#591. The things your kid brings home from Sunday School.
Jul 30th by JonA few weeks ago my five year old was given a loud New Year’s Eve party type plastic horn during Sunday School. I think the horn had something to do with the celebration the prodigal son was thrown when he returned home but I’m not 100% positive because it was hard to hear her explanation over the loud horn blowing she was doing in the church hallway. And then in the parking lot. And then in the car. And then in our kitchen. Needless to say, when she took a nap, I Houdini’d that horn out of our house never to be seen again.
But it got me thinking, what other Sunday School items send instant dread into me? The horn is a starter, but what other things should never, ever be given to kids in Sunday School? If only there was a comprehensive, yet short, list, perhaps called:
Things we should never give kids in Sunday School:
1. Marshmallows
I feel like we already voted on this, goldfish crackers are the official snack of Sunday School, but occasionally my five year old will emerge from class with a Dixie cup full of marshmallows. She tends to pack for the road, and never eats the snack in the class but instead enjoys eating it in the car while sitting next to her three year old sister who happens to not have a lap full of delightful marshmallows. This is torture. This needs to stop. I can only negotiate so many more marshmallow exchange programs in the backseat. Let’s stick with goldfish please, the marshmallow is too delicious and volatile of a snack for a Sunday morning.
2. Wet paint
I don’t know that a Sunday School project is ever really dry. You could probably leave it in the desert, under the relentless glare of the yellow sun for a year and when you returned and picked up the Noah’s Ark painting, some paint would get on your hands. And your shirt and your back seat and your couch at home and eventually your fridge. Granted, most kids are surrealists when it comes to painting and act like they’re making topographical maps they layer on the paint so thick, but let’s lean into crayons hard instead of globs of paint. And not Prang, those things are horrible. Real, honest to goodness crayons. Death to paint. Long live Crayola, even though that “sharpener” thing on the back of the box is useless.
3. Cool things that only one class gets
If the five year old class gets a lamb puppet with a horn nose and the three year old class gets a piece of paper that says, “Jesus Loves You” you might as well send them home with a UFC fighting octagon as well because it’s “go time” at the Acuff house. I don’t want to say that we’re raising little communists, but equality makes the world go round when it comes to kids. Please don’t do some amazing handout or toy or gift for one class and then just give the other kids hugs as the take home.
4. Glitter of any sort
I will write about the horrors of glitter until the die I day, which is also how long the glitter from a Sunday School or Vacation Bible School project will remain in your home. You can’t clean up glitter. It laughs at vacuums, giggles at wet paper towels and somehow multiples like a craft bunny. “Oh, cute, they used blue and pink glitter to design this fish during a story about God creating the world” you’ll think the first time your kid comes home glittered. Think again, because years later when you grab your keys to take your now college aged kid to Freshman orientation your hand will emerge with glitter on it from the junk draw where you keep the keys. Glitter never dies. You’re only hope is to never bring it home, but do you really want to be that guy who throws his kid’s Sunday School project away in a trash can in the hall at church? No you don’t.
That’s my list of things we shouldn’t send home. But what do we want kids to get in Sunday School? Well, I’ve only volunteered twice in our church’s Sunday School classes but do you know what I sent those kids home with? Exhaustion.
I ran them like they were on some sort of toddler P90X program. We played chase and tag and cars and princesses until they could barely move. That’s what we should give kids in Sunday School, reasons to have long Sunday afternoon naps. Until the rest of the world subscribes to that theory though, please just promise me no more marshmallows.
Comments
Sharkbait does not support the eating of marshmellow fish at church. That's just sick.
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My husbnd at one point worked with the 2 year olds in Sunday School and would give me the list of reasons that we should not ask small children to glue peices of cereal onto paper. This included the amount of cereal with glue on it that the kids would consume and it doesn't stick any way.
Ah, I still have a glitter ornament that I still hang on my Christmas tree every year, made in good old Sunday School class.
Long live glitter!
You'll be more than pleased to hear that FRUIT and CRAYONS (and not glitter) are order of the day in our church. Not none of this Marshmellows and Paint business.
Those bird feeders that are made out of pine cones rolled in peanut butter and birdseed should be outlawed. They don't even have anything to do with Jesus.
As a Bible School teacher, I vote for the glitter, the paint plus all the messy things that kids love. Who cares what the parents think, it's all about the kids! The more messes they make, the cooler they think class is and I know that the integration of the Bible Story into their long term memory is directly related to the amount of glitter and paint used.
I recently saw Facebook flair that says "GLITTER IS THE HERPES OF CRAFT SUPPLIES."
My 21-year-old daughter got married this summer and my almost-19-year-old son is about to head back to college for sophomore year, but every year at Christmas I still drag out their Sunday School ornaments – the angel made out of coffee filters (glitter-enhanced) and the one made out of their traced hands (also glittered) along with a variety of other painted popsicle stick ornaments. I hang them proudly on my very random, anti-decorator-showroom tree. Treasures!
Marshmellow negotiations in the back seat…oh, I almost died. Imagine having SEVEN kids (like my parents) and having to run negotiations. We'd have to have an emergency stash in the car for events like this.
And glitter? Yes, our 12 passenger van still sparkles, and I think there is paint fading away.
Re: glitter– I completely agree. Although I didn't realize Sunday school was such a glitter pusher.
I'm with you on the marshmallows and cool-take-home. And I hate glitter (don't even like buying greeting cards with glitter) but I agree with the Anon comment above too–let the kids have some fun. 5 year olds will never think crayons are as cool as paint and glitter.
Isn't there something more to be said about artsy craftsy projects that the kids don't even know the connection to the story for the day? My nephew came home with a painted picture that was actually kind of pretty but when asked what it was about he said, "I don't know, maybe heaven???"
Demetri Martin once said that glitter is the herpes of craft supplies ("Step out into the sun … flare up!"). But I see Deana already beat me to pointing this out
I can feel the glitter battle brewing. I, personally, am conflicted on the issue. On one hand it does add a certain 'jazz' to the Sunday School craft and it definitely gets kids excited about their sparkly craft (What? 'Sparkly' isn't a word? Since when?) On the other hand, I think glue and sparkles just don't mix well. It's a tricky combination really, because at first they appear to work well– The sparkles stick and everybody is happy. But after time, the glue and sparkles must have disagreements and fights as they slowly turn against each other.
Jon, I challenge you to make anything "razzle dazzle" without using glitter. Looks like you just got leg-dropped!
green paper airplanes
funny you wrote about this. I wrote about how God used the green paper airplanes to teach me something just yesterday afternoon.
I'm with you on the glitter thing, and I think this statement I once heard sums it up quite nicely:
Glitter is the herpes of the craft world, once you get it you can never get rid of it.
Anything made with food. Can you serious keep that in a memory box. Please don't glue cereal, candy or other foodstuffs on a piece of paper. That art is going straight to the trash come nap time.
A few weeks ago the kids made "Lydia's Cloth" but from what I could tell it was a row of wet paper towels with no names anywhere. I'm guessing they put marker on it too and it was supposed to run, but it was just a wet paper towel when I got there. Yeah, I left it. I am not ashamed.
As a second grade teacher, former sunday school teacher, and a mom I have to say I really dislike glitter, but I do use it on occassion. Why because it is sparlkly and the kids love it and it no longer comes into my home
Glitter glue is the answer to some of this…….but then you have the "this stuff never dries issue"
I should also mention a must have craft supply. GLITTER GLUE PENS. The glitter goes directly where you want it as a garnish, and there is no mess. You may have to ask parents to up their tithe, but it is totally worth it!
our lead pastor has enforced a "no-glitter" policy in our buildings. Seriously!
Goldfish and fruit are key. Who is the crazy person who gave them extra sugar!?!
As a children's pastor, I'm with you on the glitter, but there must be paint. Kids love paint. I'll toss in some Floam, though, as that stuff is just nasty.
We do take a somewhat should-be-repented-of pleasure in seeing the kiddies smacking a piece of damp-with-thick paint construction paper onto their parents. Look – Noah's Ark on your new suit!
We don't do marshmallow for snacks, but we do do popcorn sometimes. That stuff is as hard to get off carpeting as glitter and Floam.
My best revenge as a daycare provider was crystal gardens, made with charcoal briquettes soaked in bluing…they do tend to fall apart in the back seat resulting in many tears and a horrible mess. The parents politely but firmly asked me to never do that project again. I responded with spray painted and glittered pretzel wreaths at Christmas….heh heh heh
Loved this. As a Sunday School teacher (especially as one whose own kids are grown now!), I had to giggle as I read. Since I teach 1-yr. olds, I keep things pretty simple (mainly for my sake — things can get crazy with 1-yr. olds pretty fast!), but if I had the older ones, not sure I could exercise as much self control
Good luck to you — not sure S.S. teachers will reform any time soon
Glitter is evil because I am much to easily distracted. I have learned I cannot have a conversation outside at night during the summer. Right in the middle of a sentence a lightening bug will flash and I'm gone.
Glitter has the same effect on me. I"m talking to one of the girls in youth and she'll blink and I suddenly forget what I'm talking about. "So God really wants you to … hey look you have shiny on your eyelids. Blink again."
That's my real problem with sparkly vampires. I could take on hordes of zombies, werewolves, and real vampires but the sparkly ones would just have to walk into the sun and I would be too distracted to kill them off. Next thing you know I'm a sparkly vampire that sits on the mountain top looking at my glittery skin. Not cool
In short, glitter is of the devil.
I used to help out with kids church..
we used to get donuts donated to us to give to the kids.. the first week we made a huge mistake and gave them the donuts @ the beginning of class… we had 45 kids jumping off the walls (im not kidding)… it was crazy!!!
the next week, we gave them as a take home gift
ps. the class was at night church
Great post, Jon. You've earned your Dad creds for sure with this one.
Some you missed:
Globby wet glue. There's something about Sunday School teachers — or maybe just the chaos of their environment — that produces an inability to come anywhere close to determining the answer to that perplexing question, "How much glue is required to bind X to Y?" In the excessive case, your kids greet you at the door having had their middle names changed to Elmer, and every surface between there and the trash can at home (because, let's face it, that's the destination for this stuff) gets a nice smear of adhesive love on it.
Glue deficiency. The opposite of "globby wet glue" is almost as bad, and is an accomplice in most crimes of glitter. You know this type of project. The one that has such a unique dynamicism that it looks different every time you see it. Is it some new morphing paper? Some shape-shifting craft foam you've not seen before? No. It's the fact that 5% of the craft's content is falling away each minute due to insufficient gluing. By the time this sucker hits the refrigerator, it's a mostly blank piece of construction paper, with glassy dried glue smears, and most of your kid's name written in marker (because some of the letters found themselves on pieces now missing from the artwork).
Everyone's comments seem to be focused on John's vendetta against glitter, and its equal yet opposite counterpart named "glue". Having tried to clean up after both of these charming yet deadly means of artistic expression, let me say that I am with you all the way! At least a marshmellow can be picked up and placed in the trash and then forgotten about!
Dude. I talk about SCL all the time and I think my friends are doing the Cuck-koo sign behind my back when I walk away sometimes…but this may be the first post that I am tacking on the wall at church. Hilarious.
Being a children's minister, I am very proud to say my room has been glitter free for fourteen months now. I believe glitter is part of an evil plot to cause strife within ministries as well as homes. We don't use glitter because we love the family. Oooh…that sounds like a campaign waiting to happen! I smell a fall event.
I have a confession: when I taught 4th grade Sunday School, I brought in ketchup and mustard. Not to eat. As part of a hands-on craft project. So as a part of your list:
Condiments as craft supplies: these should be used to decorate burgers and hot dogs only, not to draw hearts and stars on the floor, soaking through the newspaper print drop-cloths. Moreover, it should not be conducted on a day where 90 percent of the classroom is female and wearing skirts, spending the majority of the class on their hands and knees and permanently staining their sunday best with French's best.
I agree that too much/ too little glue is a frequent tool – usually accompanied by tons of hard macaroni noodles which the kids proceed to peel of their projects & get all over the car. Or eat…
So I am that parent who disceetly throws away the artwork before I reach our already overloaded Suburban. And if a clever child somehow has the skills to get the contraband into the vehicle, you can guarantee it will be stealthily pushed under the carseat until I reach the gas station, at which point it will become fodder for the overstuffed trash can by the pump.
Yeah, that's right. I am that parent. But who needs a print out of Moses or Noah with two green streaks of crayon across their faces?
Two things I thought of as I read this post: First, my husband (a pastor) is deathly afraid of glitter. He refuses to touch cards that have glitter on them, even if they are addressed to him. Something about an incident where a kid blew a bunch of glitter in his face during kindergarten class. But regardless, if he could make church a no-glitter zone, he would. Second, I saw some posts about glue. Folks, there are these glue-dot thingys that are basically like the rubbery adhesive that sticks phone cards to the cardboard backing when you buy them. Sticky but removeable and so NOT messy. I'm tempted to buy a crate of them for our church just to keep the glue from spreading.
I wish I could paint and glue in my Sunday school class. We're going through Song of Solomon now. Give me a Christianity Today and and and OK Magazine and I could do a decopague that's the jam.
There's nothing more fun than filling kids up with sugar, watching them run around for about an hour and then send them home nicely sedated. Of course the parents have to put up with an afternoon of ratty kids on a sugar come-down, but the quiet journey home is worth it? right?
Amen for equality!
At the risk of sounding ungrateful for the fact that 6yo's class has inspired an amazing and continuing interest in reading the word…
I have a tiny bit of a hard time with the fact that 6yo gets Points! for reading Verses! and gets to Trade Points! at a flashy Show Window! for Candy! and Toys!… not that there's anything wrong with that, except that…
4yo comes out with the print of Moses or Noah smeared with glue and tissue paper, and the memory verse stickered onto the chest – no Points! no Candy! or Toys! to Trade For! at the Show Window!
4yo just gets to watch, and then ride home in the same minivan… you get the picture.
Love the program for the fascination with the Bible that it has inspired, but seriously? They don't see the inevitable fallout? I feel guilty for complaining about a program that has had such great results, so have only questioned it in my head – but you gave voice to it and for that I thank you.
I teach Sunday School (kindergartners) and we paint almost every week. We also send home any paintings inside newspaper to keep wet paint off of clothing, car interiors, etc. And, if parents want to toss it, then they can just drop it all in the trash. (Besides, in my experience, the children enjoy making the painting more than keeping the painting.)
As for glitter – no. I won't use it. Too much mess and too much baggage. If I want "sparkly" I'll use glitter crayons or glitter paint. The glitter is already in the product and rarely, if ever, flecks off. But I even use these products sparingly.
Our motto: Be creative, and messy in the classroom; be wise and kind to parents outside the classroom.
NO glitter?!! I cannot fathom not absolutely LOVING glitter. I loved it as a kid and I love it now. I love seeing anything thing that sparkles! Greeting cards with glitter are saved much longer than the others (unless they ahppen to have a cute kitten picutre, of course). Glitter that escapes the vaccuum after Christmas is just a happy joyful surprise to find even if I have to sweep again. I stand in defence of all things GLITTER!
"A little glitter can turn your whole day around."
-Junie B. Jones
As a wise children's ministry mentor told me, "If kids learn nothing in their early childhood classes other than church is a place that they want to be each week, then you have done your job."
I say BRING ON THE GLITTER!!! The more, the better!!! No, it never goes away, but I doubt people who visit a church and see some glitter in a dark corner somewhere are thinking, "Yuck – glitter!" Guaranteed, they're thinking, "This church cares about their kids." This is a good thing.
I'm with you on the snacks, though – if I give out candy or whatever in kids' church and a parent asks if I can spare a piece for a younger sibling, I always comply. No need for me to be the cause of family drama…
When we first moved into our new house, my sister got the bright Idea to glitter up her barbies….and then take them with her to the bath tub, and Six years later? there is STILL glitter stuck to that tub, and not just a little bit.
Glitter never dies.
One Sunday morning, my 2 and 4 year old both made Jesus stick puppets in SS. As was the usual custom, I was carrying all the various snacks/papers/crafts out to the car after church. I dropped one of the Jesus puppets. Both kids dived after it and a smackdown ensued in the church parking lot. They were both screaming things like, "That's MY Jesus!" "Give me back MY Jesus!" and variations on that theme. Not sure what the day's lesson was (cause I'm one of those bad parents who never reads the parent lesson summary that is sent home every week) but, if the lesson was about "sharing Jesus with others" it was lost on my two,
oh heavens but the paint seriously never dries. so true.
As a children's pastor and surfer I vote for "Sand Art"! You can vacuum that stuff up after each week, or it can be like a vacation in the Bahamas right there in your car. I agree that Glitter is the Herpes of the craft world.
I am all for my kids playing with paint, glue, glitter, sand, shaving cream, or what have you in Sunday school. Why? because it all happens in a magical place I call Not My House.
"Mommy, can I paint today?"
"No sweetie, maybe at church on Sunday."
As long as they get wiped down before they're sent out the door and no sharpies or permanent tattoos are involved, it's all good by me.
I do have a bit of a gripe with all the choking hazard toys that everyone seems to love to give 3-year-olds, however. It was all OK until her younger brother became mobile and fascinated with putting his sister's treasures in his mouth. Glad to hear I'm not the only one that does the "dash-for-the-trash" routine at naptime.
Anon @ 9:25, love the Jesus puppet smackdown story!
as a children's pastor and vbs director i must say, i LOVE glitter and my SS teachers use it all the time. I could take a stock in glitter companys… Now I also have concrete floors with no rugs where they do the crafts, and I have no kids of my own in my dept yet. My husband and I have talked about how we may change the crafts in 3 years when our 2 y/o starts to reach the glitter age. HA HA
So about a month ago my son made a banana boat in Sunday school… It was a banana chopped up with whip cream and pretzels – at 9 in the morning.
Somehow this related to Paul's travels
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My time favorite was the week I went to pick my kids up from children's church and there in front of the building where that event was held each week stood about 80 young kids with candy cigarettes in their mouths pretending to smoke! Now the lesson had something to do with not smoking (not sure what Bible story they used with that one) but then they gave them the candy ones and well it just all went down hill from there! Very funny post