We made a plan to provide sacks of materials to each family. We splurged on paper sacks with handles, and designed a logo that is printed on stickers. We deliver sacks to porches every few weeks.
Our first story was The Holy Bible from Volume 2 of "The Complete Guide to Godly Play" by Jerome Berryman. We bought inexpensive, very plain NRSV Bibles and sent those out in the first bag. Read more here about that choice.) A calligrapher in the congregation wrote first names on shipping labels aka bookplates so there is plenty of room for decoration. I recorded the Holy Bible story the first week, and invited the children to decorate their bookplate and have a parent help them put it in their Bible.
We bought a lot of white bookmarks with holes already punched. (Yes, we could have used cardstock, but I liked the bookmarks.) Each week I put lengths of yarn in for the tassel. I am a knitter/yarn collector so I can choose a variety of colors. We also put a small label with the scripture citation on each bookmark. When I record the story, I remind them to decorate the bookmark and place them in the Bible.
A retired teacher with an old Cricut and a new Cricut and a huge imagination makes up crafts. Each week she designs one craft to be an ornament, with a number, that somehow ties in with the story. We are brainstorming a way for families to use these as an Advent calendar, we think. She also plans a craft or activity and builds the parts on the Cricut, or we assemble them into kits.
We make up other activities to supplement the story. For instance, one week I assembled pictures of Jerusalem and Jericho along with elevation pictures to go with Samaritan. I wrote a photo scavenger hunt to go with the Pearl. One week the retired teacher made pots of mystery seeds to be planted. In a few weeks, we are adding gold boxes with a variety of supplies for “tell your own parable”. We print the craft instructions and include the necessary supplies.
We usually include a packaged food snack - once there was microwave popcorn that was also for a craft project. That was popular, although some ate it before they noticed the craft instructions.
We printed a set of address labels for the congregation, and every other sack, each child is asked to send a card to someone in the congregation. We randomly choose the recipients, and eventually every member
of the congregation will get one, and then we will start over. We also use the artwork we generate in the Zoom room to print thank you notes for the children to send to the helpers. We address and include stamps on the cards and thank you notes to make it easy for families. (More about the Zoom sessions in another post.)
I have gone through the Illustrated Ministry files I have purchased over the years and assigned coloring sheets to stories. I have a variety of other files I have purchased too - Chalice Press, Etsy, and so on. So we include coloring sheets or paper puzzles or resources or whatever we can find. My house looked like a blizzard for a while but eventually they all were filed into folders.
I shopped back-to-school sales for art supplies. We include those in bags when it makes sense. It is always fun to get new stuff. I think we will add some plain cardstock or water color paper occasionally too.
