Cubbies BH11-14 - God is Faithful

Welcome to a series I'm doing on Awana Cubbies!  I hope you enjoy your time here.  If you'd like, you can visit my previous posts, or dive right in!

Introduction
How I started down the Appleseed Trail
Bear Hugs 3-6:  God is Creator
Bear Hugs 7-10:  God's Word is Truth
Extra Cubbies Fun - Gingerbread Nativities

The unit we just finished in Cubbies is the third unit in the Appleseed handbook... the story of Noah and the Ark. 

I wish I would have gotten pictures of the things I did with the kids for lesson time, but alas.  I keep forgetting to take my camera to the church each week.

For BH11, we learned that God made a promise to Noah.  He promised to keep him and his family safe when he sent the flood to destroy the whole earth.  The focus of this unit is on God being faithful.  God always keeps His promises.  I made an 'ark' out of a large piece of cardboard (we had just bought and assembled some shelves from Ikea, and I keep the cardboard as it is solid brown without images or extra paper).  Within the ark I cut a number of 'planks'.  During the lesson, I told the kids I was going to make a promise to give them each a 'plank' of cardboard.  After I kept my promise, we used those 'boards' to build the ark that I taped onto the back wall. 

During the handbook time, the kids got to build with blocks while reciting their verses.  For snack I used the pretzels from earlier as 'wood' and drew a simple boat on napkins for the kids to use as a 'base' to build their own arks out of pretzel sticks.  It was a fun activity that went over even better than I had thought it would! 

(again with blogger rotating the photo.  Anyone have any idea how to reorient these things?)

For BH12, as part of the lesson, the kids got to pretend to be animals.  I had them each bring a stuffed animal of theirs (and I brought 15 or so from home to make sure I had for anyone who forgot).  We made a larger 'ark' by shaping our floor matts into a large circle with one as a 'gate'.  They each got to bring their plushies into the ark.  It was a fun exercise, and they asked if we could do it again the next week.  We continued to talk about God's promise to keep Noah and his family safe, as well as all the animals on the ark.  It was a BIG promise... and God kept it.

For handbook time, we made paper plate 'arks' that we used to hold our animal cracker snacks later.  You will need two paper plates per child.  Cut a simple shape for the roof of the ark, and for underneath the rainbow.  I colored one to show to the kids before handbook time.  You can draw the lines of the ark and the windows if you wish.  You could even draw the lines for the rainbow.  I didn't, and allowed them to color it as they wanted.  Some made water on theirs, some did not.  When stapling the 'purse', be sure to leave the rainbow section open.  Just staple the base of the boat.  And then, at snack time, add animal crackers inside the boat!  My kids were asking if there were extras so that they could color one as well.  I got this idea from this pin.

For BH13, I added a rainbow that I had already made out of posterboard for my daughter's first birthday over the ark on the back wall.  (I knew it would work for me to keep some of those things).  I didn't do too many other extras.  Also, once again I combined BH13 and BH14... the rest of the BHs will have their own lessons now.  :)  I used the provided coloring sheets for the kids for during handbook time.  The snack was fun!  We made rainbow bracelets using pipe cleaners and Froot Loops.  I set out bowls of the cereal on the tables, and gave each child a pipe cleaner.  Most of them threaded the cereal onto their bracelets themselves, and they were easy to 'tie' afterward.  A few of the kids never kept any cereal on their bracelets.  :)  It was a messy snack, however.  Make sure to let your church custodian know, or have a broom on standby.  I got this idea from this pin here... and modified it a little myself, of course.

 

The focus was still on God's promises, and how He was faithful in keeping them.  Noah and his family and the animals were kept safe on the ark.  God removed the water and made the land dry once again, and they were able to leave the ark.  And then, after Noah worshiped God shortly after leaving the ark, God made a NEW promise, one which He has kept all these years... to never send a flood to destroy all of mankind again.

 

So that is unit 3 in a nutshell!  God is Faithful... He always keeps His promises.

Extra Cubbies Fun - Christmas Nativities

Welcome to a series I'm doing on Awana Cubbies!  I hope you enjoy your time here.  If you'd like, you can visit my previous posts, or dive right in!

Introduction
How I started down the Appleseed Trail
Bear Hugs 3-6:  God is Creator
Bear Hugs 7-10:  God's Word is Truth

Christmas is always so exciting, and while I know that this post is.. .well... very late, I wanted to post about this now before I forget and never post at all. 

The kids have most of December off from Awana as there are so many activities happening around that time of year with church and school plays, gatherings, and so on.  So, for us this year, the last day of Cubbies was on December 9th, 2015.  I wanted to do something for Christmas with the kids, but since we were working on Unit 2, God's Word is Truth, with the focus on the story of Adam and Eve, I wasn't quite sure how to fit it all in.  I ended up doing the main lesson for bear hug 9 (I joined 9 and 10 as BH10 is review anyway and I had only 25 total Awana nights to fit in all 28 sections).  The bear hug lesson ends with the sad story of Adam and Eve needing to leave the garden.  It then goes on to tell the kids that God still loved them, and because He loves us, He sent His Son (remembering the Cubbies key verse of 1 John 4:10, God loved us and sent His Son).  So, I used that portion of the lesson to add in a picture from the Christmas lesson (yes, there is a Christmas lesson.  I'd love to do these extra lessons as well, but then I'd need 32 weeks).  And with that, I told the kids about the fun activity we had planned.... Gingerbread Nativities!

Ok, ok... in reality they were graham cracker nativities (I didn't want to have to bake enough gingerbread for 20 houses).  I found an awesome recipe for icing that was quite solid right away and worked really well for the project.  I also cut the graham crackers so that each child needed 2 full crackers for their project.  Otherwise, it was fairly simple.

I took one graham cracker and cut it at an angle to get the two side walls.  The second cracker was cut in half for the roof, with the other half cut in half for the back wall, and then the last quarter was halved again to make the manger.  It was all assembled on a paper plate (not the Styrofoam ones... they aren't as sturdy and the icing sticks better to these plates, even if they cost a little bit more.  Plus, I had a craft in January that needed paper plates as the kids would be coloring on them with crayons.  Styrofoam isn't as good for that, either).

I decided I didn't want too much sugar for the kiddos, so I bought gumdrops, some traditional candies, and then used mostly Froot Loops, pretzel sticks, and shredded wheat for added color, wood, and hay.  I also found some gingerbread men at Walmart.  We added a staff for good measure.  Get some animal crackers and you are all set!

And helpers.  You will need lots of helpers on the day the kids are decorating, especially for a preschool group.  Ask parents a week or two before hand if they are able to assist during that time.  One helper for every 2-3 kids is ideal.

I spent a lot of time prepping for this one!  Two days before the event, it is a good idea to make a 'demo' version to make sure you have what you need.  Make sure you cut all the pieces (and a few extra) at home, and get everything ready to bring down to the place you'll be making these.  The day before the event, head there with all your stuff.  Cover the workspace with paper for easy cleanup, take your bag of icing and all your plates and cut graham crackers, and start assembly!  They really don't take too long.  I found that once I was working on assembly, each nativity only took about one to two minutes. 

On the day of, I had all my helpers use the icing bags (I made sure I had 6 bags of icing, but really should have had more... oh well, you live and learn I suppose), and the kids had fun using the goodies to decorate.  You cannot see it in this picture, but I made sure each plate had equal amounts of the gingerbread men, the gumdrops, the traditional candies, and the animal crackers as I didn't have an 'unlimited quantity' of those.  The rest of the ingredients went into bowls on each of the tables.

In all, it was a very fun activity!  The kids loved it!  Make sure you have one helper going around and labelling the kids plates so you know whose is whose!  And if you can get pictures of the kids, the parents would probably appreciate receiving those photos in their email (make sure you got permissions from the parents at the beginning of the year before taking photos of their kids, please).

And now, because I can, I made a video of the process!!  Yay!

Icing recipe
1 lb icing sugar (about 4 cups)
3 Tbsp meringue powder
4-6 Tbsp water.

Mix.  Add water one Tbsp at a time.  You want the mixture to be thick like toothpaste.  If you run your knife through it, you need to see a trench where the knife was.  But it still needs to flow through a piping bag.

Get enough bags for your leaders.  Actual disposable piping bags are best, but if you don't have a shop that sells those near you, a ziplock with a hole cut in the corner will work nicely.  Make sure they are a more sturdy bag (freezer bags will not break as easily), and seal the top (use rubber bands as extra insurance if needed... I didn't, but out of six bags, only one popped open).  I needed twice this recipe for 20 houses, and could have probably done with more (and had more bags).  I would suggest making a single batch, and then using it to assemble your houses prior to your Cubbies night.  Make more and separate into bags prior to arriving.

Other needed items
for 20 nativities, I needed the following:
20 paper plates
2 boxes of Honeymaid graham crackers
1 box Froot Loops
1 bag pretzel sticks
1 box Shredded Wheat
at least 3 animal crackers per child
1 box little gingerbread men (from Walmart.  There was not quite enough for each child to have 2, unfortunately)
some little candies of various sorts, separated per child.
two or three batches of above icing recipe

After all was said and done, it came out to about $2 per child, but with enough left over for more snacks (the Froot Loops were used in BH13, and the paper plates were used in BH12, and the pretzels were used for BH11)... so that is not bad considering the rest of the ingredients were used over another 3 weeks.

For more fun ideas, you can visit my pinterest page.  Hope you all had a great Christmas... even if it was a month ago!

Cubbies: Bear Hugs 7-10

Hello again!  Welcome to my little blog space about the Awana program called Cubbies for 3 and 4 year olds.  Here are my other posts so far...

Introduction
How I started down the Appleseed Trail
Bear Hugs 3-6:  God is Creator

This post is going to focus on the things we did during the unit "God's Word is Truth", which discusses the Adam and Eve and the fall of man.

I had some creative fun with this unit.  They have great ideas in the teacher's book, but I found myself always in charge of 'the boring snacks' each week (I had a list set up where parents can sign up to bring snack, which I already listed the snack ideas to go with the unit.  I found that all the 'veggie' related snacks were falling on me to prepare).  So, for bear hug 7, I decided to make 'Bibles' for the kids to eat.  Found this idea on pinterest.

 First, we bought fruit/cereal bars and cut them.  You can cut them in half, or, I ended up cutting the ends off as well as one edge to make them look like the filling was the 'pages', and then cut each in half to make 2 'Bibles' per bar.

 Using icing, pipe some details like a cross and 'binding' onto the bars.  (I am not sure why this blog insists on making this photo the wrong way)

Craft for bear hug 7 - I decided to make trees from toilet paper rolls with paper 'leaves' and red 'apples' to stick on for the kids.  I made pipe cleaner snakes that the kids could add to their trees.

Snack for BH8 - I had yet another snack to bring this unit, and decided to make pizza twists with a twist... I added raisins as 'eyes' before baking to make them into 'snakes'.  You can get the recipe here.

They were cute, and the kids enjoyed them (so did the leaders).

Other things we did - on the first lesson, I took my Bible and put it inside a cardboard treasure chest as was suggested by the teachers manual (I already had one I made for my son's birthday back in May).  I made a mini scavenger hunt with little envelopes with clues I had to read (one hid by the puppet theatre, one under one of the kids matts, that sort of thing).  The end prize was where the treasure chest was hidden.  God's Word is Truth... and it is a treasure as well.

On the last week, since it was the last Awana night before Christmas, we made gingerbread nativity scenes, and I brought the story of Adam and Eve needing to leave the garden into the promise that God said He'd send a Saviour someday... and led into a brief overview of the Christmas story before we headed to the craft room to make our craft.  I have a video (I need to finish editing it and put it up on youtube) on that which I will talk about... but that's another post.  The handbook time craft for that week was a coloring page... to keep it simple since the kids were so excited about their gingerbread houses.  :) 

That was probably the hardest unit, as it talks about things like sin, and Adam and Eve disobeying God and needing to leave the beautiful garden.  There were not too many craft ideas in pinterest on this either.

If you'd like, you can look at my Cubbies pinterest board here. 

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!

Cubbies: How I started down the Appleseed Trail

Hello, and welcome to the start of what I hope will be a fun set of posts about Awana Cubbies!  For those who don't know, Cubbies is the club group in the Awana program specifically designed for preschoolers aged 3 and 4 to teach them Biblical truths that are engaging at their learning level.  The Cubbies program tries to implement the five senses in teaching, reinforcing the lesson through a craft, a game, a snack, Bible memory, music, and the story.  There is also a puppet show that features Cubbie Bear, an adorable blue-vest wearing bear that is learning lessons along with the Cubbies, along with two of his friends named Luvie Lamb and Katie Collie.  They, along with Timothy (the little boy in the book), tell stories that reinforce the Bible lessons each week.  These sections are called 'Bear Hugs'. 

Each bear hug in the Cubbies books has a story about Timothy, Cubby, and their friends on the apple farm, Apple Acres.  It then moves to a Bible story that talks about the lesson the kids will learn in Awana Cubbies the following Wednesday.  There is a Bible verse to learn, and an activity that is optional for the parents to do with their kids at home.  I found these little ideas fun to do with my son when he was in Cubbies, although I didn't always do them.  One example was with the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 with five loaves of bread and two fishes... they suggested making a snack at home with bread and cheese cut into fish shapes.  My kids love things like that!

The Cubbies program starts out with a paper for the kids that includes the Cubbies key verse and the Cubbies motto for the kids to memorize, as well as pictures to color and stories to introduce the kids and their parents to this Awana program.  Once they have memorized and recited 1 John 4:10 (God Loved us and sent His Son) and the motto 'Jesus loves me' to their leaders (called bear hugs A and B), the kids each get their own Cubbies handbook.  The first two bear hugs in the handbook are the Appleseed Trail... A is for All (All have sinned, Romans 3:23) and C is for Christ (While we were still sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5:8).  These verses (and motto) are often repeated at the start of each Cubbies meeting, and it isn't long before all the kids know them and can recite them without help.

While preparing for these first 4 weeks, I will say I did not deviate from the teaching plans much at all.  I was still learning myself, after all, and I was very overwhelmed at the sheer volume of information I was taking in.  I had only signed on last minute, sadly.  It didn't seem like I'd be able to help at all, never mind be a director.  I found out the week that Awana was starting that there was no Cubbies director this year, and God promptly tapped me on the shoulder (a little harder than expected, mind you) that He wanted me to take the role.  I said I would, but only if there was babysitting available for my youngest two kids (I was thinking 'see?  I cannot do this, God!' and was coming up with my own version of Gideon's fleece!).  Well... the church found someone who would come in and watch the younger kids of leaders in any of the Awana club groups (there is also Sparks for K-grade 2 and T and T for grades 3-6).  I had my answer.  We started Cubbies a week later than the other groups, but I saw a lot of happy little faces show up that week!

I told God that He needed to equip me for this, as I had no idea what I was doing!  And you know what?  He told me I just needed to follow His lead, and He'd bring everything else in line.  I've had difficult days (I am a 'ducks in a row' kinda gal, and you cannot expect everything go according to 'plan' when it comes to 3 and 4 year olds... you need to be more 'go with the flow', which is something I've been learning).  Things didn't always go 'as planned'.  Actually, they rarely would. It has taken a while to get into a 'groove' to where I feel more comfortable with everything.  Not to mention teaching a lesson.  I was scared.  Yes... I was scared to teach a Bible lesson to a group of 3 and 4 year olds!  And I have kids of my own that I tell stories to on a regular basis!  I spent a lot of time praying that God would wipe that fear away, only to note that He was using it to help me spend more time preparing the lesson in general.  I've been learning more about Him and His Word in these stories than I'd thought!  After all, I've been through this program as a Cubby myself, and as a parent of two Cubbies, too!  You'd think I'd know this stuff!

God is interesting that way, isn't He?

I am so thankful that God is in charge.  I am grateful for the leaders in Awana, and specifically for those who are helping in Cubbies each week (leaders, you are well appreciated!  Thank you so much for volunteering your time to be here each week!).  And I am thankful for the Awana program, and what it teaches our kids about God and His Word.  I loved this program as a kid, and I am so glad to have my kids going through this program as well.

If you'd like to learn more about Awana, visit www.awana.org.  If you'd like to see some of the preschool craft and snack ideas I've pinned, you can visit or follow my Cubbies pinterest page.