Creation Craft

The section below is the craft for the stage presentation, the children love making these big posters ready to hold them up on stage with the song.

For a weekly craft see after this section for take home craft which is a great illustration of faith at home.

The end goal for this craft is 14 large poster size pieces of card with lots of colourful pictures stuck on them. There will be a poster size card for each of these subjects:

1.       Night
2.       Day
3.       Earth
4.       Sky
5.       Fruits
6.       Trees
7.       Flowers
8.       Sun
9.       Moon
10.   Stars
11.   Water Creatures
12.   Birds
13.   Land Creatures
14.   Men

 There are obviously some duplicates that you can see, however these large card pictures will relate to the song and see “small kids in big church” for how the production/song plays out.

So, to create the craft what you will need is 14 large pieces of card for the children to hold up the first one is Night and Day this piece of card will be painted half black and half blue.  I find painting these pieces of card yourself helps and the children can then add their pictures on.

The first day of the craft you will be getting the children to colour in “Suns and Moons and Stars”, some of these will be chosen and stuck on the blue and black large card posters, the others will be used for Night and Day and also the children “always” want to take home their craft so you will lose some to the Goodbye Table!

The next two you will be making with the children (you can see why this creation lesson goes over a whole term) are for the parts of the song/craft that represent Earth and Sky.  Once again take your large pieces of card (Poster size) and have the children do pictures of the sky and earth.  I always print off the colouring that you want done and the children use these outlines rather than do their own drawings.  You have to remember that these images are going to be needed to be seen from the back of the room when they are on stage.  Also these 16 posters are great to use to decorate your room as wall coverings.

For SKY this is obviously very similar to DAY, so you can use up some of the left over clouds and sun from the previous craft, but do make the poster look different, be careful NOT to add birds we are just representing the SKY.

Now the craft starts to get a little more fun for the children as they are to colour in Fruits and Trees and Flowers (always a winner with the girls)!  These are for the next 3 posters that will be for Fruits, Trees, Flowers.  Once again, I would paint in your card and then let the children stick and glue on their coloured pictures, each week obviously you have to let the poster dry (and then do a repair job as usual with children’s craft).

Now we move onto Sun and Moon and Stars, now I know we have already used them representing the Night and Day and the Sky, (and they hadn’t actually been created yet) we need to do some “more”, So in this section (over 1-2 weeks) we can do colouring in of pictures of Moons, suns and stars.

The last set of posters for this terms craft and learning about Creation are Land Creatures and Birds.  This time the creatures are land based so include all types, children love colouring in big creatures like bears and lions, but try and include the everyday puppy! Obviously this include the creation of “Man” so it’s an excellent time to re-iterate your teaching on how God made each and everyone of us.

Creation is a wonderful subject to teach, the craft gives you lots of opportunities to reinforce the teaching – each week you can talk about how wonderful it is that God made all the birds and the fish, the animals, the water the mountains etc.  When the children take part in the craft whether for the posters for the performance in big church or to take home, keep reminding them how great our God is and that ALL things were made by God.

Weekly Take Home Craft for Creation

The children absolutely love these craft which are detailed in the photographs below. All it takes is a little soft foam cutting out in preparation for the children and some printing of the bible verse that you want them to learn and know about.

So for the first take home, we have a cut-out moon and sun - the wording covers the separating of the dark and light and the children love to cover the moon in silver foil and stick on the pre-cut foam. Attaching it with string or cord with a loop for the children to hold, you will find that they love running out with these little crafts.

For the second week, the children stick on the pre-cut foam and this weeks craft is more like a picture than a hanging craft. This week the children learn about the separating of the water, water on the land and water in the sky. If you were dealing with a class of 1-2 year olds you would just teach “God made the waters”, however in the 3-6/7 class you can go more in depth showing them how there is water from the sky and water on the land. For older age groups more discussion into each week is great with them coming up with their own pictures where the printed material and pre-cutting of the foam is just not needed as they use their skills to create.

Week three, this is where all these craft ideas came from. I wanted to teach the children that God made all the foods that we eat (as we talk about that before our snack time). It is important that the children learn that God gave us all the seeds to all the plants and how the plants reproduce their seeds again. You can teach this at this age group 3-7 and obviously to children older. To younger ones you would just be teaching “God made the trees/fruits and flowers”. So to show the children that we have the apple, which has the pips, which grows the trees, which produces the apple so born was all the crafts in this section. The pre-cutting of the seeds from brown foam is so effective and the children love sticking them on, like wise the apples and then finishing it all off with colouring. For this week, I always make sure that there are apple slices at the snack time and also I show them the real pips and we actually try eating them (very healthy). I also send each child home with a gorgeous little apple as well as their craft. It is a great fun week, week 3 the children really start to show signs of understanding that God made everything, which of course is your goal!

Week four sees us creating the fish and the birds that God made, once again I pre print out the fish and the birds, always choose the pictures that have big easy spaces to fill in with either foam or colouring like above. The children love this week as not only have they been colouring in the birds and fish for the big poster for stage time, they also make this and take it home.

This week is your big finale week and should tie in nicely for the beginning of Easter teaching if you started creation teaching in the January School Term. After 5 weeks of the same teaching from the bible, the children should be able to shout back at you the correct answer when you ask them “what was “the” most special thing that God made”? In week, one and two and even maybe three, you will get answers like “the sun”, “a giraffe”, “the water”, but by week four and definately (they will be celebrating the answer) that the most special thing that God created was “THEM”.

So this week is such a fun week, as if you pop into a craft shop or the above are from K Mart. You will find the cutest little foam people, the pack comes with ready made outfits, and although most of them are pixies and fairies you will find some boy outfits, and sometimes I add to them with cutting out little shorts and tops. I pre package up in sandwich bags a whole outfit, including clothes, shoes, hat etc and then the children choose their little bag and stick on all the parts with glue. There are always a lot of outfits so I get the children to dress both sides of the foam girl or boy. They love taking these final crafts home and each week they have taken scripture from the bible, sending the the children home with a little foam person is just not enough - it is vital in my opinion that they have the scripture clearly typed out that “God Made Man”.

So if you only have a short sunday school time allocation, then stick to the big posters and end up making enough for the song on stage, however if you are blessed with having the children for the full service time then making the poster art at play time will work. Then the lesson can be reinforced with take home crafts for 6 weeks. Enjoy this teaching and remember that teaching children that they were made and created by God is fundamental for the foundations of their faith.