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Follow This Summer Camp Theme For Sunday School Mornings
Read how a small church turned a summer camp theme into a fabulous 6-week Sunday school program.
Many small church children’s ministries struggle with inconsistent attendance, shortage of teachers and volunteers, children who are bored with the same old routine, and quite frankly, teachers who are plain worn out.
Using themes for 6 weeks of Sundays can bring some new life into your Sunday school, and give your volunteers a fresh breath of air too! Here’s a real-life example of how our church did this, including Bible lessons, cool crafts, and awesome games to keep kids interested and ask them to come back again!
For our church (since we were short volunteers, teachers, and even kids during our summer months), we decided to combine our two children’s classes and focus on the summer camp theme for everyone. The adults enjoyed the different themes and activities as much as the kids did, and they appreciated being able to team up for leading the classes.
Promote Your Summer Camp Children’s Ministry
- Announce your program with enthusiasm in your church services, post it on your Facebook page, and put up flyers in the children’s area.
- Before camp begins, send out email (or snail mail, if you prefer) invitations to the children in your program.
- Include dates, times, teasers about upcoming activities, and most importantly that you are excited for them to participate when they are able.
Prepare Your Summer Camp Sunday School Space
- Make your meeting room fun and ‘camp’ like. What about putting up a small tent?
- Make a fun ‘campfire’ from toilet paper/paper towel tubes, paint them to look like logs, then added red/orange/yellow tissue paper for flames, and place stones on the floor in a circle.
- Bring in some fake plants and trees for the ‘nature’ look and place big pillows on the floor for kids to sit on. Use what you have and make it fun!!
- Give leaders special t-shirts and hats to wear. Maybe even equip them with camp whistles too!! (T-shirts can be solid colored –– the same color makes it easy to identify leaders … or church shirts if you have them.)
Sunday School Week 1: Welcome To Camp KIDMO!
- Introduction week: Lead the students into your special camp space, show them around, and get them settled in around the campfire.
- Have the kids introduce themselves and tell a favorite camp or summer memory –– either what they have done or what they are planning to do.
- Go over rules, expectations, and schedule highlights. Make sure they know how excited you are that they are participating in this camp!!
Craft Time
Start the class with this activity so that the shirts have time to dry during the rest of the class. Try Spray Tie-Dye T-shirts (an easier version of traditional tye-dye, but very much the same look).
Sunday School Lesson
The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)
Read the story from a kid’s Bible or find a children’s video to watch. Then discuss the story together.
Game
*Before everyone arrived, I hid little plastic pigs from the dollar store. I wrote a point value on each one with a permanent marker on the bottom so you couldn’t see.*
After the lesson, divide the class into 2 teams of mixed ages (so younger children will have help).
Play a review game with questions about the lesson. The children were allowed to discuss the question with their team. If your team answered the question correctly, your team could hunt in the room to find one ‘pig’. Whatever point value was on the belly, that’s what your team earned. It was fun for all ages. The older kids loved answering the questions and the younger ones loved finding the pigs!
Sunday School Week 2: Mystery Box Challenge And The Treasure Hunt Game
For the promo email that week, I sent a clue for them to think about what might be inside the ‘Mystery Box’ when they arrived at camp!
Clue:
‘Can you figure out what’s hiding in the Mystery Box? Here’s a clue for you!’
“I can see where you can not. I am used, and I can be bought.”
Make a ‘Mystery Box’. Use a rectangular cardboard box, covered in brown paper, painted and decorated with question marks, and small holes on the side for ‘peeking’.
Place the mystery item in the box (a flashlight). When students arrive, they can pass the box around, shake lightly, peek if they can, and they can ask 2 yes or no questions.
Sunday School Lesson
Inside was a flashlight, and the lesson focused on being the light of Christ, who is the light of the world. (John 8:12 and Ephesians 5:8)
Activity Time
Bible verse treasure hunt: They received a verse, which they looked up, then a clue to figure out where the next clue was hidden, and so on until the final clue brought them to Matt. 6:22. Gather around the campfire and read it out loud together. Discuss that our eyes & what we see can bring ‘light’ into our minds or ‘darkness’. If we want to reflect Jesus, we need to be bringing ‘light’ into our minds, (through reading the Bible, praying, church, and worship) and not ‘darkness’ (unhealthy movies, video games, jokes, TV shows, videos, etc.).
Of course, sing “This Little Light of Mine”!
Craft
Make paper lanterns with construction paper and tissue paper, and give out mini flashlights as a reminder of the lesson.
End Zone Game
Play flashlight tag with the lights out to end your time together.
Sunday School Week 3: PJ’s & Pancakes Day
In the email invitation, make sure to invite everyone to wear their PJs, silly slippers, or bathrobe, and make sure they know you will be serving a pancake breakfast for the class.
Invite some older folks from your church family to be chefs and servers to incorporate an intergenerational aspect to your class. (This was fun, as they joined in by wearing silly slippers and aprons!)
Activity
After breakfast, host a PJ ‘fashion show’. Designate a runway area (ours was just a tablecloth laid out on the floor) and invite each child and adult to ‘stroll’ the runway and show off their style. Ask someone to be your emcee and do all the commentary (only point out the positives and great things about the outfit –– never embarrass a student), and have someone else take fashion photos to keep for a memory!!
Sunday School Lesson
Gather around the ‘campfire’ to talk about the story from John 21, where Jesus appears to His disciples on the shore and invites them to ‘come to breakfast’. A time He was able to share His heart with them before He returned to heaven. It was also a time to restore Peter and forgive him, after his mistake of denying Christ in the courtyard. Finally, it was a time to fellowship and prepare the disciples to do the work of Jesus once He was gone.
Craft
Decorated fun foam-shaped feet with stickers & markers.
Print a sticker to put on the front that reads, “Walk in the way of Jesus and follow Him.”
Put a magnet on the back and hang it on your fridge!
Game
The Pancake Stacker relay race (toy pancakes found at a thrift store are great, but you could make them out of foam or cardboard). 4-6 pancakes are needed for each team.
- Place the pancakes in a large skillet.
- Divide the class into 2 teams (adults can play along if you need extras).
Form lines at one end of the room. Place the skillet with all the pancakes on a table in between the two lines. - At the other end of the room, place a table with two plates, one for each team.
- Give the lead person in each team a spatula. When the leader says “go”, that person scoops up a pancake from the skillet with their spatula.
- The team member must carry their pancake to the table without dropping it. If you drop it, you must go back to the beginning and start again.
- Place the pancake on their team’s plate, then run back to their team and hand off the spatula to the next person in line.
- Do this until the stack is complete. This is lots of fun and it’s harder to balance the pancake on the spatula than you might think!!
Sunday School Week 4: The Wild Life & Missions In Motion
Have a mission-focused Sunday.
The theme for the day is: what it’s like to be a missionary. If your church has specific missionaries it supports, include them in your lesson time.
Wildlife Matching Game
Match the animal game. You can find several video versions of these games to use on YouTube or you can make a paper version by printing out pictures of wild animals. Cut a ‘peek-through square’ from a separate piece of solid color cardstock. Hold up the picture with the peek-through window sheet against the animal. Place the window over your picture to challenge the kids to guess what the animal is.
Progress on to a larger square on another piece of cardstock to show another area on the picture. Finally, one more larger rectangle to see if they can identify the animal behind the cardstock window! Cut your windows to be in the center, at the bottom, or on the side of the paper.
Sunday School Lesson
Ask the kids what kinds of things we have to do/get ready if we are going to move.
- Make a list of items on a board.
- What kinds of things do we have to get used to when we move far away?
Make a new list. (Make sure to talk about new friends, new food, new house, new school, etc.) - What kinds of things would you be worried about or nervous about if you were moving to a brand new place?
- This leads the conversation to the many things that missionaries have to go through before they can serve the Lord in a new area, what their families have to go through, and sometimes how hard it is to do all of these things.
- Point out and have them think about ways we can help our missionaries as they go through this journey (pray for them, write to them, encourage them with emails, give money to the work of their ministry, invite them to your church to speak, etc.).
- How can we be missionaries right here in our own community?
Make a list of ways to tell others about Jesus or share God’s love with them.
If possible, give kids ‘Prayer Cards’ with the missionaries’ pictures and prayer requests on them.
International Snack
Have fun and serve something different that has an international flair. Lots of recipes out there and many grocery stores have an international foods section now. Reach out to someone in your church that may have a good recipe to use.
Activity
Have your class write letters of thanks to some missionaries and help them list some things about themselves or school, pets, etc. As the teacher, mail the letters.
Game
Journey to Be a Missionary: We made a board game of sorts. We printed out cards to lay out across the floor. There were 25 cards in all, some were just blank spaces with pictures of the world on them, but most of the cards had a step of the progression to becoming a missionary on them. Each step card also had a challenge or a command (take 2 steps ahead, take 1 space back, etc.).
To play the game, let each child have a game piece (small souvenirs from other countries are great if you have them). Children take turns rolling a die and move through the game. The last square says: God is pleased with your work: ’Well done, good and faithful servant.’
Sunday School Week 5: Christmas In July
What better way to cool off in mid-summer than celebrating Christmas in July? We can at least think cool thoughts!
Trim The Tree
Have a small tree ready to decorate with lights and ornaments, and let the kids do it themselves! Have a countdown to your own tree lighting!
Game
What’s In Your Stocking? Number four stockings. Put a random object in each one that somehow relates to Christmas. Pass around the stockings, and make sure the top of the stocking is closed shut with a paperclip. Children take turns feeling it to guess what’s inside. Call on different kids to say their guesses out loud.
Activity
Sing a couple of Christmas carols together around your campfire!
Sunday School Lesson
Luke 2 focuses the lesson on when the shepherds hear the good news of Jesus’ birth.
Discuss why it was important for God to give the news to the shepherds.
They were ordinary people, not rich or famous or powerful, BUT they were loved and used by God to spread the news of Jesus! He came for all –– He wants to share His love with all of us too, and He asks us to spread that good news, just like the shepherds!
Craft
Make a ‘sheep’ ornament for your Christmas tree. Ask a volunteer to find a DIY sheep ornament craft that would best work with your kids.
Game
Play a version of ‘Duck, Duck, Goose’. Just turn it into ‘Shepherd, Shepherd, Sheep!’
Snack
Of course, decorate your own Christmas cookies!!
End Zone Game
Bring a small wrapped gift for every child. Have everyone sit in a circle and give everyone a gift to hold. As you read the “Right-Left Story of Jesus’ Birth”, children will pass their present to the right or left every time they hear that word. (You will have to help younger ones with direction). At the end of the story, you keep the gift you are holding and take it home.
Sunday School Week 6: Camp KIDMO Round-Up Rodeo
This will be the final week of Camp, so all activities will be based on a ‘rodeo’/wild west theme.
In your email invite for this week, make sure they understand that this will be the final week of camp, so they won’t want to miss it. Since it’s a rodeo theme, encourage kids to wear their cowboy attire if they have some.
Fun Bonus
Look the part. If you are able, provide each child with a bandana or a cowboy hat and bandana.
Game
Buckin’ & Rope Chuckin’!! Provide a ‘wild bronco’ (cardboard cutout of a horse, use a large appliance box or foam core sheet). Children will have a chance to ‘lasso’ it with the provided rope.
Sunday School Lesson
David (The Outlaw) being Chased by King Saul & His ‘Posse’ (found in 1 Samuel 24)
Read the story of David sparing Saul’s life when he found him in the cave. Talk about how David had to rely on God for everything (food, provisions, plans, and protection) as he traveled and ran from Saul and his posse.
But God was on David’s side and gave him victory, and also gave him the ability to make the right choice and to spare Saul’s life.
God is with us when we follow Him, and He helps us to make the right choices, and He will bless us when we do!
Craft
Make a trail mix and bag it with a special tag with a verse from the lesson. They can bring this home at the end of class.
Simple Trail Mix Recipe
(Mix the following in a large bowl. Always check for allergies of students before proceeding.)
- 1 jar of honey-roasted peanuts
- 1 large box of raisins
- 1 bag of sharing size regular M&M’s
- 12 oz. of mini marshmallows
- 16 oz. bag of mini pretzels
- 2 cups of Goldfish-type crackers
- 2 cups of Cheerio-type cereal
Stir together, scoop into clear goodie bags, and close the bag with a twist tie.
Just For Fun
Have a photo backdrop set up so that you can take pics for your last day of camp, and then email them with a thank you to the kids during the week.
You also may have parents that want to take pictures there after church. Wild West Photo Backdrop
Snack
For your special rodeo wrap-up day, celebrate around the campfire with hot dogs and beans!
We hope this gives you some inspiration for your next summer season of children’s ministry in your small church! With a little creativity and direction, you might be surprised how it can re-energize your kids, as well as your workers!
Looking for a step-by-step to starting or restarting your children’s ministry?
Check out the Children’s Ministry Bundle For Small Churches!
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