SOS!

Now what do you do when a good friend at church brings you a present – a bag of spare salt dough! Roll up your sleeves & dive in of course…

I’ve been pottering, in between everything else, putting together some ‘SOS adventure bags’ which I hope will eventually become a bit of a library of resources for families at church. SOS comes from the name of our church’s accessible service ‘sense of space’, but I love how it also means ‘help! rescue us!’ it seems incredibly apt on so many levels! Each bag is essentially (I hope) going to be an all age story sack with resources and ideas – with SEND in mind – for exploring a Bible story at home together.

So far I have made a start with two very visual ones… Jonah, and Noah – both of course with plenty of scope for imaginative play ideas, colourful and sensory rich exploring experiences and good storytelling. Also both with really tough themes, God’s generous forgiveness (and our struggle with it), and God’s holiness and righteous judgement (and of course our struggle with it!).

So I am now on the look out for just the right books to add to both of these, I’m thinking testimony/biography, short enough, inspiring and gutsy. I’ve also bought a prism which I need to make a little bag for – to explore rainbows and God’s promises. There are activities and website addresses to find out more in these too – which may need occasional updating but I love the idea of them being a rich & varied resource that will have something in to appeal to each member of a family (hopefully).

Noah bag so far has: a rainbow dice with prayer ideas for each colour; a puzzle; an ark 7 animal playset; suggestions for imaginative play together to explore ‘rescue’; a lovely version of the story by Susie Poole; the prism with suggested activities; invitation to play a memory game to explore ‘remembered’; and hopefully a biography.

Jonah bag so far has: story book (Lion childrens ‘my very first Bible stories’); a recipe for stained glass heart biscuits; British sign language signs to learn ‘I love you’, ‘sorry’; a big fish & a Jonah to play with, a sensory sand prayer tray in a tub – with prayer prompts in; a Topz diary (by CWR) looking at forgiveness – mine loved these in their tweens; a suggestion for play to explore hiding; a suggestion to measure things to explore how big God’s love might be; and a link to find out more about Ninevah and what we know about it from archaeology. And then a book for the grown ups to be decided!

So anyway, back to the salt dough… we rolled up our sleeves and dived in. My mind went straight to these bags. What about hanging decorations with a verse written across a few that can be hung in order and learnt? What about fish – they are not something I have a playset of – beautiful colourful, individual fish could make lovely tactile prayer prompts or be played with…

Then hands, and hearts. So many stories could be explored and experienced in a new way through these tactile shapes. So next out with the acrylic paints, and then the varnish and I can see the next couple of bags beginning to take shape.

Please, please comment with your ideas of things or activities, or good books I could potentially include in these bags…