Crafting Sunday School (or God Bless Pinterest!)

My church is small and as such we have only one children's Sunday School class with ages ranging from Preschool to I'm-old-enough-for-the-grownup-class. It's a challenge to develop a lesson appropriate for such a wide age range, but it is one homeschool moms are very familiar with.  Not having kids of my own, I enjoy this weekly interaction and watching the one-room schoolhouse experience come to life before my eyes.  The older kids are wonderful in helping out the younger ones.

Currently, the class has a majority of females; in the past, we've had mostly boys.  The gender difference has had a big influence on occasion in determining crafts and activities.  One activity for which I'm rather infamous happened in October.  We were studying through the Book of Judges and the next lesson would be in Judges 4 where we find the story of Jael and Sisera.

Inspiration struck in the produce section of Walmart!  There was a sale on pie pumpkins and I loaded up my cart with these pumpkins and a package of plastic tent pegs.  The following Sunday, I hauled the pumpkins, tent pegs, a couple of rubber mallets, and box of markers down to our classroom.  We read our story about our heroine Jael's ending of Israel's enemy Sisera.  Then we drew a face on our pumpkins and the kiddos pounded tent pegs into the them!  That year several families had "Sisera" jack-o-lanterns!  One dad remarked, "Only at our church."  I'm not sure it was a compliment.

Sampling fruit

We recently finished a series of lessons on The Fruits of the Spirit. I tried to bring in unusual fruit for the kids to sample from time to time. I am so grateful to various Pinterest users for the great ideas I used in this series. The biggest hit was this song which helped the kids learn all the Fruits of the Spirit.  My boys and girls both love it!.

We just started a new series on The Armor of God.  I found this great poster at Lifeway.  This great web site has some wonderful lesson ideas and this site had templates for wearable armor that I modified slightly. The generosity of these ladies in sharing for free their hard work and creativity is just incredible!  Here's a picture of some of the kids wearing their Belt of Truth.

I'm hoping the kiddos will have the complete armor completed by the time Harvest Parties or Trick-or-Treating comes around.  There is a great song I downloaded for these lessons.  It has a good "hook" which should help the kids memorize the armor pieces.  

I have a board on Pinterest for Sunday School crafts, so if you're a teacher who has drawn a blank please check it out.