'Jesus grows up' Wednesday Club #4

Aim
Jesus has been born in Bethlehem. The shepherds and Wise men celebrate him and call him King. But what happens next? We will look at the life of Jesus as he grows up. We will see how he is fully human as he lives in a normal family and he learns to walk and talk but he is also God as he lives a perfect life without sin and can do the miraculous.
God loves us and by sending Jesus to earth he was taking another step in his plan to rescue us.

Story:
Recap on previous weeks and the events around the birth of Jesus.

Why did the Wise men and shepherds travel to see this baby?...I’m sure there were lots of babies in Bethlehem and other cities. Why did the Wise men follow a star to the baby king...why was he a king? He came from God...he was God the son. So he had two Dads, Joseph on earth and God the Father in Heaven.

Jesus grew up in Mary and Josephs home in Nazareth. He was a real boy and looked just like other boys. He learnt to read and write like you. Joseph his dad was a carpenter so perhaps he taught him how to make furniture. He played with his brothers and his friends. He knew what it was like to be happy, sad, excited, lonely and hurt. Jesus was once your age.

But in one way he was very different. He did not fight with his brothers. He did not disobey his mummy or daddy. He was always kind, unselfish and truthful. Even his thoughts were always good. He was the only perfect person. Ever! He was God, the Son.

When Jesus was an adult, He went around teaching people about God’s kingdom. He showed people what God is like. He did things which only God can do.

Watch on You tube the story of the paralysed man who was brought to Jesus by his 4 friends. Follow this link 4 men, a roof and Jesus

Verse
Using a song on You Tube we learnt the verse John 3 v 16

The possibilities are endless for games using our verse on Duplo pieces. You could hide the blocks around the room and the children find them and form the verse or we asked questions about the story and when they got a correct answer they drew a word out of a bag. We also had a girls v boys race to see who could form the verse quickest (I had 2 sets of the verse on duplo blocks).

Think!
Jesus came to earth as a baby because he loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. He wanted to give us a sign that God is real. It was Gods way of connecting with us again. We are precious to him.

Activity

This activity worked well with both the boys and girls. We used pva glue with spreaders and lots of pieces of ribbon, felt, fabric, wool, sequence and marker pens.

Christmas bunting workshop

My adult sewing workshops continue but I haven't been very good at documenting them on here! Last Friday I had 8 lovely ladies squeezed around my table merrily sewing Christmas bunting.
Although I feel like I could sew bunting in my sleep now, I'm not bragging...I have just sewn so much of the stuff! I did learn how to fill a bobbin, load a bobbin and thread a very old, hand crank Singer sewing machine. The bobbin holder was the shape of a bullet and I enjoyed every minute of trying to work it all out with the help of a little You tube!

Christmas Presents #2 Bath bombs

My version of the bath bomb! I used star cup cake cases and the little mini heart cases which were also very handy for the bath melts. When the citric acid, bicarbonate of soda, rose essential oil, patchouli ess oil and rose hip oil are combined it seems impossible that this mixture will ever be a solid bath bomb. Yet by adding just a littlewater so that the mixture is like damp sand and packing firmly into a mould, leaving to set overnight, they pop out of the mould looking just like shop bought bath bombs. A real feeling of satisfaction comes with it!

I made these handy little gift boxes from card stock and a great you tube tutorial on wedding favour boxes. They are just the right size for a small variety of bath melts and bombs.

Lj and I spent Sunday afternoon filling the boxes with tissue paper, bath bombs and melts. Wrapping in celophane. Making our own little tags and tying it altogether with a little ribbon.

Now we have lots of little gifts ready when we need them over Christmas to say 'thank you' or to bless someone.

'Follow the star' Wednesday Club #3

Aim
The Wise men followed a star to find Jesus. Why were they so keen to find him and bring him gifts?

Ice breaker/ games
The 'Star' says.
A version of 'Simon says'. The leader stands at the front and asks the children to follow their commands of 'The star says, stand on one leg' for example. If the leader doesn't say 'The star says...' at the beginning and a child still follows the command then they are out. (As we started a little late we didn't have time for this game)

Follow the Star to Bethlehem.
My children have told me this game so I hope I have picked it up correctly! Children stand with backs against wall and the aim is to reach the opposite wall (Bethlehem). The leader calls out  various things like 'Do you wash your teeth everyday?', If the answer is 'yes' then the children take one step forward. This continues as the children move closer to Bethlehem and Jesus. The leader can also call out 'Jesus' and the children run to Bethlehem.
This game worked brilliantly, the children loved playing it and we did it a number of times.
I put this picture on the wall to remind them of who they were trying to reach!

Musical 'Stand on the star'.
A version of musical chairs using paper star cut outs on the floor instead of chairs. When the music stops the children find a star to stand on. Each round a star is removed so it becomes harder to find a star to stand on.

Story
Watch 'Beginners bible- Nativity' on TV/projector. This went well and the children sat and listened intently. I had told them that I would ask questions based on what they had seen when it was over.

Think!
We asked questions about what they had just watched and also got them to think about why the Wise men were happy to find Jesus and why King Herod was jealous of another King. What was different about the 'new' King, where we can find out about Jesus and why we might want to follow Jesus?
We also recapped on the verse we learnt on the first week.

Activity
I don't even think about taking photos in the 1 hr of mayhem so yet again we have no photos of the kids work and a very poor photo of my sample! We used jumbo lollipop sticks to create our wise men. The blue/ yellow/ and green sparkly foam pieces are their gifts...of course!