Tuesday, January 31, 2017

6 Ways You Can Use Canva in Minstry



KidFrugal exists to help equip and resource those in the small church children's ministry. This post is to introduce you to a great resource that is FREE. It's called Canva.

Canva helps you design beautiful graphics and it can make you look really good. They have tons of tutorials to help you get started. Once you learn your way around Canva, I think you will find it very useful. I first learned of Canva from a podcast called "Oh So Pinteresting" by Cynthia Sanchez. (You can find her blog and material under Tailwinds now.) Canva enables me to make my blog graphic the correct size for pinning. But it does a lot more...here are just 6 ways you can use it.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Thanks for Your Commit-"mint"


I saw this idea for appreciating workers on Pinterest and tweaked it a little. You can find the original posts here and here.

Basically you purchase different types of mints. York Peppermint Pattys, Mentos, Andes, Lifesaver mints, peppermint gum, hard peppermints and so on.

Monday, January 9, 2017

Feeding Elijah - Part 3



This was a fun themed review game for stories about how God fed Elijah during the three and one half years of no rain in Israel.  I like this review game for two reasons. First, it provides visual reinforcement of the story (God fed Elijah bread). Second, I like to have the kids do something active during a Bible lesson.

I put slices of bread in sandwich sized Ziploc bags and the kids tossed them into the hole if they answered a question right. Each kid had three tries.

I let the early arrival kids help make Elijah as a pre-session activity. They drew the face and hands (we actually let 2 of the kids trace their own hands). I had the board ready before class and then we just glued on the parts after the kids made them.

For part 1 of the Feeding Elijah lessons click here. For part 2 click here.

The idea for this game came from a Pinterest pin.


Sunday, January 8, 2017

Feeding Elijah - The Widow Part 2


This is part 2 of Feeding Elijah. Part 1 is here. I used props and story telling for part II. Lifeway has an excellent blog on Bible storytelling that includes 6 steps of preparation for telling the story.

I acted out parts of the story as I told it, and then had 2 props I brought out at the appropriate time.

You always know when you have engaged your kids when they start to question things from the story. They wanted to know if you could really make bread with just oil and flour. I googled it, and sure enough, you can. Click here for the recipe and full instructions.

Recipe:
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 1/2 cup water

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Feeding Elijah - Life Size Diorama Part I


When you think about it, God fed Elijah for three and a half years through various means. First there was the Kerith Ravine or Valley with the ravens and brook. When that dried up, there was the widow with the bottomless jar of flour and oil.

I used flannel-graph, a life-size diorama and props to tell these Bible stories.

For the diorama, I decoarated one of our classrooms to look like the Kidron Valley. I explain what I did in this video. The ravens are really crows I bought after Halloween on sale at Joanne Fabrics. Michael's carries similar items. The only other things I used were plastic table clothes and salvaged brown packing paper to make the river bed and the mountains.



I broke this story into 2 weeks. You can read about Part 2, Elijah and the widow, here and see the flannelgraph figures I made here (coming soon). Click here for part 3, a review game you can use with both Elijah stories.

Pirate Themed Trunk & Treat

Shiver me timbers and batton down the hatch, it's trunk and treat time and have we got a theme for you. Be sure to check the video out a...