iKidmin

Planning Christmas lessons for children’s church every year is so hard for me and I don’t know why because I love it! This year, I’m in a rut. I decided on a Peanuts theme and I really thought I would just run with it, (I’ve always LOVED the Peanuts Gang) but I’m stuck! I’m struggling with finding time to make and put up decorations.  I don’t want to even decorate my own home.  I’m in that stagnant perfectionism state and I HATE it! I have prayed and asked God to show me what to do, but honestly I’d rather be doing VBS.  It’s calling me.  Our VBS kit arrived this week and that doesn’t help!!!! I love VBS! I wish I could live in a VBS village (I think it’s called Disney World!).  However, it is December and I do have Christmas to think about so I went to Walmart to get what I needed for decorating but not really having a concrete plan, I prayed and asked God to help me get what I needed and as I walked around the store (knowing I didn’t have much money to spend

While working on Children's Church lessons I needed a filler power point game for November.  I had some other power points from  KidzMatter  but none of them where quite right.  So I got the idea from a game  in this set  and made my own called: "Find the Turkey Leg"  I adapted it so that it was an individual game, not a team game but you could make it that way if you wanted. These are what the slides look like: Title Slide Instruction Slide Let's Play! Child calls which turkey he would like. slide 1 may show up ---OR---- slide 2 may show up ----OR---- slide 3 may show up The best thing about this particular game is there are no internal links needed.  Just the basic slides. You could save these pictures, insert them into power point and make your own presentation. You would insert the first four slides then slide 1, 2 or 3, then the "Choose Your Turkey" slide again and repeat as many times as you'd like rando

I came across this meme the other day and it totally describes me! Sometimes I can't stand myself because I can't keep track of ideas that flow constantly through my mind.  It's exhausting!!! When it comes to ministry however, you can't just run with every idea you have.  You must take it to the Lord in prayer and wait on the Spirit to guide you.  I have had a few disastrous moments to testify to this. On any given day (hour) I may be thinking of: a new puppet idea, a craft for kids, a lesson or theme idea for an upcoming lesson, a program or event that needs planning, dinner plans, my son's chemistry lesson, ideas to do with grandkids when they come, how to get information out on facebook or newsletter or email, what foods need to be collected for the food drive, when is that dentist appointment, is the laundry done, has the dog been fed, what will I get so-and-so for such-and-such gift, are the church bulletins done, has all the money been collected fo

"Smart Cookies Go to Sunday School!" When kids come to church, they need to feel welcomed and I like to give them something to look forward to each week as well as giving them some encouragement and a sense of accomplishment. So I like to use some sort of cute attendance chart, but I don't want the same old chart with star stickers or check marks. I like visual things and kids do too. I also need something that appeals to boys and girls. For this quarter, I brainstormed with a friend and we came up with the cookie jar idea, and then she came up with the title "Smart Cookies Go to Sunday School!".  I have to give her credit, the kids love it!  Each week they will add a cookie to their jar. Once I had the display idea and the title in mind I toyed with several ways to actually make the jars. I thought of making a clear front with a page protector or baggie that they could drop their "cookie" in or some sort of 3D effect with clear plasti

"But the fruit of the Spirit is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Galatians 5:22-23a Our children's Church has been doing a unit on the fruit of the Spirit.  Each week we learn one of the components on that list. This lesson is about gentleness. Here is the story I adapted focusing on Jesus' gentleness.  As with all scripture there are many facets to each episode.  There are tons we can learn from them but when you teach children, consider the age and the maturity level of your kids. We are teaching 4-7 year olds and some of our 4 year olds are very "young".  So this story has been adapted, not changing scripture but just being wise about what information a young child needs to know. In this passage we see Jesus being gentle with a sinful woman. There are several scriptures portraying Jesus as gentle.  You could choose any of them.  For this unit the curriculum outline we follow uses this

I made these sermon notes books for our kids attending “big church” and they loved them.  You can get the original free file from here . As I was cleaning out the quiet bags at church this week I decided to do something different and so I shrunk them down and made mini-books.  I love little things and kids do too! I got the idea when my little 4-year old friend was visiting me.  She brought me a scrap sheet of paper and I quickly made it into a little 8-page mini book for her to draw in. She loved it! So that got me to thinking about our quiet bags and sermon notes. So I got busy reformatting the half-sheet books onto one sheet and here’s how the books look now. The inside pages… The back… Aren’t they cute? The best thing is that they are made from only one sheet of paper. Here’s my free mini-sermon notes printable.  Want to know how to make an 8 page mini book? Here's a tutorial. I’ve used this mini-book template for years for so many different things!

Thanks to the Kidologist and the Kidology Cookbook , I am able to quickly come up with different ways to tell a Bible story that are fun and easy to learn. If you stand in front of kids that are varied in ages with all kinds of varied attention spans and just talk, talk, talk; (I call it bobbing head) you aren't going to engage them for very long.  You'll have discipline problems for sure, but mostly they won't internalize what it is you want them to know.   Here is a story I wrote, with help from a friend, for an upcoming lesson on self-control. For this story, we are going to make an acrostic using each letter in the word "Self-Control". The focus is on Peter as he makes mistakes that he was sure he would not make.  But the good news is Jesus still loves him and forgives him even though he knew that Peter was going to mess up before it even happened. Isn't Jesus awesome! I thank Him today for doing the same for me! He died on that cross even th

Everest VBS was a blast! It's here! I made a donation/volunteer board. Free Gift from Group. Snow ball toss hat! Fun! Had some fun playing with the buddy app. :) Here is our set in progress.  We painted the backdrop ourselves this year. We even had some help all the way from Hong Kong. Some students were here on a trip visiting our church and they pitched in to help.  It turned out beautiful. The Preschool Hallway.  Here's how we do our Crew leader tags with a schedule on the back. Here's how we sorted our name tags by crew color for check in. Some barriers I made from old window blinds and orange duct tape. I also used these in a children's church unit. Bible Adventures was a lot of fun.

Pop on over to my puppet blog and check out the details about my newest puppet build - Giddy!

Of course we learned from the Bible all about Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, the angels and shepherds.  But we also played some themed games and snacks. I took some spray paint, cardboard boxes of various sizes and some fiber fill, along with a printed Grinch face, laminated and attached to the oatmeal carton.  I used scraps left over from my Whoville outfit to make some bean bags.  This was a “knock down the Grinch” game and they LOVED it!  They almost destroyed the whole thing by tossing the bags so hard.  Boys, gotta love ‘em.  Here’s a demonstration: We made Grinch snacks: Of course we had to make green slime!  I had all the ingredients gather, measured and ready to go. We used this recipe: Slime recipe Ingredients 4oz Elmer’s Glue 2 teaspoons Borax Glitter (optional) Food Coloring Instructions Mix 4oz glue with 1 cup water. Stir in your coloring- Just add a few drops according to how vibrant the color you want. In a separate bowl, mix 2 teaspoons Borax