Methodist Children

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ John 8.12

Some of the resource ideas on this page are taken from:
Better Than Halloween by Nick Harding
Available from Church House publishing www.chpublishing.co.uk

One of the most effective ways in which a church can respond to Halloween is by providing an alternative party that focuses on light and gives children a really great time.
Planning an event – some things to think of:

Some suggestions: Light Night, Bright and Light, Lights of the World Night, Shining Stars, Son Light Night.

For teenagers you could organise a ‘’club night’’ dance music, Bin bag or scrap fashion show or a ‘Glitter Ball’ everyone dresses up in something glittery, have a sit down meal and Disco.

Ideas

Costumes
This depends on your theme: Rainbow, psycadelic colours, Bright and Breezy encourage them to be bright and imaginative. Offer a prize for the costume with the most colour.

Give-aways
Give the children something to take home:
Party bag these could contain badges, Bookmarks, balloons, pens, books.
Light sticks, Bracelets or necklaces www.glow-sticks.org

Craft Activities
Age 5-11yrs
Stained glass- Use permanent overhead projector pens and transparencies. You can draw a design on the transparencies that can be photocopied for the children to colour in. You could also make dream catchers or mobiles using the stained glass effect.
Collage
Create a large colourful collage subjects: Rainbow, Sunshine, Light of the World, Harvest, Colours of Autumn, Leaves, Fireworks

Puppets
Using old gloves as the body of the hand puppet, make card or fabric faces.
Make puppets from wooden spoons, based on biblical characters in the parables, decorate faces with paint, wool, make clothes. Perform the stories

11-13yrs
Fashion- You will need - Jumble sale or charity shop clothing or old items of clothing brought in by the young people, colourful material, ribbons, sequins, glue, needle and cotton, scissors. Encourage the young people to create new exciting and colourful fashions from the materials provided. Then hold a ‘’Junk to Funk’’ fashion show.

Tie Die
Use cold water die. Twist T-Shirts or pillow cases into a sausage shape and tie string or elastic bands at intervals of abount 5cms. Soak them in the dye solution according to the instructions, take out unravel and dry.

Bobsledding Bodies

Description

This is a team relay. Form teams of 4 - 6 players. Teams sit in a line and wrap their legs around the person in front of them. Place masking tape about 10 - 15 feet away to mark the end line. On "GO", teams must only use their hands to slide their way to the end. If a team breaks apart, they must get back together before they continue.

Cooperation Tag

Description

One person is it. Be sure to have a designated playing area. When the game begins, the person who is it chases people and tries to tag them. A person is safe from being tagged as long as they are holding the object (ball). When a person is tagged without holding the object (ball), they become it. Then the game continues.

You will need

Objective

All Over

Description

Divide into two equal groups. Each group should have the same amount of balls to start the game. Have the two groups stand on opposite sides of a center line.

The game leader shouts "All Over" to start the game. The balls can be passed to the other side by being kicked, thrown or rolled. As soon as there are no balls on one side of the center line, the game leader shouts "All Over" to signal the end of the game.

When using a large amount of balls, we would end the game after a few minutes and the group with the fewest amount of balls on their side wins.

You will need

Soft balls or beach balls. The size of the group will determine the number of balls needed. Each group should start with an equal amount of balls. You will need to have a line dividing the two teams. ( a jump rope works great)

Objective

To be the first team to pass all balls to the other team. Alternative objective: To have the least amount of balls after a timed game ends.

Do the Opposite!
You will need one person to be ‘caller’
Have a list of things for the players to do e.g. walk, run, sit down, stand still, jump up and down, scream, dance etc.
The game is to do the exact opposite to what you are saying.
Gradually remove all those players who get it wrong.
The last player remaining is the winner.

Corners
4 leaders and 4 pieces of paper with different pictures on. The pictures can be related to the party theme i.e. or you could just have numbers 1-4. You get the 4 leaders to stand in different corners holding one of the pictures and all the children to stand in the centre of the room. Play some music and get all the children to dance, when the music stops all the children run to a different corner. With your back turned to everybody you choose a corner and shout out "which corner" or "number corner", all children in this corner are out. The remaining children then go back into the centre and the game is repeated. The winner is the last one or two children left in a corner.
Alternative to this is once the children have gone to a corner you shout the winning corner out, the children in this corner win a small prize.

Tie a bunch of grapes to the end of a piece of string you can turn this into a relay game. (If you have four teams you will need one bunch per team)
Leaders hold the string at arms length with the grapes hanging down. On the word go the person at the front of the team runs to the grapes and tries to eat some then runs to the back of the team. Then the second person goes and so on until one of the teams has successfully eaten their grapes and is seated back in their places in a line.

Apple Bobbing
Large bowl filled with water, Towels and Apples
Place some of the apples in the water and set the challenge to see if anyone can take an apple out of the bowl using only their teeth.