What 10:30 club did today

I've decided to try and record what we do in 10:30 club here. It's mainly for my benefit so that I've got something to look back on when I'm feeling uninspired, but I may as well make it public; other children's workers might enjoy/benefit/have a good laugh at our efforts too!

So, today the set readings were John 1 43-51 (Nathaniel under the fig tree) and Psalm 139:1-5 and 12-18. Therefore we had the theme of 'God knows me'. Here's my version of the verses from the psalm, which I read while holding up pictures for each line (I can't reproduce the pictures here because they were mainly cut-outs from magazines, or steals from Google Images, pasted onto A4 paper.)

Father, you know me completely, it's true,
You see the outside of me,inside me too,
My ups and my downs and the thoughts in my head
Where I go, what I do, and when I go to bed
Before I have spoken, you know what I'll say,
You're behind me, in front,all around me you stay.
At night-time you're there, and you're there in the dawn
You knew me and loved me before I was born.
I'm amazingly made, and you know all my days,
And I know you too - that's why I sing your praise.

We talked about being unique and how God knows everything about us before we are born. I explained that the baby inside me already had a whole set of unique fingerprints. Then everybody put all ten of their fingerprints onto paper and wrote a letter in the middle of each one to spell "GOD KNOWS ME" (ten letters, see?)

The original idea was that they'd look something like this:

but of course all the 10:30 club kids are much more inventive and creative than I am, so they wanted to do their own pictures, and why not? They're unique, after all! I ended up with a plateful of fingerprint baked beans ("because God knew before I was born that I hated baked beans"), a cross and a butterfly as well as some more random offerings from the toddlers.

The best part of this activity was that everybody could join in. It's sometimes hard to find a craft that includes the tinies and the older ones all together, but everyone from the one-year-old upwards produced a fingerprint picture! Even Abigail had one to take home. Another offering for my fridge door. I may need some more magnets...