3 Transitions Between Activities

Getting from point A to point B in a service or camp day can sometimes be tricky. How do you transition between two high energy activities? Or how do you go from something exciting and active to a prayer? Try out these three transitions below to make your day or service move a little bit smoother.

1) The Quick Question

When transitioning between two segments that are similar, sometimes you need a mental break to get your students refocused. Try asking everyone in the audience a quick question. These can relate to your topic, or they can just be something fun, like: What’s your favorite ice cream? What’s the best kids movie ever? What is your favorite color? How many marshmallows is too many marshmallows to eat in one day?

Have your students get up, go across the room, and ask someone else for the answer to that question. Give everyone 15 seconds to get (and give) the answer and get back to their seats. Then, have all the students say on the count of three what the other person’s answer was.

This is a great way to help your kids get to know each other better. If you’re transitioning out of something active, switch it up so that the kids can only talk to someone next to them or in the row in front or behind them (no getting out of their seats). If your students are younger, you may need to give a few extra seconds to get the answer to the question.

2) Praying Pose

A quick way to get your students ready to pray, especially when there is a lot of loud energy in the room, is to teach your students this process: Put both hands in the air, bring them together (clap), bring them down in front of you, bow your head, close your eyes. Call out each step as you go. If you do the motions in the same way every time, your students will recognize when you start the process that it’s time to pray.

3) Do What I Do

If you’re coming from an active game or segment and need to get the attention of your kids, play a game where the kids have to follow the motions you do. Talk to just one person (preferably on the front row) and tell that student to do exactly what you do. Then, start doing motions. Put one hand up, two hands up, lean to the side, clap once, touch your head, etc. The person on the front row will do the motions along with you. Clapping works well as the sound makes your other students look to see what’s happening. Keep changing the motions, once every few seconds, as the rest of the group joins in to mimic what you’re doing. If you have some kids that still aren’t paying attention, make one of the motions poking your neighbor or making a “shh” sound. This will help your students pay attention better. Play the game for about a minute, or until everyone is ready for the next segment.

5 Apps That Will Make Your Life Better

So much of our lives and ministries happen using technology. We've compiled a list of 5 apps that can help make your life easier. We'll give you the list below as well as how each one can be an asset to you!

#1 - Pinterest

This app might seem obvious since many people use this app personally. But when you want to find creative ideas for crafts, activities, and more, there's not a better place on the internet right now than Pinterest. Explore it for an amazing supply of ideas for your visual and kinesthetic learners. Best of all, it's free, even if you only use it to look and not post anything!

#2 - Plickers

Winning the "most interesting name" for this list, Plickers helps you collect answer data from a large group of children all at once, using your phone. So if you wanted to play our "Can You Believe It?" gameshow (found here), you can use this app to gather every group's answer at the same time, and it even keeps score for you! The app is designed for teachers who want to measure student results on the spot, so it's also useful for classroom teachers from preschool to high school!

#3 - Adobe Voice

Have you ever wanted to create a quick video giving a great tip to your volunteers to make them more effective? How about a video of you telling them thanks for all the hard work or Merry Christmas? Or how would you like to create a video of someone reading a Bible story that's illustrated, that you can show during service or let parents download to watch with their kids? If you know nothing about video, this can be a daunting task. Adobe Voice is a free app that makes story telling easy. Simply record your voice on each slide, and pick the visuals you want to see on the screen from a wide array of choices. Though it's designed for story telling, you can use the app to create quick training videos for staff, e-cards, or whatever you'd like to send! Definitely give this one a try on your tablet!

#4 - Bible For Kids

Every one of your kids needs a Bible. For the ones that have smart phones or tablets (a quickly growing percentage of your students), why not have them download a free Bible app that's designed for younger students (ages 5-9). All your children can follow along with the story in a beautifully illustrated, easy to read version. Stop translating "thee's", "thou's," and "begat's", and dive deeper into the text with your children!

#5 - Dropbox

We all live busy lives. And you're not always in front of a computer screen when you get the inspiration for a perfect idea to do this Sunday. Dropbox helps you keep all your files at your fingertips, so you can import your lesson videos for the week, schedules, volunteer lists--every document you need. Best of all, you can create folders inside of Dropbox to share with others. So create your midweek service folder, and share all those lessons with just your midweek volunteers. Stop emailing files with attachments that are too large--just send a reminder that the Dropbox files have been updated for the entire month! Once a volunteer accesses the shared folder on Dropbox, they can easily get to the lessons every month. Make your file-sharing simple, and bring all your volunteers on the same page!

5 Easter Games For Under $5

Need some Easter game ideas, but don't have a huge budget?

We went shopping at our local dollar store, and came up with these 5 games that you can do for Easter for $5 or less! Download the PDF over at our website for free and use the games for an Easter service or an Easter-themed camp day!

Download the PDF at http://www.thespot4kids.com/#!idea-factory-downloads/cf7p

If you'd like to get a new idea every week, make sure you like our Facebook page using the link above to get weekly updates!

Easter Printable: He Is Alive

It's that time of year again! We have created a printable activity sheet you can use in your ministry. You could use this for an activity for children who arrive early to service, during the service, or as a take home to give to all your children.

Take it, use it, and have fun! Join us next week when we'll show you 5 Easter games you can do for $5 or less!

To download a PDF version of the printable, visit www.thespot4kids.com/idea-factory-downloads

If you'd like to stay up to date with our weekly ideas, like our Facebook page! We post the new ideas there every week.
www.facebook.com/thespot4kids

Can You Believe It? Bible Facts Gameshow

In this game show, your kids will have a chance to test their knowledge of Bible facts. Split the kids into teams of 2-4. Give each team an answer stick.

We made ours by taping a red and green piece of paper together, and attaching them to a ruler. You can also use paint sticks (you can get them for free at a hardware store).

As you read each statement, the groups will decide whether they believe it or not. If they believe it (think its true), the team holds up the answer stick with the green side facing you. If they don't believe it (think it's false), they hold up the red side. Keep track of each team's answers for each question. The team with the most correct answers wins.

We have created a Power Point presentation with the questions that you can download at the website below.

http://www.thespot4kids.com/#!idea-factory-downloads/cf7p

If you'd prefer to print out the questions, you can also find a PDF version to print.

Have fun!

3 Ways Summer Day Camp Can Help Your Ministry

We created a video to show 3 ways that Summer Day Camp can help your ministry. Check it out below!

If you'd like to find out more about how a summer day camp can help your ministry, visit:

http://www.thespot4kids.com/#!whycamp/c24da

3 Day Camp Strategies You Can Use on Sunday

At summer day camp, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to make every minute of the day effective and fun for our campers. Here are three strategies we use for camp that you can apply to a Sunday service to make it even better. 

1) Keep It Moving!

Change up your activities and segments every few minutes during the service. There's nothing worse than a segment that goes too long. Your lesson planning and programming for Sunday services should be responsive to the ages and attention spans of your students. Keep your segments short. Transition between different levels of activity by having active and inactive segments. An active segment could be a game, hands-on activity, or a praise song with motions. An inactive segment is a skit, object lesson, offering teaching, or anything where students aren't directly involved. Mix the order of these segments so students don't sit as spectators for too long.

2) Don't Confuse Structure with Sameness

Having a basic structure for your services is a good way to help students understand what's expected of them. However, having a structure doesn't mean you have to do each segment in the same order every week. Try mixing up the schedule so your students don't get into a stale rhythm with your services. Try doing praise and worship last one week. Shake things up by having a large group game to start the service. Change it up to keep it fresh.

3) Find Every Way To Add Fun

Make every part of your service, from check-in to pick-up, more fun. No child has ever left a service saying "I don't want to go back there because it was TOO MUCH fun!" Constantly analyze what parts of your service could be more fun. Inject it into everything you do, and you'll find that students are more engaged and remember more of what is being taught.