Recognising the character in a story is a big part of how the bible comes to life for the youngsters. On JWL I try and give a brightly coloured, clear image for each character or story, if you chose to use that image or a different one, it doesn’t matter, but having a visual link will help the children identify with the characters strengths, weaknesses and importantly their journey through the story and their encounter with God.
Here is a mini directory of ways you can extend the use of the hero character through the lesson.
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salt dough – make a batch, give the kids a picture and see if they can create it. great for visual and kinetics learners. |
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puzzle – print the picture onto card and cut along the black lines – great for a hide and seek style game, quiz answers and a craft with the very young. |
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3D image – print out the character a few times and separate the various parts. use foam tape to separate layers and build a picture. |
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standing characters – use this template from Stephen to add a small stand to your characters, build a scene with them to tell the story. |
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Puppets – try attaching a character to a paper bag and turn it into a hand puppet, or use the standing characters but remove the bottom of the stand and have finger puppets. |
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Masks – the images can be blown up large and printed onto card to turn into masks. cut round the hair and the chin and add an elastic strap (like Mary’s crowns). |
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sticker on craft – incorporate them into other crafts by just printing and sticking it on (like Gideon’s horn) |
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colouring page – it’s overdone, and yet many kids still like having a colouring page as an expansion activity. |
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image transfer – make an object that incorporates your character by printing the image on T-shirt (or rub-on) transfer paper and add it to a T-shirt, baseball cap, flag, notebook, or stone. |
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wooden characters – if you want to splurge then I ordered some characters out of wood, they work out about £0.50 each and they are great to add into craft, paint or colour in with pens as pictured. |
This is a post in development, an ideas library I hope to add to, both with pictures as I use the ideas and with further ideas.
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[…] If you like the idea of finger Labyrinths but would rather do a different craft then why not print out this cross shaped one for prayer time and use one of the ‘using character images’ ideas? […]