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Back-to-school season is a great opportunity for your church to reconnect with your small church families. The perfect way to connect is with a fun event! Events like these give us a chance to reach out and build relationships with our church family members.
Fall is a season for changes. Even our small churches can experience a return of students and families who may have been sporadic in attendance over the summer months. It’s a fairly common practice for churches and youth groups to celebrate the end of the school year. In fact, Host A School’s Out Celebration gives you everything you need. But what if your small church does something different this year and hosts an all-church party celebrating the start of the school year?
Take an event that some of your kids may be dreading and turn it into one last blast of summer break fun!! You can schedule your event just before school starts up again or for the first weekend after school is back in session. Either way, you’ll be sure kids are ready to celebrate back to school, and have a fun event they can invite their friends to.
Decorate For The Back To School Event
Using school-related items and themes for your games and decorations is a fun way to get everyone back in the school spirit! It’s prime back-to-school shopping time! School supplies and bulletin board decorations are in plentiful supply as we all get ready to celebrate back to school week.
Start by decorating your party tables with brightly colored tablecloths. Add a fun table runner down the center of your food table and get a special back-to-school tablecloth for your dessert table.
Hang a fun banner on the wall. Create an interactive station by setting up a photo booth or backdrop for the guests to take selfies and make some memories of this party with their new friends.
One of my favorite things to do for centerpieces on your tables is to take pencils and place them around an empty coffee can or mason jar. Hold it in place with a rubber band. Cover the rubber band with a ribbon that looks like a measuring tape. Then, fill the jar with wrapped snacks like cheese sticks or fruit snack packs.
Giant pencils made from pool noodles are fun to place around the room. Use a piece of black foam core and make it look like a chalkboard. Then, with a white marker, write verses and words of back-to-school encouragement, or the menu for your refreshments.
Add large alphabet letters on the walls, books covered in craft paper, and subject titles written on the spines, e.g. Math, Reading, Science, English. Place the covered books on the tables by your centerpieces.
Use Name Tags To Encourage Connection
Decorations help to set the stage for a fun event. Another way to have a successful party this time of year is to make sure your guests are warmly greeted when they arrive. Purchase name tags for everyone to encourage making connections! Name tags are an easy way to help ease the stress of new conversations. Knowing someone’s name often helps conversations start.
Another good idea is to place a meal ‘ticket’ at each person’s seat, as well as a ‘hall pass’ to go to the dessert table.
Back To School Event Games
The Lunch Room Relay
Divide kids into teams. Each team needs a lunchroom tray. At the end of the room, place a table with the following items, (each team needs 1 of each item): a plastic or paper plate, a paper cup, plastic silverware, a napkin, and a juice box.
Give the first person in line the tray, and they walk as quickly as possible (walk, NOT run, as you are not allowed to run in the cafeteria!) to the end of the room. Take an item off the table, go back to your team, and hand the tray off to the next person. That person goes down and takes another item. Keep going until the team has a full place setting on their tray. The first team to complete their place setting is the winner!
Don’t forget to ask your adult volunteers to wear hair nets like the ‘lunchroom monitors’ or cafeteria workers! It’s one of the fun school activities your kids may love.
Looking for a step-by-step guide to starting or restarting your children’s ministry?
Check out the Children’s Ministry Bundle For Small Churches!
Picture This
Kids can play this game as individuals or team up in pairs or triples. Everyone needs a pencil and strips of paper to write the answers. Be sure to team up non-writers with older kids or volunteers to help.
Find various pictures online of school-related items (school buses, lunch boxes, rulers, school books, chalk, bulletin board, etc.) Make a super close-up of one part of the picture and then print it out. Also, print a complete picture to show the answer. If you prefer, make a digital version of this game and show it on a screen. Be sure to number the complete pictures for reference.
Let the children have one minute to look at the picture and then write what they think it is. Reveal the answers at the end. The ones with the most correct guesses win a small prize. Pencils, erasers, and dry-erase markers are always a good choice.
The Walk to School Game
Make your game markers: clip art pictures & titles attached to simple white paper plates. Place them in a circle on the floor. Make small 3 x 3 inch versions of the pictures to cut up and place in a lunch bag to draw out as call cards. You need to have as many plates as the number of kids. It’s always better to have more plates than you need.
Have your local students all stand behind a plate. Begin to play some music and have the children walk in a circle. When the music stops, everyone stands behind a plate. The leader draws a card out of the bag, and whoever is standing on top of that picture gets to pick a prize from ‘The Teachers Tray’ (a tray filled with small gifts). The best part about this game is you can put the cards back in the bag, mix them up, and play again!
The Lunch Line Begins Here
Lunch Snacks For Back To School
Themed plates and napkins add to the festive atmosphere.
Use your food items to decorate your food table. Place snacks (packaged or in baggies) in simple brown lunch bags. Put a chalkboard sticker on each bag with a list of what is inside. Line them all along the table. Fold the edges of the bag down as needed to allow participants to see the contents inside the bag.
Lunch Snack Ideas:
- crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
- packs of veggie sticks
- fruit cups
- packages of chips
- applesauce squeezer
*Make sure to include bags with gluten-free options.
Place a basket of apples on your table and label it ‘Apples for the Teachers’.
Make bags out of lined notepad paper by sealing up three sides with hot glue, and use them for popcorn. Make a sign to put in front of the display which says ‘POP’ Quiz!
A bowl of pretzel rods and mini colored marshmallows with the sign, ‘Pencils & Erasers’.
Cheese slices with A+ written on them with edible markers.
Dessert and Drinks To Celebrate Back To School
Do you know someone in your church who likes to bake? Ask them if they would make decorated cookies or cupcakes. A few creative ways to do this are by getting fun letter-shaped cookies or school bus cookie cutters. Cupcake toppers could also work well as we celebrate back to school week.
Make krispy rice cereal treats and cut them into pencil shapes with chocolate sprinkles for the ‘lead point’ and yellow sprinkles for the body of the pencil. Add a piece of red fruit leather for the eraser top. Try this for a fun addition to your dessert table. These are also a great option because they are often gluten-free!
Place a small lunch box filled with gummy worms for a fun decoration on your table. Make a sign saying ’Book Worms’.
For drinks, offer small containers of milk and/or juice boxes like they have at school, with straws of course!
Gather Round For Lesson Time
Celebrate Back To School With A Themed Devotion
Of course, playing into the ‘School Celebration’ theme, we can ring the bell and have our ‘students’ gather in the classroom for their lesson. This lesson is straight from the Book, the Bible, that is!!
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 (NLT)
The Bible tells us we need to put our best effort forward in everything we do so God is honored and the world can see God through us!
Just think, the verse tells us even as we eat or drink, we can please God. Think about that as you are in the cafeteria. How can we honor God there?
What if we see someone sitting all alone? Go sit with them, make a friend, and be kind. This is a wonderful way to be the light of Jesus in our schools.
Need to restock your children’s ministry craft supplies? Take a look at the list below!
- 8 x 10 artist canvas
- Decoupage glue
- Foam brush
- Glitter
- Hot glue or craft glue
- Ribbon or Jute twine
- Acrylic paint and Paintbrushes
- Felt
- Sheets of 8 ½ x 11 White cardstock
- Wide popsicle sticks and standard Popsicle sticks
- Acrylic paint
- Brown craft gift bags
- Sharpie permanent markers
Questions To Answer
The verse also says, whatever you do. So what does this mean for when we’re at school?
- While you are in class, are you being respectful to your new teacher?
- Are you trying your hardest to do your work?
- Are you helping others in your class who may be struggling?
- When you’re on the playground, are you including those kids who may be the ones others pick on?
- Are you volunteering to help clean up or do the jobs your teacher asks you to do?
- When you get home, are you listening to your parents and doing your homework when you are told?
- When you’re told it’s bedtime, are you going without arguing or complaining?
Believe it or not, these are all in the ‘whatever you do’ category of this verse. As we do all of these kinds of things, guess what? God is honored. He sees what you are doing and He loves you.
I want to know in the comments on my report card from God, He’s going to say I always tried hard and did all I could to bring Him honor, whether it was at home, at school, at the bus stop, or even at play!
Right now, let’s all get in a big circle and pray about being God’s representatives in our grade level at school this year. Let’s also thank Him for always watching over us and always listening to us when we talk to Him.
Don’t Send Them Home Empty Handed!
Sending your guests home with a party favor is one of the best ways to help them remember their time with you. The backpack tags are a great way for the children in our small churches to share God’s love with others who see this great tag!
Backpack key tags, such as the John 3:16 Key Tag, are fun items to use on new school bags! This Bracelet & Cross Key Tag comes with a matching silicone bracelet.
Celebrate Back To School Event Moments
Decorations, games, and fun activities like these can help make our guests feel special and help get some of the first-day jitters out. However, the main focus needs to be on our connections, especially with our children. Do they know we truly care about them and we are praying for them?
Did you know about 30% of all young adults who have left the church say it’s because they did not feel connected with their church family? Small churches have the blessing of being able to know each other, to spend time with each other, and to make sure people are being seen.
Going back to school at the end of the summer is a great moment to celebrate with the kids in our small churches. This is a way to encourage them and let them know they are valued, seen, and loved by God, and by their church family. Using these moments to connect with our kids is so important. It also helps in building relationships across the generations, which, in turn, can strengthen our churches and prayerfully help our children to be engaged and active in their faith.
If you like this kind of event for children’s ministry, be sure to check out this article from our blog for an entire year of events for your small church.
Read More:
7 Events For Children’s Or Youth Ministry
