Showing posts with label Holidays - Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holidays - Christmas. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Angel Breakfast

Ever since I first read about a church that held an Angel Breakfast, I wanted to do one...as an outreach. It was never to be though. So, we held one during Sunday School instead. And now with Covid-19, even a small one probably isn't a good idea. But who's to say you can't adapt this and use it for Christmas breakfast in your home. 

Why not add something different this year. When you can't go to the great events, why not bring one to your home. So here is everything you need to know, including downloadable printables. I hope you have a great family celebration this year.

Invitations

If you are doing this at home, you can skip the invitations. If you are able to do an event, used pictures of my centerpieces for the invitations. I designed them in Canva, a great online tool that has a free version.

Decorations

I used paper angels I purchased on Etsy here. I used 20 pound paper rather than card stock so that the tealights would shine through better. I had to enlarge the angels. They are designed for place-cards. I opened it in Adobe PDF and copied the angel by taking a snapshot of it with the snapshot tool. Then I pasted it into a Word doc and enlarged it. You could also use it as intended and make darling place-cards for everyone.

We used Buffalo Snow to make "clouds" down the center of our table. You can use any sort of fiber fill or even cotton batting for this. We added other angel figurines people lent us.


 

The Meal (Breakfast)

The main part of this breakfast is angel shaped pancakes. We made large round pancakes and cut them with an angel cookie cutter. If you are doing this for a large group, you can make and cut the pancakes ahead of time and then freeze them. When it's time to eat, reheat them in the microwave.

We added a "cloud" of whipped cream under the angel. Syrup, fruit cups and juice rounded out the meal.


Craft 

You can find plenty of angel crafts online. I have a number on my pinterest board entitled Kid's Events - Christmas Angel Breakfast for Children. We used one from Jesus Without Language. I liked this one because the angel actually looks like it is moving and it came from the Biblical story of the angel that appeared to Joseph in a dream. 


The instructions for this one are here.  You can purchase a huge Christmas pack that will include this craft at Teachers Pay Teachers. You can contact Kate at Jesus Without Language to see if this angel craft can be purchased individually.

Story

What a great opportunity to share with your children some of the truth of Christmas. God used special messengers to help prepare the way for his entrance into this world. The angel appeared to Mary, another to Joseph in a dream, and then to the shepherds. There were other appearances as well, but these are three major ones that occur within the 9 month period of God's entrance. You can find a children's book, or use some of the wonderful, free resources on line. My favorite site for visuals for telling a story is Free Bible Images. The page that has all of their Christmas stories is here.


Above are two sample pictures from one of the many stories you can find at Free Bible Images. They come with story planners if you need help telling the story. I print the pictures on cardstock.

Photo Op

You can make this as fancy or simple as you want. We went with simple. 


Please contact me if you have any questions.


 

Monday, September 28, 2020

Christmas on a Sunday

Every once in awhile Christmas falls on a Sunday. Over the years we have approached it various ways. My most memorable Christmas Sunday was a few years back. That year we gathered the Sunday School teachers in November and asked if they wanted to cancel Sunday School for Christmas morning and just have a church service, since Christmas is also a huge family holiday. One teacher was very vocal that Christmas was the whole reason we had church to begin with and it being the celebration of the entrance of our Savior into the world we should absolutely have Sunday School.

So we planned an Intergenerational Breakfast and it was the highest attendance we had all year.

We set up a continental style breakfast. The pièce de résistance were the homemade cinnamon rolls one of our ladies made. We had fruit salad, juice, hot chocolate and coffee as well. 

We used cloth tablecloths and simple centerpieces to make things a little special. It was simple, yet classy. I found everything for the centerpieces in our resource room. Polyester fiber fill, plastic snowflakes and battery operated votive candles. The little snowflakes were made from white paper and a snowflake punch. Walmart and Michael's carry these.

We played several games. 

  1. One was drawing a Christmas tree and fireplace on a paper plate on top of your head. 

  2. The other was piling up snowballs (marshmallows) on a wide wooden Popsicle stick. 

 




We met in the children's area instead of the fellowship hall, and I think this helped the event to be more incorporating of the generations. Some children were there with their families, but there was at least one who came without parents. Adults intermingled and played games with the children whether or not they were related. We even had people come to this that did not normally come for Sunday School. The best thing was that this could be an all-inclusive event. Those with disabilities could be incorporated as well.

My favorite moment came when one of the boys let out a huge yawn, and without missing a beat I asked, "Are we boring you?" What was special was that he was non-verbal. He rarely attended church because while non-verbal, he was not non-noiseful. I am not aware of the level of his handicaps, but at that moment, in the warmth of everyone joined together in one big class area, I interacted with him like any other child, which of course he was, but we so often forget that. It flowed naturally, effortlessly in the atmosphere of the gathering. 

There is a time and place for intergenerational programs and there is also a need for age appropriate teaching. If your church regularly has a Sunday School, an event like this would be great once a quarter, or even 3 times a year. It helps the children to connect with the rest of the church, and helps the church connect with them too. And it is an opportunity for an all-inclusive gathering of everyone in your church.




Sunday, March 1, 2020

Decorating Spaces - Snowflakes

When I worked in the children's room at our public library we changed up the decorations with the seasons. Leaves for fall, snow for winter, and flowers and raindrops for spring. So I utilized the idea in our kidmin space at church.

We did stars in December to go along with the Christmas lessons and kept them up until after Epiphany. In the spring, we did butterflies and dragon flies and let the children color them. When we took them down, I sent the ones they had colored home with them.

If you have a suspended ceiling in your space, this is really easy to do. Just use a paperclip or binder clips to attach fish line to the metal grids between the ceiling tiles. It is a little tedious to punch holes in each item, cut the line, thread it through and knot it. I make little loops on the end that will go around the paper clip. If you use binder clips, you don't even need to make a loop at the one end of the fish line, just clip it to the grid. When using paper clips, I always used white ones so they blended in with the tiles.

Why decorate for the seasons? Kids notice it, and so do parents. It says to me that you care enough about the children coming that you want to make their space special. I didn't always do this, but whenever I did, the children loved it. You can watch the video below to see what we did.

If you are interested in learning how we decorated our walls in the J.A.M. Center, you can read about it in several posts. You can link to several sites that provide the materials to draw the designs in my post DIY Theming That Doesn't Look Like You Did it Yourself. 


Snowflakes from Joan Eppehimer on Vimeo.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Incarnational Relay Race



"If an alien in a titanium spaceship landed in New York would that be a big deal? Jesus, entirely alien from anything we know, landed on earth in Bethlehem" over 2000 years ago, and he didn't even use a spaceship. We call this the incarnation, and according to Alan Root who penned that quote, there is no bigger miracle than God visiting our planet in an earth-suit (so far anyway!).

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

A Cool Treat for KidMin Workers


I use a Christmas tree each year to hang our kidmin workers gifts on. This year I read about these key fobs from Wendy's. At only $2 a piece, they are a great gift. They attach to a key chain and you can use it at Wendy's to get a free Junior Frosty with any order. So yes, as one of the enterprising workers said, "So, I can order a Junior Frosty, and then I can get one for free for my boyfriend." Now that's a KidFrugal date.

These key tags are good for all of 2017, and the $2 you pay goes to support adoption. It's a win-win.

I include other small gifts on the tree to give our workers a choice. This year's other pickings included Avon balms and hand-creams. I have used K-cups, travel size bubble baths and other small items.

So what have you given your workers for Christmas? We would love to hear your ideas.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Journey to Bethlehem


This Christmas season we re-enacted the story of the shepherds in Luke 2 for our children. Remember, this is KidFrugal, so I used what we had on hand. The upscale church might not

Monday, December 21, 2015

Thanking Your "Snow" Many Great Volunteers

Volunteers are an essential resource to the ministry. I want the volunteers that work with our children to feel how important they are to God's work, and I want them to know I recognize their importance. So I am always looking for

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Helping Children Change Lives - One Shoebox at a Time



Since I just pinned a pin about the “store” we run for Operation Christmas Child and said you could check my blog about for more information, I thought I better put some information here. 

We have an ongoing “store” in our children’s Sunday School department. They earn money each week for coming, being on time, bringing visitors, learning the books of the Bible and bringing their Bibles (that last one never seems to work – and yes we do use Bibles in Sunday School). 
The FREE videos are not for OCC. We are just trying to get rid of them!

During most of the year, children can buy things for themselves or gifts to give to others. But starting

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Getting Back in the Tube



I have had my share of flops in the ministry. Generally I find that if you plan well, pray, and work hard, things go alright. But there are times when things do not go well. There are times when I have tried new ideas only to ruin all my visuals. I’ve bombed

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Christmas Gifts for Kidmin Children



Do you buy gifts for the children in your children’s ministry? I stumbled across a great gift for younger children this year. Avon has cool Bath Time Body Paints that go along with Uncle Charlie’s “Fruit of the Spirit” song.  


It is just like Avon created these for the song. They carry 5 out of the 6 fruits Uncle Charlie uses. There is banana, coconut, grape, watermelon and cherry. Someone needs to tell Avon to make lemon too! 

These paints are actually soap, but it rolls on in color. Apparently even some adults like using it

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Tree of Appreciation



Last Christmas I made a tree of appreciation for all of our Children’s Workers. I gave each volunteer a thank you note for their service during the year, and invited them to choose a gift from the Christmas tree that had been set up in the children’s area.


I bought see through gift bags at the Dollar Tree and filled each one with stocking stuffer gifts. Avon has a lot of small products for $1 and less during this time of year. Bath and Body Works usually has some items too. Of course, there is always candy for the guys and teens too. I bought

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...