Intro

 Last term we looked at the person of Jesus, stressing to the children that He came to show us what God is like.   He was a baby, a child, a grown up.  He had a family, went to school and had a job.  He was tempted and He did miracles.  By and large I think the programme worked well so this term we will continue talking about Jesus - and I thought a good ' hook' on which to hang the teaching might be the names Jesus gives Himself.

Shepherd, Vine, Door, Bread, Way, Truth ,Life, Resurrection, Light

Format same as last year.  Teaching time, worship time, craft time, play time.   Prayer time didnt really happen much last year, due I think to the way the sessions were structured.  So perhaps this year we should start every session with a chat and pray time...... asking the kids what they did this week ( favourite thing/place/activity, anyone who is ill in their family, anything they want to pray for) followed by a thank-you + please prayer taking in anything that they mention.  The aim this year will be to get some of the older ones confident to pray out loud in the group. 😊

Having spent some time thinking about creche over the past couple of weeks I have come to the following conclusion ;  If I can write a schedule for a whole year, that schedule can be repeated ( with tweaking) next year - and forever really.  We will have new kids coming along every year and older ones moving up.  The truth about the person of Jesus stands repeating often - as they get older the children will understand more each time they hear it.   The craft activities which work well can be repeated easily and all the sessions will be filed in these blog posts so anyone can access them.  Hopefully this should mean that more volunteers can be drafted in to help out without the stress of having to do any planning.  The sessions will be ' ready to go' .   Sept - Christmas is already done so this next block of teaching should cover up to Easter ( given that every 4th Sunday is family service)

Then there will just be summer term to cover and we can start all over again from the beginning  😁

Worship - needs to be kept simple and I plan to repeat the same handful of songs over and over so they get to know them and can properly join in.  :)   Hopefully you wont get bored with them as most people will only be on the rota every now and again.  Will always have instruments on hand for kids to play.

In 2022 we had anywhere between 4 and 9 kids in creche.  In faith Im anticipating a doubling of numbers by the end of 2023.  Phoebe is rostering on three people per session - on days when there are only small numbers the third person can probably be freed up to go into church if they want to.  Cathy and I take it in turns to lead ( although Cathy will be finishing at Easter to go and do something much more important  👶🍼)  She and I will do the story/teaching bit and the craft will be pre-prepared by me so all the volunteers need to do is provide the extra hands needed to keep the little darlings safe and be hands on with activities, take to toilet or out to find parents etc.

Im really happy to receive suggestions and ideas about anything to do with creche.  We are constantly fine-tuning things to try and ensure that it all works well and that kids are happy, settled and involved.  Alot depends on who turns up each week.  Older ones are obviously able to do more than tinys.  We shall have quite a few babies this coming year so Im going to try to plan something to accommodate them in the creche too whilst at the same time maintaining the input for the toddlers.  Perhaps one volunteer each week can be assigned to ' baby corner'  😁 so that parents might at least attempt to get some time in the service.  We shall do our best.

Thanks to all of you who volunteer - its a big blessing to Cathy and Phoebe and I and to the parents and kids we serve,

Here's to learning more about Jesus in 2023.   CAZ x


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