Recently I've been making crafty things for Primary (our time at church that is dedicated to teaching children ages 3-11). Here are a few posters I've finished.
The first was inspired by our Ward (local neighborhood) and Stake (regional, several cities combined) Primary Presidents. We went to a Stake Primary Training that was fantastic. One of my favorite ideas, was to have a poster of some sort that helped the kids keep track of where we were in the sharing time schedule. As we completed things, like the opening talks, have a way to check off what we'd done and what was left to do until sharing time was over.
My Ward Primary President wanted a schedule at the back for us to keep track of when things started. I decided to mix the two. It can just be used as a schedule poster or it can be used to "check" things off for the kids. I may still make a "check off" poster that is more detailed for the kids. For now this will do.
We always begin our Primary with the song, "We Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints". This helps them identify who they are and what church they are members of. It gives them a sense of belonging and gives them a consistent cue that we are starting Primary. We have Singing Time first and then Sharing time. Jr. Primary (3-7 year olds) is first during the 2nd hour of church, then Sr (8-11 year olds) is the 3rd hour.
On the left hand side are the times. These are removable with clear velcro dots. The back paper coordinates with whether it is Jr. or Sr. As each section is completed you can flip the starting time over to show the kids we have moved on to the next section. This helps give them a sense of time passing and how much is left. I plan to take this poster with me when we move. Since the times would be different at a new church location, I made sure that part of the poster was removable and easily changed. Don't know if I'll have another chance to use it but it turned out cute:) If I need to change the order of events, I can always just cover them up with a removable piece as well.
Close up of the times. I'm not as happy with the paper choice for the Sr. times. It was too dark and is hard to read the numbers far away. Since they are removable I can always redo them if I chose to. They are the only thing I laminated on the posters. I used a poster with an "invisible" grid that made placement really easy.
The second poster I made is a Bingo game of sorts. When I was a teacher for Sunbeams (3-4 year olds class) we would often have a few minutes to kill at the end of class. I pulled out a General Conference Bingo game I had on my iPad and we would review what we learned that day. Each child would pick one picture and we would talk about how we had covered it that day. Eventually we would get "bingo" and the kids would want to play again. They loved it. That worked great with just a few kids but my iPad isn't big enough for a room of 50 kids. So I made my own version.
On one side of the bingo cards is a church themed picture/subject. Things like Jesus Christ, prophets, the sacrament, music, love, honesty etc. Some are very general and could be picked for any Sunday (for instance, there is music each Sunday). Other subjects are very particular and I would only pull them out if we were discussing it that week. There are enough subject cards that I can switch them out every week to give it some variety.
I used an elastic string held in place by tiny brads above and below each picture space. This makes it so I can flip the card over when the kids pick it.
The cards all have clear velcro on the back. Don't know if you can see it there in the middle.
I velcro two cards together with the elastic string caught in the middle.
When a card gets chosen and I flip it over, a solid color (the second "backing" card) shows that square has been used. The colors coordinate with the top and bottom color of that row. I plan on always having Jesus Christ be the center square as the "free" space. He should always be the focus of our church lessons.
On the back of the poster is a list of subject cards and an envelope for storing extra cards. I can easily see what subjects would be appropriate with that weeks sharing time lesson. We won't use this poster all the time, only when we need a time filler.
I used the same subject cards that I used for my
General Conference Center. You can find the subject cards
HERE and print off your own set. I love this set of subject cards. They are really descriptive and of course so nice that they are free to use!
