Peter in Prison and the Angel

Acts 12: 1-19

This week I have had to keep the craft really simple. I thought I was going to be on tea duty at Toddler Praise, as the wonderful lady who usually makes the tea, thought she was unable to be with us but at the last minute found she could come. Therefore the craft had to be something I didn't need to supervise, allowing the children to freely do with parents help. It had to be something self explanatory. This craft to me, seems too simple to be blogged about. However sometimes we find that we just can't do what we intend to do, we have to accept the circumstances for what they are and adjust our plans accordingly.

In today's story, Herod arrests Peter during Passover, he intends to try him and has him put under heavy guard in prison, with soldiers in the cell and bound with chains. During the night an angel appears, wakes Peter, frees him from his chains and tells him to dress. The angel leads Peter through the prison, past sleeping guards and out into the street. Up to this point, Peter thinks he is dreaming but when the Angel leaves him he realises what has happened and heads for the house of Mary, mother of John, where many believers are praying. He knocks on the door, the servant girl answers but she is so excited that Peter is free, she forgets to let him in and leaves him on the doorstep while she informs the others. Who don't believe her until Peter is finally let in.

Peter woken by the Angel
 

Our craft today is Peter behind lolly stick (popsicle stick - for my American readers) prison bars with the angel.

In a previous blog I talked about finding images on the internet. In this craft we need to do this again. I found when looking for images of Peter and the Angel, I needed to be specific with the keywords I typed into Google. Type in the wrong words and all sorts of unsuitable images come up. When I first typed Peter and Angel, Google found lots of images of Peter with wings at heaven's gate. After various attempts I chose 'images man praying cartoon' and found the image I required. I also had problems with the angel but finally got what I wanted by typing 'images guardian angel cartoon'.

Materials required:

Materials ready for use

·         Pictures of Peter/man

·         Pictures of Angel

·         Card

·         Felt tips

·         Lolly/popsicle sticks

·         Glue, pot and spreaders

Preparations:

1.    Find images of Peter and the Angel on the internet and paste into Word or alternative. They need to be smaller than a lolly stick in size.

2.    Roughly cut out pictures of Peter and the Angel.

3.    Cut card down to size. Our card was A6 in paper sizes; A4 card cut into quarters.

Instructions:

Noah with help from his Mum

1.    Colour in Peter and the Angel.

2.    Glue onto the middle of the card.

3.    Arrange lolly sticks before gluing, then glue into place.

This is very simple but if you want an alternative, make a prison cell out of a box, with Peter and the Angel inside and the lolly sticks glued to the outside. Maybe add some guards on the inside and outside and add some chains. I often take other people's ideas and change them for my own purpose, so feel free to do this yourself.

 

Eli Gluing on his lolly sticks

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Have fun

The lame man at the Beautiful gate.

Acts 3: 1-10

This week's simple craft at Toddler Praise was similar to last weeks. This time however, I am using up something I've been hoarding for a while, left over oddments of material. I made my youngest son a patch work lion a few months ago but I didn't throw out the off cuts. Most people would, but now these strips of material are coming in useful for this craft, making the clothes for the lame man in our story.

The thing about being a crafter is you tend to hoard things. I hate to throw anything useful (or even semi-useful) out. I have cupboards of nonsense, actually no, I should say rooms of nonsense. We live in a Victorian vicarage, big rooms and all full of stuff. The problem with big rooms is you can hide things away and forget about them but this habit comes in useful when crafting. Margarine and ice cream tubs are handy for storing or transporting things in. Two posts ago - ascension - I did a craft using old shoe boxes and wool, that I've had for many years. Today's craft involves a hole punch; the left over circles of paper could be used for eyes, if there are no googly eyes to be used. There are so many examples I could mention of recycling stuff but you'd get bored reading.

This story in Acts comes very soon after the disciples have received the Holy Spirit. Peter and John go to the temple to pray, they pass through the beautiful gate. A lame man, who has been crippled since birth, asks them for money. They tell him they have no money but instead heal him in the name of Jesus. The man gets to his feet and finds himself walking and jumping, he praises God for being healed. Those who knew the man were amazed at his healing.

 

Today's craft we are making a card puppet of the lame man at the beautiful gate. With these the children can re-tell the story, making the puppet sit down and then when he has been healed, he can dance around praising God.

The fully clothed dancing men, we had some naked ones too!

Materials required:

Eli showing off his lame man with fine hair.

·         Card

·         Something round, i.e. cup or glass

·         Pencil

·         Ruler

·         Scissors

·         Hole punch

·         Wool

·         Googly eyes

·         Red felt tips

·         Pipe cleaners

·         Material/strips of paper

·         Glue, spreader and pot

·         Thread/wool/string

·         Cellotape

Instructions

Prepare prior to session

Prepared bodies

1.    Card person: draw around a small cup for the head, using ruler draw a rectangular body, with rounded shoulders.

2.    Cut out and use as a template.

3.    Hole punch the four corners of each body.

4.    Cut shorts lengths of wool for hair.

5.    Cut down pipe cleaners to desired length, I cut into thirds.

6.    Cut strips of material or paper for clothes.

7.    Cut long lengths of wool/thread/string.

How to make

1.    Using cellotape, stick the length of wool/thread/string to the back of the head.

Brandon trying out his puppet.

2.    Glue on hair and eyes.

3.    Draw a really happy mouth with a felt tip, unless covered in glue then wait until dry.

4.    Thread 4 pipe cleaners through the holes in the body, bend over the ends and twist, keep them loose they need to move. All the children will probably need adult help for this.

5.    Glue on the strips of material/paper for clothes.

Lovely curly hair Imogen.

If you have time, make them more puppet like: using lolly sticks (or similar) make a cross and tie string from the lolly stick to the hands. This is a bit fiddly, which is why we didn't do it in our session at Toddler Praise this week.

Whichever way you choose to do this craft, the kids will have a lot of fun and can then go home and tell their families about how Peter and John healed a lame man, acting it out with the puppet.

Toddler Praise is held at St Luke's Church, Scarborough, UK. Check out our Facebook page.

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Toddler-Praise-St-Lukes-Church-Scarborough/791165617571028

 

Have fun.