Space Academy Holiday Bible Club (part one)

 

During the school holidays our church runs a holiday club for children aged 5 to 11. We use Scripture Union's materials as our inspiration and build on it.

This year we are looking at the stories of Daniel and his friends with a space theme.

The morning is a mix of up-front stuff including stories, quiz, and songs and time spent in groups doing workbooks, crafts and games. My responsibility is for the group activities so the last few weeks of school term is spent preparing materials for the week.

Decor

In the past we spent a lot of time and energy on decorating the church to match our them until we worked out that most of this was lost on the kids so we now have a scene setter at the front and gradually decorate the team areas over the week with their own creations.

We created a space rocket and launch pad out of foam board gathered from a local scrap store WRAP. The buttons and wires were also from WRAP.

Set up

We assign each child to a team and as they arrive they meet at their team table. As they arrive they are registered and collect their team card.

Over the week they collect a sticker each day they attend. They hand the card to their team leader and collect their badge - they made these on the first morning and leave them each day.

During this first 20 minutes the children collect points for remembering the previous days memory verse and for returning their take home craft. This year this took the form of space quizzes and wordsearches. They also complete a precraft activity.

SU gave suggestions for these which we adapted:

The older teams were given junk one day and set the task of creating a new helmet for Commander Keith.

We created sand art "remember to pray stars"

 

We made strange planets by covering a bowl with tissue and foam.

The first day they made a mobile with their team name and on the remaining day we talked about their uniqueness and made an individual fingerprint card.

Games:

One of our favourite is the sticker game - simple but the kids enjoy it - each team collect stickers sprinkled on the floor - this year we have used coloured dot stickers so very cheap - and stick them onto a shape - the one with the most wins - with points deducted for any pieces of paper left on the floor.

The kids love parachute games so this was used on several days. We also used an idea that the girls had enjoyed at a weekend with Arise ministries which involved stuffing a decorators suit with balloons in the form of a relay race. They loved it so much that this was repeated on the last day.

So with all that sorted there was just the matter of 5 days worth of crafts to prepare.

 

 

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