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SSTN # 77 - June 25, 2003


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IN THIS ISSUE OF THE SSTN e-NEWSLETTER:



--> July 4th Activity...Download it today!

1) Activities for 0-2 year olds?
2) Fruit of the Spirit Activities?
3) Family Tool Chest
4) Great Kingdom Caper
5) Great Kingdom Caper

6) Class for Special Needs children   
7) Great Kingdom Caper
8) Great Kingdom Caper
9) Love is...
10) Lighthouse Decorations

--> Fruit of the Spirit - Bingo Game

11) Class for Special Needs children
12) Children's Directors, Are You Paid?
13) Great Kingdom Caper
14) Special needs?
15) Nativity Costumes   


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--> July 4th Activity...download it today!

With the "USA Patriotic Catcher Toy" kids will learn the answers to eight
basic USA citizenship questions such as, "Why did the Pilgrims come to
America?"; What is the US Constitution?, and "What does the First
Amendment guarantee?". A great activity for July 4th! Kids can make it and
take it home! Print out as many patterns as you need for a onetime fee of
only $3.00.

Find the USA Patriotic Catcher at:
http://www.christiancrafters.com/curriculum.html 
(you may need to copy and paste the address to your browser)


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1) Activities for 0-2 year olds ?

My church doesn't have any Sunday School activities for the newborn - 2
year old class and I am looking for very simple craft activities, songs
and stories, etc... to do with babies.  Does anyone have any ideas where I
can get something for this age range?
Thanks, Nancy

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2) Fruit of the Spirit Activities?

Presently, I serve as a Wednesday night and Sunday School teacher in my
church.  We are in the process of revising out present curriculum.  I am
very interested in the
"Fruit of the Spirit" lessons and/or activities.
May God Continue to bless you and your ministry.
Thanks again,
Linda

--from SSTN: check the Bible Games page, the Curriculum page, and don't
forget the Archives:  http://www.ChristianCrafters.Com 

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3) Family Tool Chest

Also check out Heritage Builders "Family Tool Chest" for their object
lessons on the 10 commandments.  Heritage Builders is a part of Focus on
the Family.
Karen Young

--from SSTN: type the title into the bookstore search box to locate it:
http://www.christiancrafters.com/bookstore.html 

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4) Great Kingdom Caper

For some ideas--check out the Yahoo VBS 2003 Group--join today if you have
not already!  People have been sharing alot of good ideas there.
Also, at Lifeway, there is an excellent idea board that has lots of ideas
sent in for decorating, crafts, etc.  Click on IDEA BANK at this address:
http://www.lifeway.com/yourvbs/
Here are 2 links where you can see how someone else has already decorated
for this year!  These should be helpful.
http://www.houstonriverbc.org/vbs.html
http://www.sschool.com/vbs/vbs.htm
Scroll down to find Kingdom Caper Decor and click on it.

Hope thise help!
In His Service
Donna in Little Rock

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5) Great Kingdom Caper

>Our church is planning VBS this year using the "Great Kingdom Caper"
>theme. I need some help with my imagination as to the decorations, etc.

Brenda
Our church is also doing Great Kingdom Caper. There is a lot of good ideas
on www.lifeway.com/yourvbs.  We have started doing our decorations
already. Our fellowship hall is the market or outdoor cafe, we did that
way because we feed supper. Our santurary is the music castle so we
decorated it like the inside of a caslte.  We have one of our biggest
class rooms decorated like a craft studio for the crafts. Each age gruop
class room we are going to decorate like detective offices. All along the
hallways we are going to decorate with the things you would see along
london ~ Big ben, the london bridge, also we have a lot of double decker
bus everywhere.  I hope this helped a little. We are doing our VBS on June
23 - 27. I will have pictures of everything in a couple of days that I can
Share with you. Email me Hart1229@msn.com if you need any more help.

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6) Class for Special Needs children

Hello fellow teachers, leaders and volunteers.  This heading caught  my
attention as I am not only the Childrens Ministry Coordinator for our
church, but also the mom of two boys with special needs.  Both of my
children are adopted and, although the path gets pretty rocky sometimes,
I know that this has always been God's plan for my husband and I and
clearly explains our infertility.
That said, I guess my biggest question is - Why do you need a separate
room for these children?  In this day and age of "inclusion" many of us
parents are fighting school boards to have our children placed in
inclusionary settings within their home school.  This is a very
difficult battle and many of us are loosing it.  One of my children, who
has FASD and is bipolar, along with learning disabled, is placed in a
regular classroom but is ostracized by most of his peers.  My other son,
despite our continuous battle with the school board over placement, has
Down syndrome and is Autistic and is in a special ed class at a
different school.  Church is the only place that my boys are made to
feel included and accepted.  Both attend the childrens ministry program
- one is independant, the other has a responsible teenager accompany him.
There is no need in church to further separate these individuals from
their peers.  Including them in the regular classes would "give the
parents a break" and make the entire family happy. 
These children are special gifts from God - they do not know hatred,
only love; do not know intolerance, only acceptance (in their eyes); no
resentment, only forgiveness.
Isn't that what Jesus teaches us?  Families from our church come up to
me alot and say what a blessing it is for their child to know my
children.  Most parents would rather have the opportunity to have their
differently-abled child accepted into a group and reach out to educate
that group as they wish, then to have their child further treated
differently.
If we in the church family can stop treating these children as
different, then maybe other groups in the community will start to do the
same.
Please, please - educate yourselves, talk to the parents and find out
their wishes for inclusion but please do not assume that we want a
"special class" for our children.  Actually - my youngest sometimes just
prefers to stay in worship with us as he enjoys following along with the
service which he knows by heart!
I do not mean to offend anyone - I believe your hearts are in the right
place - but please help us teach the world tolerance and acceptance of
our children.
If you need any further ideas to assist you in inclusion, feel free to
email me privately and I would be happy to help in planning ideas.
iHn
Diane, Chatham, Ontario
davediane.white@sympatico.ca

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7) Great Kingdom Caper

You mentioned the idea of a double decker bus. I saw pictures of a
church that had a missions theme for their VBS. They were drawing the
entire church into VBS, so they also wanted to decorate their sanctuary.
Since they needed a bus, they decided this would be a good decoration for
the front of the church. They used cardboard boxes to create the side of a
bus. The adults outlined the design on it, and the children painted the
bus. The really neat thing was that the bus was propped up by the railing
up front, and the railing gate was used as the doorway. During the
children's message, the children got in the bus through the doorway which
included the steps up toward the altar, and the windows of the bus were
large enough for the congregation to see the children. This would also
work well as a hall decoration leading the way to the VBS area.  Have fun
with your program.
Karen Burzinski


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8) Great Kingdom Caper

They include decor ideas in the VBS packet. Any picture in the VBS can be
copied onto a transparency (Office Max, Office depot or any other copy
place can do this). Put it on an overhead projector, draw it off on
bulletin board paper, cardboard or corrugated plastic and paint. Then
attach to the wall. Lifeway has a bulletin board set up where they give
lots of ideas. Check their website: http://www.lifeway.com/yourvbs
Teresa

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9) Love is...

All of the major VBS companies have bulletin boards on their sites.  Check
the company that made your VBS. Also check the other sites for ideas.
Teresa

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10) Lighthouse Decorations

Check out Stumps Prom and Party and Anderson's Prom. They have lots of
ideas for all kinds of themes.  Order a catalog if you have time.  If you
live near a big city most party supplies have some nautical stuff.

We made a lighthouse on paper that stretched floor to ceiling.  We stapled
it in one corner, so it had the effect of being round. Along the bottom we
put sand colored burlap and blue paper for water.  We put shells, etc., on
the sand. One year we actually pt plastic down and put sand on the
plastic.

we have done numerous nautical themes, adding different things each time.
We have put up a ship (one time we made a large one with PVC pipe,
attached corrugated cardboard and put the chairs in it.  The kids had to
go get their ticket punched, up the gangplank, get int he boat and find a
seat. We did all our Bible stores in it!  We made "piers" and put barrels
and boxes on them. On one we put a paper "Gift Shack" behind it and
stretched a fishing net along the bottom of the shack. We put prizes there
that the kids could purchase with earned dollars.  Another time we made a
fishing pier and the kids got to fish. It was the memory verse thing, they
fished for the verses.
Hope this helps.

Teresa

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--> Fruit of the Spirit - Bingo Game

A fun way for players to learn the Fruit of the Spirit characteristics.
Players score using real fruit candy! FREE SHIPPING!

Learn more here:
http://www.christiancrafters.com/curriculum.html 
(you may need to copy and paste this address to your browser)


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11) Class for Special Needs children

Go to www.incm.org. They had several classes on this subject at Children's
Pastors conference this year, as well as an all day pre conference
workshop. You can buy the tapes.

Teresa

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12) Children's Directors, Are You Paid?

I am a Children's Director.  I find myself spending enough hours working
that it seems like a full time job.  Do other Directors out there get paid
or at least have an office?  I do not and wonder if it's wrong.  Our
church is growing and there are more responsibilities with that.  I want
to serve and not feel taken advantage of...any thoughts?   Cindy T.

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13) Great Kingdom Caper

>Our church is planning VBS this year using the "Great Kingdom Caper"
>theme. I need some help with my imagination as to the decorations, etc.

Hi Brenda, we just did the Great Kingdom Caper VBS last week.
We decorated each room according to the Bible Story. One room was the
Garden tomb; one room lilke the deset divided for Abraham & Lot (one side
green one side brown); One room was Ruth's house; One was the prison cell
of the servant (complete with stocks !); & Isaac's Well.
We go to a room a day. The snack & craft  are all geared for that age
group
to be in theme. For instance on Monday the  3rd & 4th graders went to the
Ruth's house. In that room on Monday they did the Bible story, made their
crafts ( according to the age in the class that day. Tomorrow may be the
PrK & K ) Their snack were 'barley  stacks" ( chow mein noodle sticks,
dipped in melted butterscotch chips and  piled together.Kids loved them
,along with juice & an orange slice). The teacher only has to learn one
lesson for the week, and can concentrate on gearing the crafts & lesson to
the approprate age group on each day. Nothing changes otherwise, different
kids each day in your class. This way you wind up teaching every child one
class day. (another plus, if you have a very problem child who needs extra
attention or supervision, you know to point this out to his teacher  in
tomorrow's class, and she  the next teacher. In one instance of a special
child, we assigned a helper just for this child who went to each class
with him each day.) We have been doing VBS this way for 10 years and have
found that teachers are alot less stress by the end of the week, by doing
the singlr lesson plan and no we have so many adults volunteering to help
that we can have one teacher for lesson and one
teacher for crafts ! The classes are decorated for the Bible lesson and we
decorated the halls and youth gym with the  wall items . We use teenagres
as guides (helpers lilke for taking kids out side at break time and
restroom breaks)for each class and they each wore homemade detective hats.
Good luck with your VBS !
MaryMagnuson
Lamar Co,TX

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14) Special needs?

>I'm looking for information/suggestions on setting up a class for
children
>with special needs.

Can you specify the "special need"?  Mentally handicapped?
Physically disabled?  ADD/ADHD?

Stephanie in TN

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15) Nativity Costumes   

I have a rather long list of resources for making your own as well as
purchasing nativity costumes. One of the simplest ideas for sheep is to
use white sweat suits with a plain white headband that you can use white
fun fur or fleece to make the ears from, using wire underneath to keep
them from flopping. Black shoes, or black fabric shoe covers as well as
black mittens will look like the feet of the sheep if the child wears them
on his/her hands and feet. For more ideas like this, or a complete list of
nativity costume resources please e-mail me, as it is too long to post
here.
Love in Christ, Sarah in California
living_life_my_way@earthlink.net
   
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