I need Pre-service ideas!

[Jason Palmer]

I need some pre-service ideas.( before service starts) For the longest I have had a movie playing on the projector screen.Newer movie releases.I've noticed the kids that come every sunday get a little bored. New kids love it. I am now leaning towards video games. Maybe getting several nintendo ds's. they can play before the countdown. Anyone have ideas?

[Corey Black]

This is an area I've been working on as well. We have a great children's church room but there isn't enough space to put foosball tables, air hockey, etc. So what we've done was:
1. We do play a video on the big screen for those kids that want to watch it.
2. I built a carpetball table that kids love to play. (If you don't know what carpetball is, google it. The reason I chose this was because the table is very skinny and fits nice up against a wall...doesn't eat up too much floor space)
3. I ran a video announcement in the adult service for video game donations. We had gamecubes, nintendo 64's, playstation 2, etc donated. The kids don't seem to mind that it's not the latest and greatest. I have three tv's on carts that we roll in for preservice and roll out when service begins.
4. I bought a 4' X 8' sheet of white marker board type material from Lowes and hung it on the wall. I provide a supply of dry erase markers and let kids draw on it.
5. We have a table set up with crayons, paper and play dough that the kids can play with.
6. I set up a practice green and a golf ball and putter for them to play with.

Once the countdown begins, it takes my workers about two minutes to roll away the tv carts, put away the golf stuff, clean up play dough etc and then church begins.

It's not perfect but it's been working for us.

[Michelle Romain]

Games are a great idea and you can vary them every few month to keep them fresh. Set up sections or tables around the rooms with different themes:
1. Video games (including dance mats - Veggie Tales or Dance Praise)
2. Common games (Checkers, Connect 4, Old Maid, large floor puzzles)
3. Active games (cup stacking, Twister)
4. Toys (Hula Hoops, mini golf, bowling, beach balls)

This is one of the best times for the volunteers to build relationship with the kids. Encourage them have a Bible Trivia game going or even a simple game of Duck, Duck, Goose - kids of all ages love to interact with the leaders!

Select a few kids each week or month to be in charge of setting up and putting away the games - great ministry opportunity for kids to serve.

[Julie]

Our biggest hit for our Elementary aged kids "activity time"- is a home made carpet ball table. It's probably 12 feet long, and is narrow- with sides, and a lowered pit on each end. They use pool balls to try and knock their partners ball into the pit. the kids love it. it's such a big hit, that our student ministry area made on too. We also use a fooze ball table and air hockey table... the classics never get boring! :)

[David Stevens]

Love your ideas,

A couple of things I have been succesful with are large boxes for blocks. I was able to get about 40 Fed EX type shipping 11 by 14 inch by 2inch boxes... they are pret storng and the boys love to make castles and forts out of them. (they do take up a lot of storage space when not being used)

I also have about 250 plastic kids cups... like you would go with your kids meal at an applebees. I thought the kids would cup stack with them... instead they use them to build huge kids sized walls of cups. (these store great becuase that stack together.

[Sarah Thompson]

Wow they are some great ideas. I like the box one, might use it!

At the start we have what we call... The Part at the Start... creative I know...

We need to refresh our activities but we generally have dress ups, speed stacks (always a hit), coloring in table, library corner, other games and 4 square (a ball game). We try to have something for everyone.

[Lynne]

We've been setting out games (floor puzzles, Battle Ship, Connect Four, Checkers, etc), and having the kids play together for about 15 of free-play for all the kids who arrive early (they can only arrive 15 minutes before the start of the service). But we are considering taking away the free-play, because it seems to encourage randomness and chaos, and what we want is something that very intentional and purposeful connecting. We are moving toward taking away the games and making this a time where the kids sit in specific age-based groups with their small group leaders and talk together. We will prep the small group leaders with questions that have to do with our lesson that day, or just crazy questions to get to know the kids better, asking them about their week and connecting with them intentionally. It will still be a unstructured (meaning, we the conversations can go wherever they want!), but it's more intentional than free-play.

[Jill Nelson]

Along with all that's listed, Legos are very popular with our kids as well. We play Mario Kart on the Game Cube, which is the most popular, and is also a big draw in for new kids. Our kids also love to build walls out of cups.

[Emily Peck]

I love all these ideas!
Just out of curiosity how long does everyone's pre-service last? And how do you transition from pre-service to the start of service? I'm thinking of having a countdown going while pre-service takes place, then once pre-service is done another (shorter) countdown with an opening video that will get the kids engaged.

[Jill Nelson]

Our preservice runs from 15 minutes before service starts to between 5 and 10 after. It varies between services. Once we know how long the pastor goes during first service, we make some adjustments during the second. We signal the kids that it's time to clean up by playing a recording of Trumpet Revile. It only took a few weeks of playing it and announcing that it's time to clean up, and then the kids automatically knew what to do. Once they're done cleaning up they know to come sit in the worship area where we go through the welcome. Our class for k-3rd is called Adventure Mountain, so we always use 2 kids as volunteers to do our welcome. The leader leads them in saying "Welcome to..." and then one child leads in "Adventure!!!!" where they raise their arms like on a roller coaster and shout it out with excitement. Then the other child leads in "MOUNTAIN" in a very deep voice with their arms in a point like a mountain over their head (because of course, a mountainous voice is deep). It gets them excited to be there before going to small groups.

Emily Peck said:

I love all these ideas!
Just out of curiosity how long does everyone's pre-service last? And how do you transition from pre-service to the start of service? I'm thinking of having a countdown going while pre-service takes place, then once pre-service is done another (shorter) countdown with an opening video that will get the kids engaged.

[Matt Lee]

Kids are active little creatures. Possibly consider getting someone from your youth group to lead this time. Do large group games (you can find hundreds of ideas on the web), game shows like Double Dare, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, etc. We are facing the same dilemma right now. I got this idea from Children's Ministry magazine. I am anxious to see how well it works.

Whatever it is you have to keep it changing constantly so the kids are excited to see what the next Sunday will bring.

[Linda Kretschmaier]

There are some websites out there that have projected games or perhaps you can make your own using Powerpoint not too difficult to do, but much easier to buy one or two and the kids really love them.

[Margie Sussan]

I know for our sidewalk sunday school we do face painting and balloons . In our inner city minitry we set up tables with board games and playdough and paper and markers to do drawing. we did that for about 20 to 30 mins. With my smaller group on Wed night I may do hidden pictures or puzzles or a pre carft idea that ties into something pretaining to the theme for that day.