Winter Door Decorations

We have not had many Sunday school days lately due to holidays and various other special events at our church, so I haven't posted much. However, it is time to update our door decoration. I'm going with a generic winter theme this time so I won't have to change it again for a few months.

This one is super-duper easy. Cute pre-cut snowflakes are usually easy to find this time of year. Alternatively, you could cut them out yourself, of course. That would be a good craft to do in class one day if you wanted to get the kids involved in the project. 

The rest is just pre-cut letters, white art paper, and tape. My snowflakes came in a package of 32. Since the door only held half that, I scattered the rest throughout the classroom. It gave it a nice fun feel in there. I free handed the piled snow on the art paper and cut it out. And that's it. It took longer to punch out the pre-cut letters than it did to tape everything up. Easy, easy, easy.

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Mosaic Of Jesus

Posted with artist's permission                          

Suffering Servant
by Marcella Pallekara


















Today's craft is one of my favorites for many reasons. First, it was inspired by the above mosaic, which I totally love. When I contacted the artist, Marcella Pallekara, to ask for permission to post her work, she was so gracious and kind that I couldn't help but be intrigued by her. Naturally, that prompted a visit to her blog, Paint Paste Pray. I have to say, I am in complete awe of her many talents. Her blog has inspired me both artistically & spiritually. 

The second reason I love today's craft is because it compliments every single Bible lesson. Yes, every... single... one. 

And the third reason, well, it's fun!

So, what is the craft you undoubtedly are asking by now? We are going to make our own mosaics of Jesus, of course. How can you look at Marcella's masterpiece above and not want to give it a try?

Materials needed:

Magazine pages (tear out ahead of time)
Glue/Glue sticks

Construction paper
Optional items:

    Coloring pencils

    Magic markers

    Crayons

    Paint

Instructions:

Keep in mind that kids may initially feel overwhelmed by the task. Explain to them that the artist actually combined drawing with the glueing of paper scraps. Suggest they draw at least an outline of the face on their construction paper to serve as a guideline. Then show them how to look at the magazine pages not necessarily for the objects on the page, but for the colors and textures it contains. For example, I used Marcella Pallekara's piece to point out Jesus' brown hair. Then I located a page that contained a lovely brown burled wood coffee table. I tore the picture into several small pieces and demonstrated how to orient them to look like hair. Once they saw how to do this, they became excited and dove right in. I think being told to draw/paint/color some features took the pressure off of searching for the perfect piece.

We spent the entire Sunday school hour working on our projects and still didn't quite finish. The kids really embraced the experience. Many of them asked to take their picture home with a handful of magazine pages to complete later. I was impressed they weren't ready to quit. Here are the ones that finished in class and left their work to be displayed in the classroom:  

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Fall Door Decoration

With Halloween creeping up and Thanksgiving close behind, it's time for a door decoration update. I saw a pin on pinterest showing How to Print on Burlap using a printer. In the example, she made a cute little banner similar to the one in my picture above. I'm sorry to say that my printer kept eating my burlap, but I still wanted to make the banner for my door, so I did it the old fashioned way—

I painted it. 

It's hard to see this in the picture, but some of the leaves have words written on them. I asked the kids to write a word on as many leaves as they wanted describing something they are thankful for. We will do this for several Sundays to make sure everyone gets a chance to participate. I hope our door will be covered in leaves by the time Thanksgiving arrives.

Materials needed:

Burlap

Punch out letters (I used 4 inch and 2 inch)

Ruler

Pencil

Tracing paper

Twine

Scissors

Glue

Tape (not pictured)

Leaves
Paint (not pictured)
Paint brush (not pictured)
Printed letters for the banner
Straight pins (not pictured)

Instructions:

The actual door construction is fairly self-explanatory I think just by looking at the picture. However, there are only a couple of shopping tips that may be useful: 

1. Make life easy on yourself. Don't try to print and cutout the letters for the main words. And don't drive all over town going to Walmart, Target, and Dollar General trying to find punch out letters if you don't have to. Go straight to Knowledge Tree (or any other teacher supply store). Sometimes I'm afraid those types of stores are going to be pricey, but for punch out letters, they can't be beat. They have a great selection in sizes as well as colors and the prices are very reasonable.

2. The leaves, on the other hand, were a challenge. Surprised? I sure was. I figured I'd just run into Hobby Lobby, Michael's, or Dollar General, plop down less than $10 and off I'd go. Ha. Turns out, leaves are fairly spendy—well, halfway decent ones anyway. 

I first considered paper punch out leaves. They were ridiculously expensive, considering I needed a lot of them to make a pile of leaves. Then I looked at bags of leaves. Again, too far out of my budget. And then I saw the garland. I purchased four 6-foot lengths of garland for $3.49 each at Party City. The leaves were nicer, pulled right off, and provided me with an ample amount. 

Now, to make the banner:

1. Using any word document program, find a font that is thick and easy to read. I used Cooper Black in Word. Print the word "Fall" (or whatever word is desired) on regular printer paper.

2. Cut each letter out, leaving a small margin around.

3. Draw triangles large enough for each letter on the burlap with a ruler.

4. Cut out the triangles. Be sure to allow extra room for the top to be folded over (see #12 below).

5. Line up each letter on the triangle so they are even with each other.

6. Place a sheet of tracing paper between the burlap and each letter. 

7. Trace the outline of the letters with the pencil.

8. Paint the letters and let dry. I hung them up in my craft closet to keep them from sticking to the work surface.

9. Cut the twine to the desired length.

10. Fold twine in half to mark the center.

11. Align the triangles along the twine so the edges touch each other.

12. Fold over about 1/2" of the top edge of the triangle to the back, finger pressing to make a crease.

13. Place a bead of glue in the valley of the crease.

14. Put the twine in the glue filled crease and fold over.

15. Pin the fold down to hold it into place.

16. Hang to dry. This prevents the glue from seeping out and sticking to the work surface.  

17. Remove the pins when dry. 

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Pharisees try to trick Jesus

(Matthew 22: 15-22)

The lesson today is about the story of when the Pharisees try to trick Jesus into taking sides. They are upset about the amount of taxes that are forced upon them by Caesar, so they try to get Jesus to join with them and say it is unfair. Jesus knows if he sides with the people, Caesar will put him in jail, but if he sides with Caesar, the people will think he is a traitor. Therefore, he tells them to show him a coin. When they do so, he points out that it is Caesar's picture on the coin, thereby showing that it is Caesar's money. He says to them, "Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

We talked today about what things belong to God. How do we know they are God's? What should we give back to God and how do we do that? Of course, this opened up a wonderful discussion that took many directions. We covered topics such as tithing, charity, neighborly love, kindness, sacrifice, blessings, and personal responsibilities to family and community. We ended up concluding that everything belongs to God! 

Our craft today was to make coins representing what we give back to God. I asked the children to draw pictures of things they possess that they can give back to God.

We made coins once before with The Widow's Mite lesson. This time I wanted the coins to be larger to give the children plenty of room to draw.

Materials needed:

u Wooden circles (I could only find button shapes. They came from Michaels for a few cents per button. I'll show you how to get rid of the button holes below.) 

u Circle stickers

u Candy foil wrappers (also found at Michaels)

u Sharpie or tool of choice to draw picture on foil

Instructions:

1) Give each child one button, two sheets of foil, a pen and two stickers. 

2) Ask the children to put a sticker on each side of the button to cover up the button holes. This will prevent the holes from showing through the finished product.

3) Wrap one sheet of foil around one side of the coin.

4) Wrap the other sheet over the other side. This is the top.

5) Instruct the kids to draw a picture of something they have been blessed with that they can give back to God.

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Glitter Clip Club Badge!

Clip Chart continued (see previous post below)...
When a child earns the fabulous Glitter Clip as described in the previous post, they are also bestowed a Glitter Clip Club Badge. I worked all week trying out different designs and materials, and finally settled on this one. The kids were very excited to see them displayed on the wall this morning. I only made six for now. Each time one is awarded, I will make a new one to take its place. This was a concern for some of the kids today. It only took a second for them to see there were only six badges and they knew we have at least twelve kids that come regularly to our class. What a relief it was for them to learn I can easily make more. :)

Materials needed:

u Wooden stars (I found mine at Michaels on the pre-cut wood isle. They were 29¢ each.)

u Mod Podge or some other glue/varnish combo. (My Liquitex came from Hobby Lobby, found on the paint supplies isle and was roughly $16.00. I have had this bottle more than a year, used it on countless projects, and it's still half full.)

u Bar Pins (one for each star.) These are the fasteners that attach an item to clothing.

u Strong glue (I like Weldbond because it holds a variety of materials very securely. Goes on white, dries clear.)

u Ribbon

u Gold Glitter

u Scissors

u Paint brush

u Gold Sharpie



Instructions:

1) Apply the Liquitex (or glue/varnish of choice) to the face of each star.

2) Cover the stars with a thick layer of glitter. Let dry completely.

3) Remove the loose glitter. Paint another layer of vanish on top of the glittered stars and cover the stars again with fresh glitter. This gives the stars a nice thick coat of glitter. I found that covering the stars only once left holes. Let dry completely again. 

4) Remove the excess glitter again. If holes still remain, patch the problem spots.

5) Top the whole thing off with one more generous layer of Liquitex (or glue/varnish of choice) to seal the glitter to the star. This will keep the glitter on the star and off of everything else for a long, long time. Let dry. 

6) Cut the ribbon into 6" lengths.

7) Gently fold the ribbon in half lengthwise and cut the bottom notch.

8) Using the gold Sharpie, write the words, "Glitter Clip Club" on each ribbon.

9) When the glitter steps are complete, glue one bar pin and one ribbon onto the back side of each star. Let dry at least 24 hours. The glue will be clear when it has completely cured.

10) Hang near the Clip Chart as additional incentive!

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Clip Chart

An interesting thing has happened. We are having so much fun that sometimes when I ask the children to quiet down, they don't want to! LOL. Imagine that! Trust me, I am tickled they are having so much fun; however, there is a point where fun can become chaos. And with chaos comes behavioral outbursts—not that I'm seeing outbursts, but I am seeing the early warning signs that behavioral issues are brewing. So, it's time to employ the Clip Chart, before things get out of hand!

Many, yes, MANY teachers now use the Behavioral Clip Chart Method. It's that good. It's, dare I say, a miracle! I don't know who first came up with this idea, but they deserve... something really, really nice. :)

Materials needed:

u One sheet of construction paper, or any kind of colored paper, for each color: Black, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red (Actually, I used one photo paper for the black. I'll explain why below.)

u Two pieces of black poster board.

u Laminator (or Knowledge Tree will do it for you for under $5.00)

u Computer & printer

u Clothes Pins

u Packaging tape

u Double-sided tape

u Stars of your choosing for the chart

u Star stickers

u Green markers (and eventually purple, blue & glitter markers)

How to make the chart:

1) Print each word on the designated colored paper:

*Black - Outstanding!
Purple - Great Job
Blue - Good Day
Green - Ready To Learn
Yellow - Think About It
Orange - Teacher's Choice
Red - Parent Contact

*It is impossible to print on most black papers. No matter what color ink is used for the letters, they just fade away into the black. An easy way around this, is to create a document in Word, Photoshop, or other document program, make the letters a bright color and apply a black background. Next, print on photo paper and the whole thing will pop. I could have done this with each color page, but I felt it wasn't worth the expensive ink.

Not all charts you'll find go in this exact color order. We chose this order because we wanted red on the bottom for parent contact since kids usually associate red with stop & danger. One of our Sunday school teachers said her son's kindergarten teacher decorated her chart with stars at the top signifying out-of-this-world-great or you-made-it-to-the-stars! We really liked the outer space visual, so we made the top card black with stars, too.

2) Cut the poster board so it is slightly wider than the colored pages and about 16" taller than they are long when stacked almost edge to edge. Refer to the picture for placement.

3) Using the packaging tape, connect the two poster board pieces together end to end.

4) Tape each piece of colored paper to poster board with the double-sided tape in rainbow color order as in photo.

5)  Add stars to the top.

6) Take it to Knowledge Tree for laminating.

7) Hang it in the classroom.

8) Ask each child to color a clothes pin green. Don't forget to put their name somewhere on it (preferably on the side or the back).

9) Go over the class rules with the kids And explain how the chart works (see below). We decided to let our kids suggest class rules. Of course, the teachers added some of our own.

How to use the chart:

Everyone starts with a Green clip at the beginning of the year, and each day the clips all start on the “Green-Ready to Learn” space. Whenever a child does something positive and noteworthy, reward them by moving their clip up to the next card. Move a child’s clip down for poor behavior (i.e. breaks a rule).  When a child reaches “Outstanding,” add a little star sticker to the clip. When a child earns 3 stickers (three “Outstanding” days) they get a new clip and get to color it blue-the first time, purple-the second time and glitter-the third & final time. The ultimate goal is the "glitter clip." We are in the process of designing a cool badge that says “Glitter Clip Club” to give them to take home when they get their glitter clip. I'll post a picture of that when we get it completed.  Update 8/17/15: It was still taking too long for the kids to achieve Glitter Badge status, so now we have changed the rules. The first time a child makes it to the top of the chart, they get a jewel sticky-backed star to put on their clip. No more coloring the clip. The second time he/she makes it to the top, they get their Glitter Star Badge. 

When a child clips down, have them explain why they have been asked to move down to make sure they understand the infraction. If applicable, ask them to apologize to the person that was offended. If a clip reaches the red-"Parent Contact" space, of course that parent gets a phone call to discuss the problem. 

At the end of the day ask the general helper to move all the clips back to the green card so they are ready for the next Sunday.  Update 10/19/14: After a few weeks it has become clear that one class period is not long enough for anyone to make it all the way to the top of the chart; therefore, we are going to leave the clips wherever they are each week. Once someone makes it to the top and receives their star, they will then move back to the green "Ready To Learn" space to begin again.

I also made a small reference poster to remind the kids the steps to get the glitter clip.

With the Clip Chart Method the kids strive for acknowledgement for good behavior. The focus shifts from those who tend to get in trouble, to those who rarely get into trouble. I love this, because the children who rarely, if ever, misbehave get frustrated when my attention repeatedly goes to the children who are breaking the class rules. The good behavior kids constantly feel neglected. The Clip Chart Method turns this around. It praises the kids with good behavior and makes the not-so-good behavior kids want to get in on the action.

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!