Sunday 27 July 2014

Rainbow Promise Bands!

This morning, our theme was promises. Sometimes promises are hard to keep, but we remember that God promises to love us and be with us always, no matter what. We can ask God to help us keep the promises we make to our family and friends. To help us remember this, we made rainbow promise bands (rainbows are a symbol or reminder of a promise.)


During Awesome Time in church, Melanie gave the Awesome Kids a series of tasks to do. They had to jump up and down five times, twirl around, run up and down the aisle giving members of the congregation hi-fives, and finally pick up a heap of rubber bands Melanie had fired about the place.

Melanie promised that after they had completed these tasks, she would give them some sweet treats from her cake tin. BUT... to their horror, she tricked them - and when the tin was opened, it was full of onions! Melanie handed out an onion to each child, but they were very quick to point out she had broken her promise. Fortunately, Melanie was convinced by the children that it is important to keep a promise, so she swapped the onions for the chocolate lollies. Phew!

Would you like a hat?

Work is to begin soon on rebuilding our Chapel Street church, and we are fundraising to help with costs. 

One of the ladies in our parish has knitted these beautiful woolen hats. Just the thing for these frosty mornings! There is one adult sized, and two teeny weeny baby/toddler sized hats.

If you would like to purchase a hat, or two, or all three - just let me know; we would just ask for a small donation towards our building fund. I will bring them along to Musikool Kids on Friday for viewing!



Friday 25 July 2014

Maori Language Week

To celebrate Maori Language Week we sang a new song, and learnt the Maori words for parts of our body. Melanie stuck stickers on a rather unsuspecting Bob, to help us remember:
Upoko = head
Puku = stomach
Turi = knee
Waewae = feet

Bob broke out the guitar and we sang Takahia means stamp.

We also met a new puppet friend, and sang a very old song (which was new for many of our group!), The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly!

Congratulations to winners of our photo competition; Noah, Maddy & Rose, Caleb, Dominic, Laura & Amelia. You all win some bubbles to blow, so you can sing 'Bubbles Pop!' at home. We hope the Bunn family will share their shakers with us next week at instrument time!




Monday 21 July 2014

Joyful Noise Competition closing...

I'm accepting a few late entries for our musical photo competition... get yours in by Wednesday to be in to win!

Check out our leading photos here...


Sunday 20 July 2014

Where is your happy place?

This morning the Awesome Kids heard the story from the bible about a man called Jacob, who had a dream about a fantastic place. We all thought about where our 'happy place' is... where do we like to go? What makes us happy? Who do we like to be with? No matter who we are, or where we go, God is with us, loving us always.

William and Jamie working on their Jacob's Ladder

Thursday 17 July 2014

Make and Shake those Maracas!

Dominic, Amelia and Laura shaking their maracas!

When Dominic, Amelia and Laura asked, "What can we make with the toilet rolls mum?" Mum's reply was, "Musical shakers is what we can create!! Decorate, fill with small stones and bolts, seal the ends and let the noisy party begin!"

Thanks to the Bunn family for sharing their splendiferous shakers with us!

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Caleb's musical treasure

Caleb's beach percussion

Caleb found some big sticks planted in the ground, and discovered he could make some interesting sounds and rhythms hitting them with a drumstick of driftwood.

Caleb, it reminds me of Julie Wylie's song, "Down at the beach, we found treasure..."

Thank you for your entry in the 'Joyful Noise Holiday Challenge'!

Tuesday 15 July 2014

Andrew and Spencer keep the beat

Andrew and Spencer make their own joyful noise... the drum and the tambourine are playing on the beat!

Well done boys!


Keep your 'Joyful Noise' photos for the Holiday Challenge coming in... competition closes at the end of this week.

Noah's Joyful Noise!

Noah

Noah enjoys shaking maracas to 'Baa baa black sheep' in the mornings. Thanks to mum Katrina for sending this in... I'm sure everyone will agree this is a real contender for the 'cutest' musical photo! (I love the wee tongue sticking out!)

JOYFUL NOISES! Parish Concert

Emma
Monica
Here are our first two entries in our JOYFUL NOISE Holiday Challenge. 

Our mid-winter Parish Concert at Northwood Villas was a great success, with wonderful performances from the very young to the not-so-young!

Here are a couple of photos... and you can view more by going to the following link:

Parish Concert Photos

You can view some snippets from the concert on YouTube by clicking here:

Parish Concert Video

Sunday 13 July 2014

Does your family drive you crazy?

Let's face it, we all have someone in our family who drives us nuts at times! This morning our Awesome Kids talked with Carol and Marie about our families... and we heard that there are stories in the Bible about brothers and sisters not getting along, and sometimes it can seem like our own family is in a MESS - but God loves us anyway, and calls us to be God's people.


Here is the prayer our twins, Ella & Keegan shared with us:

God, we thank you for filling our lives with so much love, and giving us love to share with others.  

Lord, even though we love the people in our family, there are things about each one that drive us a little nuts.  Hear our prayers for the things in our family that drive us a little nuts.

Help us to be patient and kind, and make good choices. Help us to be courageous,  and scatter our love everywhere we go, In Christ's name we pray. AMEN.


Here are some shots of our Awesome Kids with their siblings - showing that we can all drive each other a little nuts sometimes, but we really love our brothers and sisters and with God's help we can learn to get along.


Isabella and Sophia

Monica and Izak

Corban and twins; Ella and Keegan


Livvie and Liam

Tamu and Tia

Twins; Rachel and Vanessa

We all drive each other a little nuts sometimes...


Thank you God for filling our lives with so much love!


And because today's bible story had some soup in it, Marie kindly organised for some delicious soup for our Awesome Kids to share! Yum!



Jacob and Esau
from our bible story today


The Awesome Kids try to guess what vegetables Marie put in her marvelous soup!


Check out the reactions to the brussel sprout!

Monday 7 July 2014

JOYFUL NOISE Holiday Challenge!


super easy DIY musical instrument for toddlers - use rubber bands and a box lid to make a fun "guitar"

Calling all Musikool Kids and Awesome Kids... here's a holiday challenge for you!

Send me a photo of yourself making a joyful noise - maybe you could create a homemade musical instrument, or turn some pots and wooden spoons into a drum-kit, perform a song and dance routine, or collect some shells and driftwood from the beach and make music with them!

Whatever you choose, get Mum or Dad or a grandparent to email your 'Joyful Noise' photo (along with your name and maybe a sentence or two about it.) 

There will be prizes for the most creative, cutest, strangest, funniest musical photo, biggest band, and voter's choice.

There are lots of ideas for making instruments on this website: pinterest musical-instruments

Have fun! 

Sunday 6 July 2014

Liam's visit to the Principal

Young Writer - Liam
Liam has only been at school for about 8 weeks... but he has already been sent to the principal's office!

No, Liam hasn't been misbehaving... quite the opposite. Liam had a visit with the principal this week as he had worked very hard at writing time and wrote a wonderful sentence about a lamb.

He received a special principal's sticker, acknowledging his efforts.

Well done Liam! We are very proud of you!

Congratulations Monica!

Monica raced in the Primary / Intermediate Schools' Cross Country Finals on Wednesday, and came 7th. Her top ten placing meant she qualified to make the Canterbury representative team and will head to Hanmer Springs for the Inter-regional race in September.

Monica also had a great run on Saturday at the Cross Country Interclub South Island Champs, finishing 6th in her age group.

Sharing Burdens

This morning our Awesome Kids discussed what a 'burden' is. There were lots of good ideas... some people thought a burden was 'something heavy, weighing you down' and others thought it was a 'problem or worry'. We brainstormed 'burden' and these are some of the things we came up with:

A burden can be...

  • worrying about a maths test
  • feeling lonely
  • being bullied
  • afraid of the night
  • worried about baddies
  • problems with friends at school
  • worried about the future
  • being homeless
  • not having someone to play with
  • feeling nervous before a race
  • not doing as well was we hoped
  • a school report!

We all agreed that when we share our burden with someone, we feel a little better. We know that Jesus is always with us, ready to share our burdens and help us through tough times. Just like the 'yoke' that links two oxen together to spread a load, Jesus will always be by our side, helping to 'pull our load' with us!  We have to remember to ask for help! One of our Awesome Kids shared that even a short little prayer, "Help me!" can really make a difference.

Here are some photos of our discussion and craft activity.

Sharing our burdens

Lightening the load feels great!

Berith helps Harry make his bookmark
Feeling lighter!
Spencer and Andrew with Bob


Friday 4 July 2014

Teddy Bears galore!

This morning we had a Teddy Bears' Tango at Musikool Kids. Everyone brought a teddy bear and we enjoyed singing and dancing along to some wonderful teddy bear songs. Some of the children were rather mystified as to who this 'Goldilocks' character was and what had happened to Mel?










Here are the words to the Goldilocks song...

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears, oh what did her blue eyes see?
A bowl that was huge, a bowl that was small and a bowl that was tiny and that was all.
She counted them 1, 2, 3.

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears, oh what did her blue eyes see?
A chair that was huge, a chair that was small and a chair that was tiny and that was all.
She counted them 1, 2, 3.

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears, oh what did her blue eyes see?
A bed that was huge, a bed that was small and a bed that was tiny and that was all.
She counted them 1, 2, 3.

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears, oh what did her blue eyes see?
A bear that was huge, a bear that was small and a bear that was tiny and that was all.
They growled at her, "Grrrr! Grrrr! Grrr!"


Some of the other great teddy bear songs we enjoyed today were...

- Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear
- Rock a bye your bear
- We're going on a bear hunt
- I've got a teddy bear (from Julie Wylie's 'Magical Musical Play')
- Teddy Bears' cha cha cha (Julie Wylie's Teddy Bears' Tango cd)
- Teddy Bears' Tango (Julie Wylie's Teddy Bears' Tango cd)
- My Little Teddy Bear Dances Around (Julie Wylie's 'Swing Me a Song')
- Teddy Bears' Picnic

Thursday 3 July 2014

Teddy Bears' Tango tomorrow!




A reminder that tomorrow, 4th July, we have our Teddy Bears' Tango at Musikool Kids. Bring a teddy bear each, and you're welcome to dress up if you'd like to.


Welcome back!

  It was a hot day for the first day back at the Chapel Street Centre for 2024! Our Awesome Kids enjoyed some ice blocks to cool off. We had...