Right from the Start

It was the first day of the Children's Summer Programme at our church today. We had a whole lot more children turn up on the day than planned, with the list totaling around 80 children.

The programme started at 9am after all the children had signed in and collected their name badges. Each child was in a colour group for craft as well as an activity group named after a character from the movie 'Meet the Robinsons'. I was the teacher in charge of the green group, the 8-9 year olds, and was also in Frankie the frog group. 

Since the co-ordinator Emily couldn't be with us this week due to work, Jane, a primary school teacher from our church and I had to be the 'MC's' for the programme. We got off to a bit of a shaky start since it was the first time either of us had done this as we welcomed the kids and introduced the helpers, but we got better over time!

The first activity of the day were the games. The older kids went over to one side of the gym to play some games while the younger kids were on the other side playing 'Duck, Duck, Goose' around a parachute. 

After the games, the kids did some singing along with some very creative actions

before Jane and Terence ran a game with the kids before it was my turn to go up to do a little skit with Eva called 'Time Point News', where an interviewer interviews a biblical character. Eva was the interviewer and I was Adam! 

I wore two panty-hose, one over my arms and the top half of my body and the other from the waist down, along with a black wig and a foam chest complete with abs that I got from the emporium a few days earlier. 

There were a few gasps when I came into the gym, holding a pot plant down by the crown jewels. I put the pot plant on top of a post I brought from home. I don't know whether I stood right behind it throughout the interview though, as a few people told me I wasn't standing behind it, and some kids came up to me afterwards and told me they could see my WHOOPIE! (I was wearing clothes underneath so they couldn't have seen it!)

I got in trouble the day before with Eva while rehearsing the skit with her as she didn't like it when I strayed from the script and improvised, so this time I tried to stick as closely to the script as possible and as well as I could remember and I think we made it to the end! The kids didn't laugh at the jokes though and some of the helpers forgot to laugh! (They were supposed to!)

As soon as we finished, I quickly got out of my costume and returned to the gym to join everyone. Andrew and Jireh played a quiz game where the children had to answer general knowledge questions correctly and throw a ball at a paper cup tower in order to get points for your team. By then we were way over time by about 40 minutes! We had to shorten a few of the activities, and some got cut altogether!

Rebecca and Angie did a toga race with the kids. It was funny as Rebecca's toga wasn't even properly done up and I don't think the kids knew how to do a toga either! They seemed to have fun though and did a few poses as well as earn points for their team.

After Tim and Tanya told a Bible story, all the kids went to wash their hands for morning tea at each of their colour group tables before we had craft time. 

For craft today the kids made robots! They were supposed to use cardboard tubes but because we didn't have enough, some just had to roll a card up. I was quite surprised at how creative the kids were!

We managed to finish on time and once the kids left, us helpers had lunch. Today was egg and tomato on rice, not exactly my favourite but I'm not one to complain (out loud!).

After lunch because it was Jireh's birthday today, Tommy and Harris's mum had baked a cake for him as well as Jane whose birthday was tomorrow, so we sang Happy Birthday for everyone who was celebrating a birthday this month (OK I suppose that includes me too!) before cutting up the cake and sharing it with everyone.

We were going to work on a cardboard box time machine by covering it up in tin foil and sticking a metal clothes hanger on top, but it sort of...broke on us so we gave up! I'm sure the kids didn't notice the lack of decorations this time around!