Day-to-Day Kidmin Favorites

After 20+ years of Kidmin, I've tested and used many products. This episode lists some of Amber's favorite day-to-day Kidmin products, activities, and resources. 

Make sure to check out:

amberpike.org

https://church.renewanation.org/

Mavelous Tape

Intentional Children's Ministry

Top 50 Bible Lessons About Ordinary People in God's Extraordinary Plans

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Kidman Huddle with Amber Pike, where children as ministry leaders get equipped, encouraged, and empowered to disciple with intentionality, growing God's kingdom one child at a time.

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. So I have been in children's ministry since I was 15. I started as a helper before that, but 15 I took over. So over the last however many years that is, there are a lot of things that I have used. Some I've loved, some I've never used again. I've gone through a lot of stuff because if you're serving in children's ministry, you understand that we often use stuff, right? We are engaging the kids. We are doing crafts or games or making lesson time come alive. So there's a lot of stuff, things that maybe we're using to craft the lessons, things for the kids, all that. So I thought this episode would be fun just to tell you some of the stuff that I'm using on the regular. Now, 38-year-old Kidman Miss Amber is using different things than 21-year-old, than 15-year-old. I have definitely grown as a leader. What I use, what I put my seal of approval on has definitely gotten choosier. There are less curriculum books, resources that I give my thumbs up to, but these are the things that I just kind of use in the regular and I've broken it down some different categories. So stay tuned. It's going to be tons of fun. Maybe you'll get some ideas. So first I have a 10 list, a list of 10 things that I am using frequently in my lessons. Number one, you have heard me talk about it. Hopefully a timeline timelines are key. I use it so much. I started this at my last church. So like four or five years ago, using a timeline, I had a simple like one page poster on a, on a cardboard frame. Now I've got a two page poster mounted on my wall and I use it literally just about every lesson. Why? Because it helps kids understand where we're at in the biblical narrative and the biblical narrative is key. Get you a timeline. Even my first book is a timeline book. I love timelines. So good. Kids can make their own. You can do a simple poster. You can get a really in-depth one. However, I use my timeline. Number two, I got some props if you're watching this visually, solo cups. There are about a million different uses for solo cups. You can use them for games. My favorite is craters and volcanoes. If the cup is facing down, it's a volcano. If it's facing up, it's a crater. Divide the kids in half, put the cups half the way. Their goal is to get it the same. This game can be a wonderful gospel illustration. Try as you might, you can never get the cups all the way that if your team, well, try as we might, we can now get rid of our sin. We need Jesus. So, so many games that you can do with cups, critters and volcanoes, um, just walls of Jericho. If we're doing lesson engagement, there's so many things in the Bible that we can build with cups. I used many little tiny solo cups because I was traveling and didn't travel with full size cups and taught a lesson to kids on how we can't pick and choose parts of the Bible. And we made a cup tower and then we removed one. Hey, super fun. It's on my YouTube channel. Go check out how to do that. Loved it with the kids. This is a great pre-service. I don't know about you, but my kids love stacking up their cups. I have many pictures on my phone over the years of kids. Take a picture of this. Look how tall it is. It's a great way they're working together. Put some worship music on in the background, some scripture memory songs, let them play with cups. I have done magic tricks with these cups. Even I did a really cool one during VBS about is God, is Jesus fully God, fully man. And the trick was in cutting out part of the cup and you're moving around. Ping pong balls, really fun. Also, my YouTube channel, check out how to do that. Your kids are going to be like, what? So, so many solo cups, different colors, all the cups. I use cups all the time. Number three is a blue photo backdrop. So I am not super... handy, but I am, but I'm not. Um, and maybe I'm just lazy that I don't want to build these big VBS sets, like the big wooden frames and all of that. I need to go a little simpler because I'm always doing the bulk of the work for VBS. So I use photo backdrops and over the years, I've just started buying the blue ones and using it every year because, um, sky makes a wonderful backdrop every year. So last year for us, it was a jungle backdrop. Um, and so that was a sky and it had vines hanging down and it was really cool this year. It was just the blue back around. I had clouds going to the side and the big logo. It works great. So it's a great photo backdrop. It's a great VBS backdrop set backdrop, but then I use it during lesson time too. So a couple of weeks ago when I was out, I sent it with my mom who was subbing for me and it was the story of Jonah. And so the kids, they put that on the ground and that was there. Then they were in the boat on the photo backdrop. It's really big. So it's going to be bigger than a bed sheet. I used to use a bed sheet back in the day, but a photo drop, it's just big. It's fabric. It's durable, multi-purpose. Think about all the Bible lessons that involve water. We did one just kind of small time church and I by myself held up the photo backdrop and I had the kids walk through like they were the Israelites crossing the Red Sea with the wall of water beside them. And then they ran around the room and came back. And this time they were the Egyptians. And when my kids got right beside me, I threw it on them. They didn't know it was coming and they all giggled. And that was the water falling on the Egyptians. You can also use it as kind of a mystery thing. If you have some really cool props for your lesson, use the backdrop covered on the table and reach in and pull out the things and the whole lesson kids are going to be like, what is under there? So blue fabric backdrop, use it all the time. Another thing that I use all the time is Canva. I spend tons of time on Canva. What am I making? Well, lesson wise, I make a lot of trivia games. Bunch of them are on my website, but I will craft them just for whatever lesson And I like those full body interactive games. So we're choosing this or that, or we're holding up a finger or an arm. We are picking a corner one, two, three, four with our bodies. I want to involve the kids' bodies because that's aiding in, you know, waking up our brains, helping us remember more. And it also just helps with classroom management when we're using our bodies. So I make a lot of trivia games, lesson games, intro games using our bodies. I'll give you an example. This Sunday, my lesson was on praising and I started out with a four corners game of favorites so go to the corner of your favorite candy and I had one two three four corners with the candy and they had to pick and they moved their game so that was my tie-in my intro to praising and we talked about how if we got all of our favorite things the things we love when things are going good it's easy to praise right but what about when it's not so their bodies were engaged and I use canva a lot to make this the visual and engagement as well. I can absolutely do with me just saying it, but if I've got it up on screen, it's a visual engagement. I'm kind of hitting different learning smarts, learning styles. I'm engaging more kids at the same time when I've got that visual. So I'm on Canva a ton. Number five is my favorite tape of all time. Now, I know some of you, been there, done that, are dictated by a property committee of what kind of tape you can use. I, at my first church, was told blueprint only. And do you know what blue painter's tape holds up on a concrete wall? Absolutely nothing. It's horrible. I hate blue painter's tape. Thankfully, I'm in a church now where they're like, you need to use duct tape? Sure. But the tape that I use is called Marvelous Tape. Now, it sounds like I'm saying the word marvelous wrong. So take out the R in marvelous. It's marvelous. M-A-V-A-L-U-S. This stuff was apparently designed by a teacher. And And it comes in really colorful rolls. Right now, there is no white available. So I had yellow and red for VBS. And this stuff is strong. So a little, you know, tape roll in your four corners of a poster is going to hold a regular poster on a concrete wall all of VBS week. And as long as you are not like ripping it off the wall, it is not taking tape when it comes off the wall. I have had in... Ooh, 15 years of using this tape. I've had probably less than five times when it destroyed the wall. And that was usually by a teenager who was not being careful to take it off the wall. You can oftentimes peel this off of your posters if you're reusing your posters. So love this tape. I keep it in my bag. I stock up for VBS and I treat it like a precious commodity. And I'm, I entrust you with my tape. Love this tape. It will make things so much easier. All right. That's, we got down to five. Number six, IU every week, we use shaky eggs. Now I have younger kids in my class. My eight-year-old daughter is my oldest and she likes music and doing what the other kids do. So every single week we use shaky eggs while we sing the books of the Bible to the New Testament rock song that I've had for like umpteen years. Normally I would not do something every single week because oftentimes the kids get tired of it. However, my kids love it. So I see no need to shake Shake things up, but I'm bummed. Shake things, shaky eggs, get it. I'm going with it. They still love it. So I'm going to keep the shaky eggs going as long as they're content to do it. It's a full body thing. They're chanting the books of the New Testament with this and they're shaking their eggs. I love shaky eggs. Great for littles. We also added in scarves this week. We danced with joy like David and I bought a set of scarves and that was a lot of fun too. But shaky eggs, my kids love them. Number seven is a mystery box. I love a good mystery box. Mine is a homemade DIY. It's covered in tablecloth and the tape is peeling off of it. So I need to make a new one, but I took one of my many Amazon boxes, cut a flap in it. The flap is still there so we can reach in and pull something out. What do I do with this? So at Christmas time, I put different pieces in there that would represent part of the nativity story. And the kids would pick something out, see if they could feel and guess what it is, then bring it out. I've had different things where I'm putting in different pieces of the story and pulling them out. I also made a new one for VBS that is an applesauce box because they're a little sturdier than like a tissue box. Cut the slot out of the top, duct taped it. This is my new secret sauce. Duct tape your boxes. It gives them some extra durability. It's not going to peel like paint. It's not going to get picked like a tablecloth. So I made a duct tape box and this is a prize trivia box. So I write on index cards, put them in there and then the kids will pull one out. It'll either say prize the very few of them and they get a prize or it's a question for our lesson. So maybe we're doing attributes of God and it's a yes or no. This card that you pulled out is an attribute. Yes, I do that with my non-readers as well. They can still pull things out and Miss Amber reads the card for them. So good mystery box, multi-purposed. You're going to use it a lot. Number eight, my happy mail cart. I have a whole, I love those, those three tier carts. Walmart has them. Amazon has them. They come in all the colors or toppers for them. I love them. I think they're amazing. I have like five at my house and my house isn't that big. That tells you how much I love them. But on the top section of the cart down by my desk in my basement office, which is also our school room, because again, small house, it's my happy mail section. I have got stickers, multiple types of stickers kind of divided by it. I've got confetti. I have dinosaur like glitter sequins, confetti things. I've got stamps. I've got fun markers, fun envelopes, um, pictures that I have printed out. These are more like burst pictures that I'll pop into a parent or something, but I have a whole cart of happy mail postcards galore. Why? Because happy mail is so important. It is a great way to connect with kids, to connect with parents, to connect with volunteers. Everybody loves happy mail grownups included. So I have a cart full of things and I'm all the time making new ones. I got an idea yesterday for a new postcard creation that I want to make. That's on my to-do list today. Happy mail, schedule it in your planner. I have a Kidman planner that I made for me and it's who am I hitting with happy mail? Who hasn't had happy mail? Trying to make sure all of my kids get it at different times. Small church, I could send the same kids one every month and be okay. But if you're big church, you need to schedule out. Maybe you're going alphabetically. A through G is this month. H through L this month. You know, however you need to do it, make sure all the kids are getting happy mail from you or another leader in your church. So, well, I have a cart at home, I have prepared Happy Meal kits for my leaders before. Cards, envelopes, postcards, stamps, fun markers, and an address list. This is a great thing to make for your small group leaders, for your Sunday school teachers, Wednesday night coordinator. Maybe you have some sweet old ladies at your church who would take great joy in writing cards to the kids throughout the year, praying over the kids and then sending them a card. Great way to involve some of your Maybe seniors who are less mobile can't chase the kids, but by golly, they can write him a card and pray for him. Make a plan for Happy Meal. Number eight. No, nine. That was eight. Oval bins. I have tons of Dollar Tree bins, but this is a Walmart bin. And they had them in pink and blue in summertime. Because at VBS, I do the pink team versus the blue team. So great. You can put like your cups in or your balls that you're playing a game for. Or I have these in different colors too. And I will play games with them. So I will put little hand-drawn signs on them if we're sorting something in our game. Jesus, or the other one might say not. I have done crinkle paper because I have a lot of crinkle paper, and I will hide clues from the lesson, and the kids have to dig them out. These oval bins are great. They stack together. They're bright. They're colorful. Games for minute to win it, for prizes, for competitions, for storing things. You know, maybe you're bringing your solo cups in the bin and keeping them nice and tidy. Or maybe you're using this as part of your lesson where kids are investigating and discovering parts of the lesson. Well, you're making it a search and find. So the same things that you would talk to them is Jesus. This did this happen. Now print it out, make it a little review thing in there. They get to dig for the piece, read it. Boom. You just made your lesson a little more engaging. Okay. And the number 10 from this portion of the list, the thing that I use all the time in my lessons is physical Bibles. I know shocking, but I want kids to be in God's word. So I want them holding a Bible in their hands. My littles, I'm working on Bible literacy, even though they cannot read yet. I will turn, my helpers will turn. We will find the spot in the Bible and I have the kids put their finger. We go over what is the chapter number. That's the big number and the little number. And we will put our finger on it. Even if they can't read it as good literacy practice, kids need to know how to navigate their Bibles, how to find things in there. That's why we work on the books of the Bible every day in Sunday school or until children's church. We sing our Old Testament. We sing our New Testament. We are in our physical Bibles. We are seeing God's word, not on the screen, but holding it ourselves, even if they cannot read. I make sure all of my kids at church have a Bible. I will give Bibles to kids who come in and say they don't have them. To me, it's kind of baffling because my kids have about a million each, right? But not all families buy their kids Bible. So the church buys them. They get a special Bible when they're baptized after salvation, then it's baptism, but the baptism is a special Bible. And we also have a classroom set. I am a big fan of the Adventure Bible. I wish I liked an ESV Bible for kids. I don't think there's a great ESV translation that I love. So publishers, if you're by chance watching this, please make a cool ESV Bible for my kids because that's what our pastor uses. I would love to have that consistency. But my favorite Bible is the Adventure Bible for kids. So we have a classroom set of them. I will either catch them on sale on Amazon or when I go to Half Price Books and I see one for a I use it and I use my teacher's discount as a homeschool mom. I've got a teacher's discount at Half Price Books and I will buy it. Who cares if it's used? They're using it in the classroom. So those are 10 things that I use on the regular. Got a couple of other lists for you. I have five things that I do not use in children's ministry. I do not use snack time because I think it cuts into learning time when you're having to take 10 to 15 minutes to pass out a snack like the kids eat the snack, clean up the mess that someone inevitably made Wait for the kid who wants more, the kid who's really slow. It's a waste of class time. So occasionally we will have a snacktivity where we are making a snack that's teaching as part of the lesson. I do have a snack available before Sunday school because we're there for two hours and not all parents feed their kids, but I'm not wasting class time for snack time. Number two that I don't use, I don't use videos that are longer than three minutes. I think video clips are an excellent tool. It can help kids visualize the Bible in a fun, creative, very well done way. But if it's longer than three minutes, than three minutes, it's taken too much of the teaching time. We're losing kids. I want to be able to teach them. I want them engaged in the lesson, not disengaged from a video. The video shouldn't replace the teacher. Same thing with number three. I don't use a plug and play curriculum. I don't want to just push play on a video and let my kids watch that. Back in the day, I used to use one that was a little more video heavy, but it was really well done and the kids would like it, except by about the third lesson in that series, they were disengaged. And I would just see that it didn't go so well. This one had, I think, four different video segments. And though they were very well done, my kids weren't engaged. So I think that plug and play curriculum doesn't work. I want to be able to craft the lesson. I want to be able to look at the lesson and say, yes, this is going to work for my particular kids. No, they're going to need some tweaking. So yes, I write my lessons. Maybe you don't write your own lessons, but you should never just get your curriculum and then hop right in and teach it. Take the time to preview it before. Make the tweaks and adjustments that are going to make it a fit for your children's ministry. Number four that i don't use in children's ministry is toy stations i see some churches they'll have you know 20 30 minutes of free play or they'll have the the home station or the stuffed animal station all this for kids to go to these learning centers nope don't do it i don't have toys in my classroom except for like legos and cups that are maybe a pre-service before part of the lesson but these stations yes kids do learn from play but i can involve that play in the lesson time that's more intentional teaching so i don't do toy stations and then number five that I don't use. I don't use kids furniture. So if you've seen me in person, I'm a tall girl. I was a tall kid. My daughter is very tall. My son is giant. He's 14 and he towers over me now, not towers over me, but I'm starting to look up at him. He's taller than me. So I have had big kids in my ministry. I have had some very large children, both in height and weight. Now, preschool furniture is designed for very small preschoolers. Kids' furniture is designed for your average kid. Think about the size of the children who are currently in your ministry or may come in your ministry. When they walk in and find this very small furniture designed for the average, which is not really the American average size child, are they going to feel awkward or uncomfortable because they don't fit? We had, unfortunately, we had a kidney bean shaped table in my classroom and I hated it. Only five kids fit at this table. It's a horribly designed thing that I don't think anyone who met children had designed. And my daughter, who's very tall, would have to sit with her her like legs squished out to the side because she couldn't fit her legs under the table. I use grown up furniture. I've got a table from Costco chairs from Amazon. They're bright. They're fun. They stack up well. And you know what? Those little guys and gals, they're used to being an adult size furniture. They'll be OK. I love risers. Easy risers are great, but I don't use kids furniture. I want all the children to feel like they fit in there as a bigger kid. I empathize with children who are not the average size and I want them to feel included. So those are five of my don't do's. I already have three websites that I'm frequenting for you, or yes, I'm telling you about the three things that I'm frequenting all the time as I'm crafting lessons. One, I already told you Canva. Two, I've been using ChatGPT a lot more. I did recently, I just did a puppet theater on the account of Rat Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. So I had ChatGPT make me some images that I was using as like my puppet stick theater. I'm using it frequently for some simple coloring pages. It's not replacing me. It's not crafting my lesson, but it's helping me with some images that I really need. And then if I weren't me making it the places that I'd be going, I'd be going to amberpike.org to get some games, to get some lessons, to get those cool postcards. Also church.renewination.org And then I would be checking out Family Faith Builders by Vanessa Myers, which I do because I'm not her. It's got great family discipleship resources that you pay like a$10 church price for most of them, which is great. Deeper Kidman has lots of options when you're looking for things. And then Kidman Corinne is making some really awesome kits and resources and curriculum. Those are some websites you should check out. All right, my top three, recycle and repeats. These are the things that I am doing all the time and I'm just updating the theme. to engage kids in the lesson. These are more engagement things. So I'm making a lot of this or that themed games where the kids are either moving to this side of the room or that side of the room. They are pointing, arms raised, something like that. But this or that themed things. I just did one on the inerrancy of scripture. So it was a trivia question. True, false, move this way, move that way. However you're doing it. Again, I like those full body. I'm doing tons of those. I'm also doing a lot of kind of sorting papers. We did a series, not a series, but several lessons on heaven. So I have a heaven or not sorting paper and I just designed it on Canva and I'm printing out slips of paper with a thing. And then I would use my, my cool buckets and I would have crinkle paper in there and the kids are going to dig through and find a card and decide, is that heaven or not? Or we did it with Jesus. Yes or no. Or maybe I would have a pile or a bucket or something and they would pick one out and they would would go stick it in something. So kind of relay run it. I have small kids who are not, most of them are not readers. So we don't do multiple games, but that would definitely be like a team game activity. If I had more older kids where they're going to relay and put it into the right thing. So lots of sorting papers, it's interactive, it's visual, it's auditory, super fun. And then I do a lot of thumbs up and thumbs down to the point where I made like a little flag with the thumbs up and thumbs down. It's a great kind of intro lesson, reviewing what you have learned at the end of the lesson reviewing even just kind of these concepts in the lesson thumbs up thumbs down everybody has two thumbs so it's a low prop thing right so they're doing it okay tell me what you think does this sound like a true account that was in the bible thumbs up if yes thumbs down if no easy to do even if this is not a full-fledged game but you're just adding this in for a little three questions because you need to recenter the kids but i'm using those three things all the time, just updating them. They work, they engage the kids, they move their bodies. Love it. All right. My last list for you of things that I'm using on the regular. I don't have a church office right now. Last church I was staff. I did. I had an office, all the things I needed to be there. No church office, just a classroom. So there's a lot of stuff that I'm not leaving at the classroom because I can't lock it up through the week and just transporting stuff back and forth. So I have a really cute bag. It's a black bag from Amazon and I've added patches on it. I just got ballooned dog patches, super pumped, and a big old donut patch. So I've got my cute bag that makes me happy. Maybe I might end up adding some VBS patches. Who knows? Inside my bag, I keep a roll of butcher paper. It's one of the shorter rolls, so it fits in my bag. I think this one is brown, just craft paper. We use it. We use it when we need to make a big mural, if I need to cover the tables for an activity. We just made an A to Z list of things that's taped on my wall. I've got that, and you better believe I'm bag. I got a spare roll of marvelous tape. I have my Bible in case we have visitors. I don't always want to count on those classroom Bibles being there. So I have my Bible, which is a translation of the kids Bible. So this is not my personal study Bible, not my personal travel Bible. I have a special travel Bible that is, I had it when I was 18. So you do the math like 20 years old. But I've got that classroom Bible. I have fossils in my bag. One, because my niece will bring me fossils. She finds fossils. But two, I pull out a fossil a lot when I'm teaching. So I've got fossils. I'm also notoriously bad for emptying out my bag. So in full disclosure, I've got old lessons in my bag and old activities. I have a speaker in my bag that can hook up to my phone. We do have a TV in my classroom and it's a smart TV. So I can, you know, stream from my computer and get the sound and stuff. But I do have a speaker in there for maybe if we're going into the big room, the fellowship hall, and we're playing a game or maybe I just need some really loud music. And this thing gets really loud. So I have a speaker. And then lastly, I have this plastic envelope, like a letter size envelope, and it's full of baggies of stickers. This is my prize. Super win is stickers for children's church. We get either a candy or a toy, like a little squishy thing, but I didn't want them going home twice with the, with the candy. Cause some parents, not me, but some parents are not big candy things, candy fans. So I have different collections of stickers and our Sunday school treat is we get a sticker. This past, yesterday, this week, we had Clark the shark. No, I'm sorry, Jeff the shark. I don't know why the shark is named Jeff, but he has his own sticker line. And one of the kids was so excited that Jeff the shark was eating a slice of pizza. I have cows. I have donuts. I have silly faces foods. I have some Christmas ones coming up. I've got just tons of different random stickers. And they love it. One kid is decorating their Bible with their stickers. Some of them, like my daughter, has a special box of stickers. She has a notebook of stickers. Kids like stickers. These are the big ones. It's a win. Super cheap on Sheen. You see why that got all jumbled in my mouth? I buy a lot from Amazon, but Sheen had them really, really cheap, like$1.50 a pack of like 48 stickers. Individually, I don't have to cut them. Big win. Okay. So, So that's a little glimpse into some of the stuff that I am using on the regular as a kid mid leader. Oh, I forgot books. How could I forget books? Okay. So books, three books that I would recommend. Of course, I am going to suggest to you intentional children's ministry. If you are serving in children's ministry at all, you should read this. It is 20 plus years of experience. It's going to lay the foundation for, for children's ministry biblically. What's it supposed to look like, but then challenge you to do everything with intentionality because every hour you have with kids, could make an eternal difference and we don't have time to waste. The next is my newest book, the top 50 Bible lessons about ordinary people and God's extraordinary plan. This is a wonderful sub resource. I was out for a week. I prepped my sub with lessons from here. Then I was emergency out because I caught germs from traveling to Iowa. And this was just a lifesaver. Just print out a lesson. It's completely reproducible. It has activities in there. copied it out, sent it to my sub. I didn't have to worry. And I got to sit and feel better. So great sub resource. It's got depth. It's got doctrine, theology, all the things that I want in a book. And then just a great resource is bite-sized theology. It's a really small book and it's going to literally be definitions of some of those big theological terms that we might hear. I teach them to the kids. I have a theology wall for my kids. I want my kids to learn big theology terms. And sometimes being honest, I need to refresh myself on the meat of that word. Wonderful resource for you. It's a short read. It's an A to Z thing of theological terms. So those are three books that you should check out. Now that's my list of things that I'm using on the regular. 20 plus years of children's ministry experience. Is there more? For sure. I could make podcast after podcast of cool things that I've used and love, but this is just kind of the stuff that I'm loving using, doing right now. I would love to hear from you what some of the stuff you're loving using, doing, or what kind of questions do you have? What are you looking for? Please reach out to me. You can Send me a message on Facebook, Instagram. Shoot me an email, apike at RenewNation.org, apike0292 at gmail.com. Reach out. If I've heard of it, used it, maybe I can point you in a new direction. Or, hey, maybe you'll tell me something cool. My friends, yes, we have stuff in children's ministry. But remember, all that stuff that we're using, the resources we have, the boxes of VBS decor pieces and animals and cardboard boxes, all that stuff, it's all to help us disciple boys and girls. Remember to keep that as the key. All the things we're doing, all the things we're using should be helping us to disciple them because we want to see boys and girls walking with Jesus as lifelong disciples. And remember, what you do matters.