Back in July, 2015, I created some magnetic worship boards that allowed children to play out what they were seeing and hearing in worship. You can read more about them in the Worship That Sticks blog entry that I wrote about them. Children (and adults!) have loved these magnetic play boards and it got me thinking of other ways I could utilize the concept. After lots of brainstorming and lots of little ideas rolling around in my head, it all finally came together this week and I have brand new magnetic worship boards awaiting Sunday!
The first thing I did was sit down and make a list of things a child may see, hear, say or do during most worship services and create a worship bingo board. Using a bulletin (or bugging a co-worker) could be great resources for this part of the process. (Or you can just email me and I'll send you what I came up with!) Once I had a pretty good list, I created a table with 20 of the items and then using copy and paste, as well as switching some items for others and a lot more copy and paste, I came up with 6 different versions of the Worship Bingo card so there could be some variety for the kiddos.
Wanting to have the boards be able to be used in more than one way, I remembered some cool finger prayer labyrinths I had come across before and decided that would be awesome on the backside of the bingo cards. I laminated the back to back labyrinths and bingo cards.
I now needed some type of magnetic markers that the children could use to keep track of their bingo game. Bonus: if there was another way to also use these magnets for a third activity! Bum-bum-bum-BUM! Magnetic Poetry! Using scrap strips of magnetic sheeting left over from a different project, I wrote words of songs, verses and so forth on strip after strip of magnetic sheets.
I cut the words apart so they can be arranged to make new phrases, poems OR used as bingo markers!While everything I had done and made was perfectly logical to me, I decided that some children (or more likely their parents) would want to know what to do with these magnetic worship boards, so I created the following "directions" and adhered them to the top of the cookie sheet with clear contact paper.
And TA-DA! Magnetic worship boards ready to help kiddos engage in worship in a whole new way!
