McGrath Kids Zone opened this week at McGrath Community Church. The younger kids (ages 5-8) have Kids Zone on Tuesday afternoon, and the older kids (ages 9-12) meet on Thursday afternoon. Kids Zone is similar to VBS but a lot more game oriented and faster pace. I am very excited to be using this to follow-up our VBS last week! Our hope is, if this weekly meeting is successful we will carry over into the school year. The curriculum material used is from CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship). They do a great job in laying out all the work you need to do, giving more time to interact with the kids
Tuesday there were nine of the younger kids, and I had them by myself. If you have worked with this age group, ages 5-8, you know that any plan you have MUST be very flexible…you never know how the kids will respond or interact. We had a great time, and the kids were pretty wired up. You will love this…we came to the story time, so I got down on the floor with these guys and opened up the story book that shows big pictures of the story. Like giant flashcards. About 2 minutes into the story one little girl said she needed to go outside. Then a little boy asked to go sit with her, then another little girl got up and went with them. I mean really, I could not be that bad of a storyteller. I had not even got far into the story! So, now I have three outside and six inside, all by myself…where is Christie! So, I finished the story and got to snack time, which always get the kids back focused! I will definitely need to “rethink” the daily agenda!
Thursday, I was really blown away by the number of older kids that showed up…ELEVEN! I really had no idea who would show up. We got started with a giant beach ball and a sheet. Each kid held on to the sheet and I threw the beach ball into the sheet. The object of the game was to work together, throw the ball up into the air with the sheet and then try to catch it with the sheet. It was hilarious until they finally got the hang of it! We had a great time with some new music and the Bible story where Jesus healed the paralyzed man. We talked about how we can be friends and look for ways to share Jesus and help others.
I am very excited about our weekly Kids Zone. I am looking forward to really connecting with these kids over the next few weeks.