worth a shot!

Speed Eraser: For this level three game, contestants must bounce 10 pencils on their eraser to get them to land in 10 glasses lined up along a table. It is played as a team, so each contestant has to land 5 pencils each.

Spoon Frog: Similar to Speed Eraser, check out the video below for instructions:

Nutstacker: Using a chopstick, a contestant must stack 10 bolts on top of each other without making the tower tip over.

Cantagious: For $125,000, contestant start with three full cans of soda in the right hand and three empty cans in the left. They must switch all the cans so they end up with the three full cans in the left and empty in the right. They cannot use the body for leverage or set down any cans. Much harder than it sounds! On Youtube, I saw a kid use mini-soda cans. Might be worth a try!

That’s it for now! Catch you next week for more Minute to Win it games! If you’ve got some great ideas for outdoor Minute to Win it games — great for summer fun, let me know!

Got Your Bible Competition?

By Lindsey | May 20, 2011 | Bible Study, Spiritual Milestones | 3 Comments

Here’s a new contest we’re running at our church:

We got our Bibles, yes we do!

We got our Bibles, how about you?

We, the kids of East Lake Road Alliance Church, challenge both the adults and the youth group to the “Got Your Bible” Competition on Wednesday nights.

Here’s the Information:

Starts on May 4, 2011 and Ends on August 31, 2011

What you’ve got to do: Bring Your Bible!

Each week, we’ll be keeping track of how many participants in each group (children, youth, and adults) are bringing their OWN BIBLE from home to church. At the end of each month, the group with the highest participation rate (by percentage) will get to punish the other two groups!

Pick the Punishment:

Pie in the face, Silly String, or Water balloons

Pick The Delegate:

Once sign-ups are in, you get to vote on who in the other groups will receive the punishment for May. Just like Jesus took the punishment for all our sins, so too will the delegate take the punishment for the whole group.

Sign-ups:

You’ve got to sign-up to get in the competition. Parents, here’s the guilt trip: You better be signing up. You’re role models, you know! (And, no hiding your kids Bibles!) Good luck and have fun. I’m excited to highlight the importance of God’s Word.

Celebration!

Our first celebration and judgement day comes on June 1st. I’ll let you know how it goes! So far, the kids have won once and the adults have won once. Youth Group, you better step it up!