Nature Walk: A Sunday School Lesson

Every year I like to take my class for a nature walk. I usually do this in the fall when the leaves are changing colour, or in the spring when plants and animals seem to be waking up from a long winter's nap.  The nature walk shows the kids that it isn't only at church that we can praise and appreciate God, but we can appreciate God anywhere. And what better place to start than in the beautiful outdoors that her created!


 A great book that I found and read with my class before our walk this year, if The Berenstain Bears All Things Bright and Beautiful, by Stan and Jan Berenstain.

 It is a lovely little story about a Sunday school class going for a nature walk. Along the way they see farms, streams, mountains, and many animals. It is fun to try to find some of these things with the children when we do our nature walk.

Fundraising Idea

If your church is like mine, and I'm sure many are, there may not always be funds available for youth group events or Sunday school material. In my church Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders often end up paying for supplies and activities out of their own pocket. This year we are going to try to fund the different groups in our church through sponsorships.

We have 4 groups that need sponsors this year; the youth group, the Sunday school, the kids club, and the youth events group (an extension of the youth group).

We will make up sponsor sheets at the beginning of the year and give people from the congregation a chance to sponsor these group. This will be done in an indigogo style. Below are a list of the groups, how much it costs to sponsor them, and how many sponsors are needed.

Sunday School : $5 - 40 Available (It costs about $5 per Sunday to run our Sunday school)

Youth Group: $15 - 40 Available (YG costs about $15 per night)

Youth Events: $30- 10 Available

Kids Club: $50- 10 Available (Kids club is our biggest group with about 20-25 kids each night, we set this sponsor price slightly higher as there are some large items we need to purchase this year)

Sponsors will all receive a hand written thank-you letter, and an invitation to join the group they are sponsoring for a morning, or evening to be thanked personally, and see where there money is going.

Sponsors will allow our church to continue these programs and keep them free of charge for the children. I hope that the sponsorships and the visits from the donors will increase the involvement and the sense of ownership from the congregation in these groups. I also hope that it will encourage fellowship between these groups and the rest of the church and that cross generational friendships will be formed.

What fundraisers have worked for your church?

Picking up the Pieces: A Youth Group Lesson

A fun game that I played with my youth group at our most recent sleepover required the youth to find 100 puzzle pieces and put the puzzle together... in the dark.

Materials:

• 2 small puzzles
• 2 glow bracelets per person
• Dim lamps or flashlights
• 2 flat surfaces

 I hid 2- 100 piece puzzles, for a total of 200 pieces all throughout the main area of the church. Our puzzles glowed in the dark, but since they didn't give enough light to be helpful and puzzle would do. The youth were split into 2 teams and given the box for their puzzle, and 2 glow bracelets each. The glow bracelets would be their only way to see each other and the hidden pieces. Teams were assigned a puzzle headquarters that had a flat surface and a small dim light to put their puzzles together. It is important that the light doesn't illuminate the area where the pieces are hidden. Youth were then let loose to find their pieces, if was difficult because you couldn't tell what puzzle each piece came from until you got the piece back to headquarters. If you collected pieces that belonged to the other team they were to be returned to the main area for the other team to find. The teams raced in the dark to find their pieces and worked to complete their puzzles as pieces were found. Teams really struggled to find all of the pieces in the dark, and without all the pieces the puzzle couldn't be completed.

After the puzzles were "finished" (we ended up with a few pieces missing at the end) gather the teams together to talk about their experiences in the game. Talk about how the game relates to life and ask the youth to find connections.

In the game sometimes you would pick up a piece that you thought would help you put your puzzle together, but it would end up being wrong. Much the same, in life sometimes we do things that we think will help us, that we think are right, but end up being wrong.

The lack of lights could be compared to a lack of God, with the lights on it would have been a lot easier to find the pieces and find the right pieces, but in the dark it was easier to make mistakes, and choose the wrong things.

These are a couple ideas my group came up with, but I'm sure other groups will come up with other answers as well. It is a good game to open youth up to comparing and philosophizing.

Jesus Calms the Storm: A Sunday School Lesson

With our Sunday School, we did a whole unit on miracles. Miracles are fun to teach because they show children the amazing things that God can do, and open up the imagination. We did one lesson on Jesus Calming the storm. Here is a brief overview of the lesson we used.

• Talk about storms. Different kinds of storm, snow storms, thunder storms, rain storms etc. Do we like storms? Talk about how storms can be scary.
• Read Luke 8:22-25, since this is a shorter story it is a good one to have an older kid read to the class.
• Talk about the story. Why were the disciples scared? Would you have been scared if you were one of the disciples? Why or why not? How do you think Jesus stopped the storm? (This is a great one to get the imagination going since there isn't really a right answer)
• Storm in a bottle craft.

The storm in a bottle craft is fun for kids of any age. All you need is empty water bottles, water, cooking oil, and food colouring. Mix the water and the food colouring in the bottle, then fill the rest up with oil. Water and oil should be a 1:1 ratio. You can also add glitter for a little extra something. Then put the cover back on and use a hot glue gun around the seal so it doesn't leak. Kids of all ages will love to shake this and watch it separate, their own storm in a bottle!




This is an easy lesson, and can also be combined with the Jesus Walks on Water lesson, grouping them as ''miracles that happened on a boat/on water''.

God Needs Our Help!: Mini lesson

While listening to a TED talk by Jessica Jackley called Poverty, Money....and Love, I was struck by one of the things she said. "God needs our help". Now I know it's not a very new or revolutionary idea, but for me it was a new way to look at poverty, and a fun spin to put on Matthew 25:31-46, the sheep and goat parable.

• Read Matthew 25:31-46
• Discuss the parable, what does it mean?
• Discuss how helping others helps God, and that God, as all powerful as He is, does need our help
• Discuss things we could do to help God
• Stop discussing and make an action plan, depending on the age group encourage kids to work on their own or in small groups to make their own action plans.
• Pick one idea, or a couple, and actually do it. 

By picking an action plan and following through it will show the kids that while talking about helping people is good, actually helping is better. Try not to prompt by suggesting ideas, it is fun to let kids dream and be creative. By using one of their ideas it will help them understand that even though they are young, they have good ideas, and those ideas can make a difference.


Here is the link to the TED talk, which is totally worth a listen!

http://www.ted.com/talks/jessica_jackley_poverty_money_and_love.html

Jesus Walks on Water; a Sunday school lesson

Lesson Outline:

• Read Matthew 14:22-33 (5 minutes)
• Talk about the story, as questions, discuss trust (10 minutes)
• Try to walk on water (5 minutes)
• Experiment with floating and sinking (15 minutes)

Some of the coolest  Bible stories to teach to kids are stories that contain miracles. It is fun for the kids to imagine all the things that Jesus can do. One of my favorites to do with kids is the story of Jesus walking on water. Matt 14:22. I like to read the story first, really playing up the trust aspect. We then talk about things that we trust God with, this might be hard for some kids, but with some prompting the group can usually come up with a few ideas. You can also talk about things you trust other people with, and who we trust.

 I then ask the kids if they think they could walk on water. If possible, have a large shallow bin ready and allow the kids to try walk across without touching the bottom. They will soon find that this is impossible.

If time permits, it is fun to give the kids objects that they can try to float or sink in the bin. For young children this can double as a great science lesson. You can also talk about how in different states things that would normally sink can float. People for example can't float standing up, that's why we can't walk on water. People can however float on their backs. Just like Peter in the story. When he was in a trusting state he could walk on water, but when he wasn't, he couldn't. A couple other things that work this way are oranges, the float unpeeled, but after they are peeled, they sink. Clay also can float or sink, as a ball it will sink, but form it into a boat shape and it will float. Let the kids experiment and see what else sinks and floats. Supply tinfoil and challenge older kids to make a boat. See if it can support the weight of other objects that used to sink.


* picture from http://handsonaswegrow.com/water-play-experiment-float-sink/

Fear Factor: a youth group lesson on fear

A fun youth group lesson that I did with my group a few weeks ago was a Fear Factor, based on the show but with a Bible element. First we stated by guessing the top 10 fears. I got this list of lifescience.com (although I modified it a bit) it seemed like a good one because the youth could relate to a lot of the fears.

• Snakes
• Spiders
• Small spaces
• Public Speaking
• Heights
• The dark
• Thunder and lightening
• Flying
• Dogs
• The Dentist

We talked about which of these we could relate to, and ones that we might add to the list. A couple that were added were; ax murderers, vampires (not the Edward Cullen type), and drowning.

We then discussed our deeper fears. The kind of fears that you think about when you're alone and night, and might not admit to anyone, maybe not even to yourself. I had all the youth write down their fears and then invited people to share them if they wanted to. A lot of the youth were surprised that they had written some very similar things, and it was comforting to know that they weren't alone in their fears.

We then talked about how it is okay to be scared, but that we also must remember that God is with us to help us through our fears.

I then got the kids to guess how many times the Bible it says "fear not". Guesses flew, but the real answer is 365 times, one for everyday of the year. It's probably just a coincidence, but it is a comforting one to know that God is helping us with our fears everyday.

We then, quite ceremoniously, crumpled up our fears and threw them in the garbage can. Leaving them to God to worry about, and relaxing just a little.

After snack (kids probably won't want to eat after the food challenges) we hosted our own fear factor. We split into teams and teams scored a point for completed challenges. Below is a list of the challenges we did, and the supplies needed for each.

•  Bob for onions - Much like bobbing for apples, contestants had to transfer 10 onions from one bin of water to another. Water could also be dyed red to give the impression of blood.  Supplies: Peeled onions, 2 large tubs or sinks, red food colouring (optional)

• Frozen Toes- In this challenge contestants had to use their toes to pick up marble from the bottom or a bin of ice water.                                                                                              Supplies: Bag of marbles, 2 bags of ice, tub of cold water

• Hunt for bugs in beans- For this challenge I prepared large bowls of beans (one for each team) with 10 gummy worms mixed into each. Without using their hand contestants had to search through the beans and remove all of the gummy worms.                                       Supplies: large can of beans for each bowl, gummy worms, bowls

• Lego walk- If you have even stepped on a piece of Lego then you can imagine how much walking across a floor covered in it would feel. For this one contestants simply had to walk across it all to win the point.                                                                                             Supplies: LOTS of Lego

• Condiment roll- For this challenge I picked 6 condiments and assigned each one a number. I had mustard, jam, frosting, relish, cheese wiz, and mayo, but you could use whatever you had. The contestants would roll 2 dice and whatever condiments they rolled would be put on the same cracker and had to be consumed in 30 seconds or less.                                           Supplies: 6 different condiments, soda crackers

• Guess the baby food- For the last challenge I put out 3 different kinds of baby food each containing a meat and a veggie. Contestants had 5 minutes to test all of the foods and make their guess. Roast beef and sweet potatoes was the favorite.                                            Supplies: Baby food (take labels off the jars), spoons

There are lots of other challenges you can find online as well, these were just a few that were easy for us to set up, and were challenging for this age group.

This made for a challenging night, both emotionally and we shared our fears, and physically as we did the challenges. If you try it let me know how it goes!! Good luck!

Fishers of Men

A fun activity that we used when teaching Matthew 4:19 was a fishing pond, like the kind you would find at a carnival. First we read the story, asking the kids what they thought being "fishers of men" might mean. After we found a satisfactory answer, we brainstormed people that we might "fish" for, and ways that we could do it. Some ideas were; take a friend to church or Kids Club, tell people about God, and dhow God's love with kindness. After the story and discussion kids made their own fishing rods out of cardboard (well I cut them out with a utility knife ahead of time) and they decorated them. We wrote FISHERS OF MEN on each rod and then we attached a string with a clothes pin on the end. They then took turns "fishing" in the pond.




We attached fish and gave a tug, the kids were delighted when their fish came up, the younger kids wanted to play it over and over again. Another fun idea would be to write words on the fish of people Jesus might have like them to fish for during the brainstorm and fish for those.

At the end we had goldfish crackers for a snack. Another fun snack would have been apple Sweedish fish set in blue jello.

 

Here is a brief summary of the lesson.

• Story (5 minutes)
• Discussion/Brainstorm (10 minutes)
• Craft (10 minutes)
• Fishing activity (10 minutes)
• Snack (10 minutes)

Random Acts of Kindness: a youth group lesson

A fun activity/lesson that I did with my youth group was an evening of "Random Acts of Kindness". It was a night about thinking of the little things, and how much they can brighten your day. Here is a brief outline of the lesson plan:

 - Discuss Random Acts of Kindness (What are they? examples, did you  ever  do some? did someone ever do something little for you that really meant a lot?)

-Make and action plan (Think of as many Random Acts of Kindness that your group could do, both tonight, and as a challenge throughout the week, perhaps getting kids to report back with a list the next week. Even offering a prize for the person who completes the most kind acts)

-DO IT! (Swarm your community, fill the streets with kindness, get out there and spread the love, God's love.

Some easy/cheap ideas for Random Acts of Kindness that our group tried were;

• Helping people carry groceries to their car
• Returning stray carts to the store
• Pay for the person behind you at Tim Horton's
• Bring someone flowers
• Write a thank-you letter to someone who inspired you
• Share inspirational quotes on sticky notes(They can be stuck anywhere, be creative)
• Play music at a nursing home
• Leave a generous tip
• Call a grandparent
• Leave change in a vending machine
• Let someone pull out ahead of you in traffic
• Let someone go ahead of you in a line up
• Hold doors
• Give compliments
• Bake cupcakes and bring them to your local police or fire station, maybe include a nice thank-you card

And a quick Google search could give you many more.

The best part about doing random Acts of Kindness is the smiles you get. Our best smile was from sweet woman who was out for an evening walk. She was shocked and overjoyed when we surprised her with a small bouquet of flowers. You could tell that she really appreciated them, and I hope that it made her day just a little bit brighter.

So get out there! Spread the smiles, spread the kindness, and spread the love!!!



*Random Acts of Kindness week is was February 11-15, watch for it next year!

Sunday school and Youth Group Lessons/Activities

I am starting this blog as a resource to other Sunday School teachers out there. I have been teaching Sunday School for 7 years, and I find I am constantly struggling to find creative new ways to teach the word of God to the children. I have tried different curriculum, but most are created for quiet learning with children of the same age. In my Sunday school we have 10 children between the ages of 2 and 12. Attendance is irregular so we have one big class for everybody. It works well because the older kids are able to help the younger ones, and they all get along well. Planning a lesson however that will benefit both 2 year olds and 12 year olds, is a challenge.  I also teach the youth group to a group of equally diverse 12-20 year olds.
Here I plan to share ideas I have that have worked well, and not so well. I am hoping to help, and receive help. We are all in this for the same reason, and we are all in this together. So here we go! :)