2nd June 2013 - Parables

all boys aged 8-10 (yes, it was rather loud! :) )

Parables

Introduction

When Jesus taught he typically taught by using parables. Parables are attention grabbing –

Jesus took everyday occurrences and made them into object lessons. Often Jesus' parables are about the land or the sea - fishing, farming. The people listening to Jesus could have followed his gaze and watched, for instance, a distant farmer sowing his seed as Jesus told the parable of the sower. They would have seen fishermen at work as Jesus told them the parable of the dragnet. This immediacy would have caught his audiences' attention and made his teaching relevant to their lives.

Q Why did Jesus use parables? / while keeping the interest of the audience, were not completely easy to understand - only those whom the holy Spirit wanted to understand would understand. Jesus used parables to keep his meaning slightly hidden from those who were not ready to understand him!

Game – Time

 

Stand the children at one side of the hall and ask them to cross in their own time to the other side.

Say that they should aim to take two minutes to get there - and time them!

See who manages to do the journey in the closest time to 1 minute.. repeat with different times. They enjoyed this game!

Object Lesson – use of objects in parables

 Described how parables are like object lessons, let the kids guess an object lesson for each of the items I had, then I told them my version…

Telephone

2 parts to hand piece, we need to listen and talk. Eg phone convo with somebody. Like when we talk to God, when we pray we upload our problems… but it’s good to be quiet and listen too

Coins

different size piles of different values, but all worth the same. God sees us all the same, doesn’t matter if you are tall or fat or different…

Toothpaste

“many ways to squeeze” from the top from the end. Kid sq        ueezes out toothpaste, then another tries to get it back in the tube. This is a bit like our words, easy to come out, but hard to take back. Brief talk about power of the tongue etc…

2 fizzy Cans

 open a can, yum, how do we get the drink out, we need to tip it up… what would happen if we just left the can on a table?  It would taste really blahh.   New Can – have you ever shaken a can first and then opened it.. what happens? Demonstrate..  God wants us to be like that in our praise, he wants us to be bubbling and overflowing, too often we wait for others to be excited… could I have kept the shaken drink in the can If I put my thumb over the hole/? No. and what happens if I just stay on the table, I go all yucky.

Sweet Banana

Eating a banana – tasty, have banana inside, a bit like what we  watch or do… we take it in and it sits in us.

On this occasion the boy who ate the banana has bright yellow crocks on. An obvious link to eating a yellow banana J

  

Summed up the object lessons for them to remember next time they eat a banana, use toothpaste etc

TEACHING STYLES

 

Kids in to small groups, with pen and paper  slips.

Kids write down different teaching methods, and order them in terms of most interesting…

Eg   talking, asking them to copy down writing, reading to themselves, doing experiments, generally chatting and so on.

Re order in terms of the easiest to learn from is at the top

Discussed..

PROCLAIM A MESSAGE

Kids in groups of 2, each pair has a message to proclaim for 1 minute. This was very loud. At end see who heard what.. example of proclaiming a message, discuss what worked. In practice the most successful was the boy who constantly repeated the phrase. Others wrote

·         Watch the news tonight because there is an important event going to take place.

·         The church is bugged and everything we say is heard by all your Parents

·         The world will blow up tomorrow, but we are ok, because Ipswich will be saved!

·         Tomorrow is national PlayStation day, and all children have to play on a PlayStation or other games console all day

 

FISHING!

Large blue sheet out to represent water, with paper fish underneath. Kids asked to race under the sheet and collect a fish and put in the “bad fish” pile or “good fish” pile

Read the Bible passage from Matthew 13:47-50. The children have just acted the parable out!

Kids asked about the parable, and why it wasn’t more direct.

Final games

Ladders

Prophesy - Deborah

May 5th 2013

Girl Power

Today is about a prophet, Deborah, we started by discussing if anybody knew about Deborah (and one of the kids said “is she the one that stabbed a tent peg in someone”, which of course is right, but not the focus of today!

Spoke about women in the bible.. led on to “Girl Power”, which led on to the Spice Girls (!)

For a bit of fun we all made simple masks of a spice girl, and (attempted to) danced to a Spice Girl Video (have to say, all but one of the children were boys, so this was a bit of fun!)

 

& some of the masks:

 

 

Origami

Spoke about Deborah being a prophet and making decisions so built a quick origami “choose”, some of the pictures used to guide the kids are below.

 

 

 

 

Word Association Brainstorm/Leadership

What is a judge, prophet, leader – that describes Deborah.

Played a quick game of “word association”, in groups of around 3, the kids wrote words that were associated with an initial word in 15+ seconds… words given are:

• TV,
• elephant,
• car,
• judge,
• prophet,
• leader

and we had some discussion about these...

Video – decisions

Showed a fun video about how to chose breakfast, discussed how we should make decisions and how Deborah did in her role.

Prediction Games

“it’s hard to make predictions”, so we played a few games, with the kids guessing who would win:

-          Running race (where only one person ran)

-          Running race (for all)

-          Throwing a die

 

Showed a card trick that amazed some of the kids, can’t write what I did here, will need to use it again! In short.. three piles of 3 cards, kids chose a pile, the  bottom card is shown to them, cards are shuffled, based on random things (eg kids name), and hey presto… the chosen card appears.

 

This led on to  a discussion about prophesy and messages people receive from God, how do they get them, do they happen now, some examples of messages received were given….

.. then we ran out of time, so final prayer and close..

 

However, a great Lego star wars version of the Deborah story (Judges 4) was planned to play, but timed out.. and is here….

(the day before was May the 4^th, Star Wars day, so this is so appropriate)

 

April 7^th: After Easter – what happened?

Game – follow the leader

All the kids in a  big circle, one child goes out and is the “guesser”, the other kids elect a “leader” who does regular actions, and when he/she change the action everybody follows. The “guesser” comes in and attempts to guess who is the leader. 3 attempts….

 

UPSET AND CONFUSED

 

Recap of Easter and what happened.

Today Looking at what happened after Easter in more detail.

Question “what did you think the disciples felt after Jesus had died? Devastated? Confused about his teaching? They had expected him to become a great leader but now he was dead.

 

Paper given out and children asked to write some of the words they have thought of. They should illustrate the words - for instance if they have thought of scared they could write it in shaky handwriting as if the word was trembling.

 

The words were cut out and pined up on a notice board.

 

 

 

Persuasion Game

 

Children sat down, and 1 chosen to try to convince the rest of the group of an amazing fact.

 

After each “discussion” the other kids are asked “are you convinced by the argument? Why? Why not? What would convince you it was true?”

 

Facts attempted:

· There is going to be free MacDonald's served in every school for dinner.

· There is life on the moon.

· Chocolate is good for your brain.

· The driving age is being lowered to 13.

· CITV is being axed.

· A monkey is going to be the new President of America.

· Ice cream makes really good shampoo and leaves your hair shiny.

· The age for leaving school is being raised to 25.

 

At the end we discussed the fact that when Jesus rose from the dead the women had to convince the other disciples that they had really seen Jesus, and he was alive. How hard do you think it would have been for the woman to convince the disciples?  What was the one thing that would have convinced them ?

 Video:Jesus Appears to His Disciples

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SwLTL5Gu14

 

 Bible reading

“Imagine you are Jesus’s disciples and that this scene had just taken place”

Read John 20v19-22

In small groups kids were encouraged to write down what had happened, and how they would feel about that.

Read John 20v24-25

In small groups the kids were encouraged to write down what Thomas response was and why they think Thomas wouldn’t believe that JC was alive

Read John 20v26-29

Small groups -  jot down what happened in these verses and how did Thomas feel when Jesus appeared? Was he embarrassed by his earlier doubt? Or happy to see Jesus again?

 

WoW

“At the beginning we came up with some words for how disciples felt when Jesus died. We’ve heard how he came alive again and it was seen by lots of people”

“how do you think the disciples felt now that Jesus was Alive? (Small groups – brainstorm)

 Final Prayer and close.

 

(11 kids attended in total)

March 3rd 2013 - Fruits of the Spirit

10 children, aged 8 -11

New venue (for me)

had 2 rooms, small one for “quiet” bits (and the video – much better light in that room) and large room for “noisy” games.

WordSearch

based on Fruits (Kiwi, Orange, Apple... etc)

Game – (big room time)

 splat

Introduction

This plan is based on...Fruits of the Spirit

Had a picture of an apple tree, how do we know it is a good apple tree. / because it gives fruit.

 

 

 A bit like us as Christians…

Bible Bit

 

Spoke about the theme, the Holy Spirit, specifically the “fruits of the Holy Spirit”

We all read Galatians 5v22-23, and each child took a “fruit” (eg Joy, faithfulness) and wrote it on a sheet of A4; with some decoration(if they were bothered), we stuck all these up on the wall & read the verses again.

Each was clarified if the meaning was unsure

Fruit Charades

Kids played Charades acting out one of the “fruits”,

What is the Holy Spirit

Looked at things in 3 parts, eg.

¨       Mars bar, Chocolate + Caramel + Nugart, can’t have a mars bar without one of them. Brought in a mars bar and chopped it up (very taasty)

¨       Egg = Shell + Yolk + White, broke it up to show them ( they were not surprised what was in the shell!)

 

Went on explain that God has three parts, the Farther, Jesus and HSpirit. We discussed each one eg God the Father created the world, Jesus dies for us, HS is our helper when we need it.

You’re Everywhere Song (for the 2nd time that day!)

 

Thought of where else we could say “You are .. in the traffic” could be “you are… with me at school”

Described how God thru the holy Spirit can be with us for guidance and protection at all times

What fruit do we need more of

Each kid took a few “fruit” shaped notes, and wrote down what they think they needed more of in terms of the “fruits of the spirit”. Some kids wrote down nearly ALL of them, others just 1 or 2. ALL children wrote something.

 

We prayed for the kids and their wishes.

Game

round the room piggy in the middle

the end

Final prayer and end.

 

3 Feb 2013 – The Bible

11 Children (only 1 girl!) aged 8-11

What we did:

1)      Word Search

To give them something to concentrate on at the start

 

 

2)      Quiz – Proverbs

·         A number of “sayings” were displayed on the screen, the kids had to decide whether they are from the bible or made up.

·         Examples include:

(a)    Always  shut the door (False)

(b)   When you're kind to others, you help yourself; when you're cruel to others, you hurt yourself. (True. Proverbs 11:17)

(c)    Wise children listen to their parents. (True. Proverbs 13:1)

(d)   Those who control their tongues will have a long life.(True. Proverbs 13:3)

(e)   Always buy your youth leader chocolate. (False L)

(f)     Yanking a dog’s ear is as foolish as interfering in someone else’s argument. (True. Proverbs 26:17)

·         For some of them we discussed what they meant

·         Next time  - use less proverbs (I used 17), took a fair while.

·         This aimed to show that the bible is full of lots of practical advice

 

3)      Video – Observation test

·         State “2000+ years ago, they didn’t have TVs, so all the rules and knowledge were distributed audibly or written down. Even with TVs we can mis-remember things, “

·         Many kids thought this was like “Britain’s Brightest” (TV show that I’m afraid I haven’t watched.. note to self, they like to compare activities with TV programs)

·         Showed the video below, and asked questions.

 

·         Example questions were:

(a)    What was the cheese doing on the mouse trap (crying)

(b)   What did the 1st strawberry walk in front of (teapot and cup)

(c)    what year was this made (2009)

Most of the kids got most of the questions right (although one only guessed the  year after a lot of other wrong guesses J)

4)      Mirror

·         Gave an example of looking in a mirror, walking off and forgetting what I looked like, and doing it a few times.

·         Kids Read James 1v22-24 & were asked the relevance of the mirror task

·         Some kids cottoned on to the fact that reading the bible and not acting on it is as stupid as looking in a mirror and forgetting what you look like straight away

·         Kids read James 3v2-12 and discussed what good/bad things we can say to build people up / knock them down.

5)      Puppet Video

·        " So we have lots of info in the bible about how to live, "

·         Showed this video to explain that the Bible is a bit like an Instruction Manual, you need to read it for best results.

 

 

6)      What/When/How/Where

·         We discussed how we could read the bible more, and act on it. The kids each  had a small piece of paper with this image on it, and during some music spent time reflecting on what changes they could do to help them read the bible, (What would help them, When they would do it, How they could do it, Where they could do it).

·         We spoke about the use of Bible Reading notes, one child mentioned “Topz” which I know some children of this age use / used.

·         They seemed positive about having a look at bible reading notes, so this is something I’ll pick up with them next time (after seeking if I can “find” a friendly supplier )

 

7)      Final prayer & end

Lessons Learnt:

I had a couple more things to do that didn’t happen due to time, including Craft and Memory Verse.

Overall the kids were well behaved (compared to previous weeks), had to be told to be quiet a few times, but did so.

 

 

               

6 Jan 2013 – Why did God come to earth?

11 children, aged 8-11

What we did:

1. Game - Catch Challenge

Kids in a circle, through a ball to each other… if they fail to catch it they have to put a hand on the floor, and carry on… further drops = both hands on the floor, then 1 knee, then both knees

(Resulted in lots of arguments about throwing the ball too fast…. That’s probably the trouble with having 10 of the 11 children as boys! )

2.    Game – Can you fix it?

 Introduced the concept that God came to Earth at Christmas to fix a  broken world…

Group was divided up in to 4 groups of 3-4 children, each given some  pictures that had been cut up as jigsaws.. and winning group had to compile the picture quickest.

 

3.Discussion  – Signs

I showed a number of signs, some of which are below, and for each one, we discussed if the kids had seen it, what it meant,

 

Then on the final sign, we discussed why Jesus came  at Christmas. Discussion was along the lines that Jesus came to give us a Sign of how to get to Heaven, not by physical movements (left here, right here), but to show us how to live.

Some of the kids explained this really clearly, which was great. 

Then I explained  this concept using the board & "trick" below (ignore the keyboard)
http://www.professorwonder.com/magic1.htm

 

 

 

4. Video - 'The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe' (The Chronicles of Narnia)

 

Clip played was from approx. 12:00 to 20:00 in the link, to show that Nania was cold, and dark, and evil..

We then thought of our own world and how it was similar to Nania (lots of bad in it).

 A lot of the kids knew Nania well and got the similarity of Jesus coming to save us.

5. Memory Verse

Showed a number of slides (some below) that had jumbled up words, each time the slideshow progressed, the words were less jumbled up.. until they were all  in order. Then, a number of words were taken out.. until none were left.

Each time the kids tried to guess the memory verse or remember it.

6. Action Song – “One Way Jesus”

 

With impromptu actions. Most kids joined in .

7. Game – Hear I sit

kids in a circle, on chairs, one chair is empty. One person (next to the empty chair) starts and says "here i sit, on this chair, with my friend  xxxxx" and calls out the name of somebody else. That person sits next to them, the people either side of the new empty chair try and sit on that chair as quickly as possible. The first to do so is the winner, and says "here i sit....." repeat forever...

8. Final Prayer

one of the children prayed that we will understand what we have been learning!

Lessons Learnt:  

The kids were lively, we had to wait several times for them ALL to be quiet.

Some of the kids clearly knew why Jesus came to Earth.

 They enjoyed the Nania Video.

However, they were easily argumentative between themselves!

 

2 Dec 2012, Advent and Waiting for Christmas

16 children, aged 8-11

What we did:

1. Game - What's In It?

We had 9 pre-wrapped objects available for display on the table.

 

The kids have to guess what is in each wrapped present. No touching! Their answers are written on paper, we then go thru each one, seeing what people have & seeing who is right.

Kids loved this game, it had a Christmas feel!

Point of this was to introduce the idea of Christmas and waiting for it & waiting for good things

Items used included: Stapler, pen, computer mouse, DVD case, keys, skittle, Christmas tree (a small one, not a 6 foot one!)

 

2.    Discussion  - Who Does What at Advent?

We spoke about Advent, and it’s meaning.

Then thought about what we should be doing in the run up to Christmas.

The Children then had 3 post its, coloured Pink, Yellow and Green. On these they wrote down what their Mums/Aunts (pink), Dads/Uncles (green) and themselves (Yellow) would be doing on the run up to Christmas.

We then looked at how many of them are to do with Jesus – and not many of them were. Some examples are below. (Mums get stressed, Dads jump around happy and Children EAT CHOCOLATE)

 

 

 

3.    Video  - 'The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe' (The Chronicles of Narnia)

Clip played was from approx.  01:14 & showed the kids crossing the frozen lake as it melted.

Before this happened I gave them questions (to focus their attention)

¨      What are the signs of the spring coming?

¨      Why do you think Winter disappears after Aslan comes into Narnia?

¨      How has this affected the people of Narnia?

¨      What does it help them to believe about Aslan?

¨      Do you know how Aslan is like Jesus?

 

After the clip was shown we discussed the questions. The link between Jesus and light in a dark world was picked up by a couple of kids.

 

 

4.    Christmas Worship & Calendar drawing

Whilst we played a “Christmas song”, the kids thought about how much God Loves them, not just at Christmas but all year. They drew a picture on some coloured card and stuck on a 2013 calendar on it. They all took this home.

Song played was Steven Curtis Chapman “Our God is With Us”  

 

 

We discussed the meaning of “Emmanuel” (used in this song a lot)

Some photos of the calendars are below.

 

6.    Baby Taboo/Charades

To link  back to the “baby” Jesus, we played a fun game of Taboo- where the kids have to describe a word without saying it. Words were baby related  = Bib, Cot, High Chair, Nappy, Dummy and others….

 

7.    Bible Story & with Actions

A story based on Luke 1:26-38 and Matthew 1:18-24 was read out. Actions for the words “Baby” “Angel” “Afraid” ”Holy” were made when those words were said. The kids liked that -  they seem to love dramatic actions!

 

8.    Final Prayer & finish

 

Lessons Learnt: 

The kids were lively, but controllable. We didn’t get as much done as needed because of the time taken to be quiet.

The initial game took longer than expected, but they liked it.

Some kids clearly saw the link with the film with Jesus being the light.