snowman clips

 the front

The more years there are between me and student teaching, the less ideas I feel that I have for bus route and jr. church.  We didn't run our bus last week because of extreme snow in the county where we pick up, so I was able to delay the winter decorations on bus by another week. 

I had an AHA moment earlier today!  {love those!}  We pass out worksheets each Saturday for the kids to do and we encourage them to bring them on Sunday morning.  Sometimes, my Dad will hand out a prize for bringing their worksheets back but not always.  He does it randomly. 

As I was looking through my crafting stuff this afternoon, I found a whole bunch of clothespins that I had used for something else a while ago.  Snowmen + worksheets + clothespins + magnet strips = an idea!!

I downloaded a clip to our Print Artist program from Microsoft Office and added the name box at the bottom.  Printed these cuties off on cardstock.  Cut, add a name, then laminate, cut some more, add glue to the clothespin, attach the snowman, attach the magnet strip and boom!...do this 35 times and I'll have one side of the bus decorated.  My idea is that when they bring back their worksheet, they can pin them up instead of taping {like we normally do}.

the back

As I've mentioned before, please feel free to use this idea for yourself.  I'm always looking for new ideas and would love to help you out, too!

Here's another cute story from bus today.

It was absolutely, gorgeous today. The skies were a beautiful blue with white, swirly clouds.

If you have read my blog for a while, you may remember that our route is way out in the country {love it}. So, I'm driving our farthest out kids home and the brother is sitting in the front seat {that's still a big deal to kids, same as it was when I was a kid} and he pointed out the clouds to me.

Isaac: Miss Becca, the clouds are so pretty. {said with a slight, cute lisp on the "r"}

me: Yes, they are.

Isaac: They're all swirly. {more awe expressed about the clouds}

me: Yes, they're very pretty today.

Isaac: It's like God is up in Heaven swirling the clouds. It's like He is in art class.

Kids are so innocent and forthcoming! It made me laugh. I'm sure God smiled at that one, too.

Just a warning, I'm not going to promise very many posts this week. The youth conference at our church is starting tomorrow. {Wish you were here, Anne!} I get to help out for the opening activity tomorrow night. It's a Renaissance (medieval) theme. AND, there were Renaissance dresses on the H*llow**n clearance rack at a store in town. Wonderful! Plus with work sprinkled in, helping out in the kitchen at church, and picking up a girl from our route so she can attend the service, I might not post as much as I would like. Hope ya'll have a fabulous week, too!

yay! bus game!

I haven't blogged about a new game for our Sunday bus route in a while. Here's a new game I made tonight for tomorrow. {Once again, let me remind you that these games are not perfect; but they're original.}

Here are the acorns, top & bottom, that are in the bucket below.

On the back are points.

One person at a time will have a chance to pull a match (by points & color) out of the bucket. If they get a match, they'll be awarded points. Then, if they can correctly answer a Bible question, they'll get double the points on the acorn that they drew.

this cracked me up!

I was taking a few kids home from church today and we were singing some songs to pass the time. Well, it was the little girl's turn to pick a song and she said she wanted to sing the "Bucket Song....you know the bucket...it comes from God."

I am thinking to myself, "Bucket?? Bucket song?" I started going through the visuals and trying to remember if any of the song visuals had a bucket on it.

Then, she started clarifying a little more by clapping and saying, "O."

Ohhhhhhhhh!!!

She wanted to sing "There is a Book and it came from God and the Bible is it's name-o. B-I-B-L-E. B-I-B-L-E. B-I-B-L-E. And the Bible is it's name-o."

If you say "book and it..." fast it can sound like bucket.

It reminds me of when I was a little girl and would sing, "And if the d-vil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack, sit on a tack, sit on a tack, and if the d-vil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack, sit on a tack, Tuesday." Instead of "to stay." As a little girl, I remember thinking, why not Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday? Why Tuesday?"

It's just funny how kids can interpret/hear things incorrectly.

new bus decorations

I really want the kids on our bus to grow spiritually. YES, it's a time for fun. We have fun on our bus. But besides Sunday school and junior church, the only other time during the week that the kids get fed spiritually is on the bus. So that time is very important to me. Plus, we have a very long bus ride because our route is waaaaaaaaay out in the country!

So for the next....um......however many weeks, I will be posting a lock and key. The first week's lock and key is pictured above. It'll basically be a question about something that relates to the Christian life (why Christians do such-and-such) or a question that needs to be answered Biblically.

I thought this week's question was very important. The kids are taught in public school about global warming so why not counter that teaching with a Biblical answer.

Most of the questions that I will post are not necessarily life-changing questions. Any kid growing up in a Christian home would know the answer. But because the kids on our bus don't grow up in Christian homes, it is so very, very important that they are taught Biblically about things.

PS - And the bottom picture are little tokens that I will make up each week to help them memorize. They will get a special treat each week if they can say the previous week's "lock and key".

bus decorations

Our new memorization is Psalm 23. I'm bragging just a little but here's a list of what the kids have memorized on our bus: the books of the Bible, 10 commandments, days of Creation, they are familiar with the Beatitudes, Psalm 100, plus the regular Bible verses they learn each month on the bus and weekly in Sunday school. I am so proud of them! And I pray that some of these kids will grow up to be future pastors, missionaries, and laymen in the church.

Here is where each car starts.

Each kid has a car with their name on it and they will move from sign to sign as they complete each sign.

The cutest little decoration ever; but because it is HOT outside and the windows have to be OPEN, the poor little guy had to come down. I'm still pondering what to do with him.


the new welcome sign

game for tomorrow on bus route

So...a while ago, I painted this shoe box for a game for bus. I also bought three packages of alphabet stickers that were all the same font and (as you can see in the pictures below) put them on different colors of computer paper and laminated them. It's great to have a box full of letters as a quick, go-to game for bus. Here's how I'm doin' the game tomorrow.

When it's their turn to pick, a kid will be able to choose (without looking) one vowel and two consonants. They will put the letters they pull on their team's side. The team (collectively) will try to form words as there are more letters put up on their side. Each word has to be a name from the Bible or the name of a book in the Bible. Once a word is formed, points will be added based upon the colors of each alphabet piece.

Hopefully that made sense!! And as a side note, it did take a lot of time to laminate all those letters but it sure has been worth it. I've used them lots of times already and plan on continuing their use in the future!