Cubbies Bear Hugs 3-6

This post is very very late, haha.  We finished Bear Hug 6 back in October.  What are Bear Hugs?  They are the Cubbies 'sections' in each Appleseed handbook.  There are 4 sections, or bear hugs, per Unit.  Bear hugs 3-6 are the first unit after the Apple trail.  This unit talks about the Creation story.

I have always loved the creation story!  I am a 'ducks in a row' type person, so I like when there is a structure, things that line up 'in order'.  For some reason, I have always associated the creation story with that line of thinking.  There is 'day 1' where God made light and separated it from the darkness.  And then day 2 where he separated the waters and made the sky.  And day 3, with the land and the plants!  Sun moon and stars came on day 4, with the water animals and the birds on day 5.  Day 6 sees all the other animals being created.  And if that wasn't enough, God also makes Man and Woman in His own image!  I have always loved this, and the way we were taught with pictures and numbers to help us remember what was created on which day... it is enough to make any visual/numbers person fall in love with that story.

In hopes to make things fun and interactive for the Cubbies, I decided to make some backdrops that we would add to each week for our lesson time.  Unfortunately... I forgot to take pictures.  :(  For BH3 I hung a black garbage bag next to a white one on the back wall, and taped them into place.  This was for 'light' and 'dark'.  Then I took a dark blue plastic tablecover and taped it onto the light blue wall as the 'water' and 'sky'. 

The next week, for BH4, I made a large piece of black and green 'land' (I couldn't find any brown poster board for some reason) to place on top of the 'water'.  I added that before Cubbies started, and then during start up time I placed a variety of flower cutouts on a table with crayons/markers for the kids to decorate.  I also had stars that they could add tinfoil to, or color themselves.  Then, during lesson time, I had them bring their creations up to the boards for day 3 and 4 of creation. 

The last week, for BH5 and 6 (I have to double up some of my review weeks in order to fit the entire Cubbies book into our Awana cycle) I had the kids decorate various animals which we added to our board, and then I put a large cut-out of Adam and Eve on during the lesson as well.  The kids enjoyed getting involved in lesson time.

For handbook time, I tried to make a craft that spanned the whole unit.  We made Creation books.

Using the resource cd that came with the leader handbook, I printed, cut and glued the covers onto regular file folders.  There were 21 registered cubbies in my group, so a lot of prep work went into these little books.  I put the names on each folder right away, and the kids could decorate them during handbook time while waiting to say their verses.  As you can see... not many did.  :)  More for them to do at home, later.

Day 1 and 2 were on the same worksheet.  They could decorate the water by gluing pieces of blue tissue paper on the sea, and the cotton balls for clouds.  The pictures on the top were to be put on 'light' and 'dark' to show what sorts of things we do during the day vs. during the night.  I learned pretty quickly that this was a difficult activity without more helpers, and it was parent night, so we were lucky to have a few parents to help the kids with the glue and tape. This was done during bear hug 3.  (photo of a page from a child that was not there that day)

Day 3 was coloring the land, plants, and water, with stickers for the apple tree.  I tried finding flower stickers and was disappointed to come up with nothing.  None of our dollar stores carried them, and the scrapbooking store wasn't open when I tried going there.  Ah well.  I think I'll just have to nab flower stickers whenever I see them through the year at our local dollar stores so I have them for a few years down the road.  This was for bear hug 4.

Day 4 saw the kids coloring the sun and adding star stickers.  I glued an aluminum foil moon to the black paper before gluing that down on each sheet of paper as well.  I modified the printable on the resource cd to get rid of all the extra ink as it was originally blue with a moon and stars already.  As with Day 3, this one was also an activity for BH4.

Day 5... the kids were to trace the fish and bird.  I had some fish stickers they could apply, and they could draw 'v' shapes for birds.

Day 6 was a coloring sheet with animal stickers to apply.  I printed and added Adam and Eve to each sheet as we were doing the review for BH6 with BH5 on one week.  The kids loved adding stickers!  A tip... some of the kids had trouble with the backs of some of the stickers.  I'm not sure why, but a few of them did not want to come off.  Even us adults had some difficulty.  The cheaper dollar store ones were easier to remove than the more expensive versions.

A simple coloring page for day 7.

Each week, I got the leaders to put the kids pages back into their craft bag, and I took them all home so I could assemble them at the end of the unit.  A tip: get one zipper bag per group (found ours at the local dollar store... I'll hopefully do a post with pictures later of these organizing ideas) and put all the craft items needed inside the bag to set out for your leaders each week.  If you can, label the pages before hand.  Makes it easier for your leaders as they just need to pass them out and not worry about whose is whose at the end of handbook time (especially if you are short leaders and it is difficult to remember to get their names on all their crafts).  At the end, have the leaders gather all the papers together into the bag for a multi-week craft such as this.  Otherwise, have the kids tuck their papers into their handbooks and bring them to their cubby holes for pickup at the end of clubs.

I hope this gave you some ideas for your own Cubbies group!  And I'd love to see what you've done with your group as well!

If you'd like, you can follow my pinterest group for Cubbies, here.  There are so many other ideas for creation unit crafts and snacks that would be great to check out!