Let’s start a global Christian campaign. Ban all coloring sheets! Ban the vast majority of foam gluing projects! One of the passions of Teach One Reach One is ridding children’s Bible classes of coloring sheets and foam cut-outs. You may wonder why we are so passionate about replacing those activities with more hands-on, creative projects.
Don’t misunderstand. Art activities can help children (and even adults) process Bible stories and godly principles in new, meaningful ways. They can help students remember your class for much longer than would be expected. It won’t happen though if you are using pre-packaged art. Those activities are too common to be very memorable. They usually require the child to think about what color to use or how to cut or paste but not think about how to represent what has been learned.
The next time you want your students to do an art activity, make it one which requires the student to be creative. The activity should make them have to think about what they were just taught and how to represent it in a way that is meaningful to them. It helps them take the information you gave them and process it in different ways. It encourages a higher level of understanding.
If you are nervous about thinking of creative art activities, we can help. Find your Bible story under our lessons tab and see if any of the suggested activities are art activities. If not, look under other stories. Sometimes an activity under one Bible story on our site would actually work with more than one story. If you are brave, consider putting out all sorts of random materials and give your students the godly principle from your lesson. Tell them to create an art object which depicts that principle.
Some of you may be wondering what to do about that one student who wants to add an outside fictional character, robot or monster to their artwork. As annoying and disrespectful as that may seem, it actually gives you a great opportunity to talk with your students about the Bible being a book of true historical stories versus a fictional book.
Even if you don’t consider yourself artistic, don’t be afraid to allow your students to be. If any of them shows talent, make sure to encourage them to continue exploring art to see if God gifted them to use it as one way they can serve Him. Who knows, you may even want to join your students and do some memorable Bible artwork yourself!