dan zanes – the welcome table

Dan Zanes and Friends have been performing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London and doing a fine job of it too!  If you like folk/blues/rock/samba type music then have a listen.  You can read the lyrics and listen to samples of his CD’s at www.danzanes.com.  Specifically, The Welcome Table has some great songs.

There’s a review of the gigs on The Independent web-site.

faith at home, training material

The slides from the 2009 training morning on Faith Development at Home with Jane Butcher from Barnabas are available to download in two formats – either Powerpoint or PDF:

faith at home jane butcher combined pack (pdf)

faith at home jane butcher combined pack (ppt)

The video of the morning is being editted and will be too big to load onto this site so please get in contact if you’d like a copy.

su building blocks

Scripture Union is offering Building Blocks, a free training resource designed to help toddler group leaders think through how to be a Christian toddler group, serving their community.

It is a flexible resource for a small group or individuals to read and discuss together where to take their parent and toddler group.  With a mix of background and practical ideas this will help you grow in confidence in sharing Christ in your toddler group.

 

Download Building Blocks and other resources at http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/Tiddlywinks/ParentandToddlerGroups/69463.id

glowsticks galore

With All Saints, Christingle and Christmas all approaching, there’s plenty of opportunity to focus on light.  www.theglowcompany.co.uk sells glow sticks in all sorts of sizes along with other lights, lasers etc.  It’s a real aladdins cave.

space grace

More stuff to share from our Starship Discovery summer club.
A prayer:
God of our planet and God of the stars
Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn and Mars
God of deep, dark space above
Help us to share your amazing love
Amen
and a grace:
5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1
..before we start to eat and munch
We thank you God for our great lunch!
BLAST OFF!!

starship discovery – rockets

We used the Starship Discovery holiday club material as a basis for our summer “Global Gang” club.  One of the bits we added was a “mad rocket scientist” section each day in which we tried to launch better and better rockets.  Our mad scientist wore lab coat, safety specs, hard-hat, etc and one of the kids led the count-down using a loudhailer.  It really captured some of the kids so in case you’d like to try it heres the line-up:

 

• Balloon rocket (one of the ones with a weighted end)
• Vinegar and bicarbonate of soda rocket.  You can buy these or make one using a small fizzy drinks bottle with a cork pushed in, or dress up a 35mm film canister.  Check Google for lots of descriptions.  Note you can also use Cream of Tartar, Bicarbonate of Soda and water – much less smelly than vinegar.
• Stomp rocket – inexpensive and useful for a game…more later.
• Cola and mentos pseudo rocket.  There’s lots of sites that describe the basics or even sell special devices to do this (try Google) – basically you drop Mento’s into coke.  We then pearched a paper rocket on top of the coke bottle.  Doesn’t go very high but very messy….which is good.
• Water rocket.  A 1.5l fizzy drink bottle, 1/3 filled with water, bung, footpump.  These can really go a long way, so please make sure you’re careful.  Safest but most expensive option is to buy one – but still keep a safe distance from the kids.
• Airblast rocket.  These can go high enough to be out of sight, so take lots of care.

Try Googling for more information on any of the above.  Rocketstore has a good selection if you want to buy any of the rockets or just see what they’re like.

We used the stomp rockets for a team competition where each team had to launch their rockets from behind a line and get them to land in a hoop laid on the ground.  Lots of fun and very popular!

labyrinths

Labyrinths are a great way of creating a sense of journey or can just be loads of fun.  At a recent church weekend we mowed a labyrinth into the grass around the church.  It didn’t follow any great or ancient plan but wiggled all over the place – the kids LOVED it!  All you have to do is mow a path just a little shorter than the rest of the grass.  It’s free and you can just mow it away next time the grass gets cut.  It’s not great for winter though so you’ll have to wait for the spring!

We had the the pleasure of Martyn Payne’s (Barnabas) company for the weekend and we set-up his Bible Labyrinth from his book “Footsteps to the Feast“.  You can download the template from the Barnabas site and you’ll need to buy the book get a list of all the stations that take you for a journey through the Bible.  If you want to make mobile/reuseable labyrinth (or for that matter any layout on the ground for a game etc) you can use a cheap tarpaulin (about £5 for a 4mx5m sheet) and masking tape.  This method is easy, mobile and inexpensive.  Note that pulling the masking tape off tends to pull the colour off the blue tarpaulins and it won’t survive damp ground very well.

stickers

Have you ever wondered where to get stickers printed or faffed around trying to print your own?  Check out moo’s sticker books £5 for 90 stickers in a book.  You can print 90 different stickers or a book full of the same ones.

Visit: http://www.moo.com/products/stickers.php.

paul dallgas-frey

Paul Dallgas-Frey has produced some great retellings of bible stories, prayers and stuff.  Take a look at his website. 

puzzles and word searches

Here’s a couple of useful sites (thanks Anja) for making your own wordsearch or crosswords.  A personalised wordsearch with local people, places or team names is so much more fun!

• word search site  http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/ 

• crossword maker http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/