Christmas Eve

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CHRISTMAS EVE

December 24, 2018, Christmas Eve Grade: K-2

Christmas Eve Social: Setting the Tone for the Experience 4:30 Find the Sheep • Large bag of cotton balls; hide cotton balls around room before kids arrive • Brown paper lunch bag for each kid 5:45 Stick the Bow on the Box • A bandana or blindfold; 1 for each small group • “Gift” Activity Page; 1 for each small group • Painter’s tape • Stick-on bows; 1 for each kid Bible: Communicating God’s Truth in Engaging Ways ( • Bible Presentation in Large Group Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect 4:30 Shout It Out • “Shout It Out” labels; 1 label for each kid • Green and red paper; 1 piece (of one color) for each kid • Tape • Crayons • Smiley face stickers 5:45 Best News Ever • “Best News Ever” Activity Page; 1 for each kid • Crayons Prayer • No Supplies Dismiss

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CHRISTMAS EVE

December 24, 2018, Christmas Eve Grade: K-2

Christmas Eve Social: Providing Time for Fun Interaction (Small Groups, 15 minutes) Before kids arrive, pray for each regular attendee by name. Pray for those who might visit your group for the first time. Pray that your kids would develop a heart that would be about everyone knowing Jesus! Ask God to stir their hearts to not keep what they hear this weekend to themselves and for every kid to recognize that they were created to tell this news to the world! 4:30 Find the Sheep What You Need: Cotton balls, brown paper lunch bags What You Do: • Act like you’re sharing a secret surprise with the kids, and tell them something is hidden around the room. • Hand them each their own brown paper bag and let them go looking for the hidden objects. • You can tell them they’re “hot” or “cold” as they look for the cotton balls, or you may want to give them silly clues, like “If that cotton ball were a mosquito, it would bite Simone’s leg right now!” What You Say: “Hey! These white fluffy cotton balls kind of look like white fluffy sheep. You know what? I think we talked about some sheep and their shepherds yesterday! [Transition] Let’s go to Large Group now and hear some more!” Lead your group to the Large Group area. 5:45 Stick the Bow on the Box What You Need: Bandana or blindfold, “Gift” Activity Page, painter's tape, stick-on bows What You Do: • Tape the “Gift” Activity Page to the wall at the kids’ eye level. • Play a Christmas version of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” but with a gift and bow instead. • Line kids up about two feet away. • Let them take turns wearing the blindfold and attempting to stick their box on the gift. • The kid who gets his bow the closest to the center of the ribbon wins. • To make it more difficult (and more hilarious), spin the kids around three times and point them toward the wall before they stick their bows on the gift. What You Say: “That was SUPER fun! Great job, everyone. I’ve loved all these crazy fun Christmas games we’ve played all month long. Let’s head to Large Group!” Lead your group to the Large Group area.

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CHRISTMAS EVE

December 24, 2018, Christmas Eve Grade: K-2

Christmas Eve Groups: Creating a Safe Place to Connect (10 minutes) Create a safe place to connect and learn how the Bible Truth applies to real life experiences, through interactive activities and discussion questions. 4:30 Shout It Out What You Need: “Shout It Out” labels, red and green paper, tape, crayons, smiley face stickers What You Do: • Hand out crayons, paper, and fun stickers to each kid and allow kids to decorate their paper. • When they seem to be finishing up, help kids roll their papers into a cone shape and secure them with tape, making “megaphones.” • Give each kid a label to place on their megaphone. • Instruct kids to wait to use them. What You Say: “We have been talking all month about how we have joy because of Jesus! I’m excited because Jesus isn’t just for me and you. God’s love and life is for everyone. Let’s use our megaphones to shout out that Jesus is for everyone. One, two, three! JESUS IS FOR EVERYONE!” 5:45 Best News Ever What You Need: “Best News Ever” Activity Pages, crayons, and real newspaper What You Do: • Hand out the Activity Pages and ask if anyone knows what it looks like. (A newspaper!) • Let kids look at a real newspaper. Ask them a few questions like: Who reads a newspaper? (Hopefully they’re not sarcastic enough yet to understand the irony of that question!) Who writes the newspaper? Why do we have them? What kinds of things do newspapers talk about? • Let kids begin coloring the picture. Point out the word “author” and guide kids to notice that it’s blank. Tell them they can write their name or draw a small picture of themselves in the blank. • Help them fill in the blanks on the page. (joy, God, Jesus) • Ask each kid who they are going to give their “Best News Ever” paper to. What You Say: “Wow! Your pictures look like real newspapers! And the best part of them is you get to give them to someone else! Just like we aren’t going to keep our papers to ourselves, we don’t want to keep the best news ever to ourselves because it’s AWESOME! That makes me excited. I know that God’s love and life is for everyone.”

Pray and Dismiss (10 minutes)

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What to Do: Make one copy on cardstock for each small group.

Gift December 2016, Week 4, Small Group 2-3 ©2016 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

What to Do: Print the next page on Avery® labels 8164 or equivalent. Make enough copies for every kid to have one sticker.

Shout It Out December 2016, Week 4, Small Group 2-3 ©2016 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

What to Do: Make one copy for each kid.

BEST NEWS EVER December 2016, Week 4, Small Group K-1 ©2016 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights reserved.