Home Children's Ministry Leaders Articles for Children's Ministry Leaders Sunday School Kickoff: 15 Fantastic Fall Ideas for KidMin

Sunday School Kickoff: 15 Fantastic Fall Ideas for KidMin

4. Sunday School Kickoff: Information Binder

To help me get to know kids better, I’ve created a class notebook.

First of all, I help each first-grade girl fill out a get-to-know-you sheet with questions about her address, phone, family, interests, and more. I put all these forms in a three-ring binder.

Behind each girl’s information sheet, I put a few sheets of lined paper to record when I call or send notes or cards to the child. I try to write or call each girl at least every other week. When I send a note, I send along the week’s memory verse. I also tell something fun we’ll be doing the following week in class. Or I comment on something the girl told me in class or on an upcoming event in her life. This makes the girls feel very special.

In my binder, I also keep my class’s attendance record, notepads in fun colors, stickers to put on the outside of envelopes, and bookmarks to surprise the girls.

Amy Szlapak
Columbus, Ohio

5. Sunday School Kickoff: Mystery Person

Our children’s church averages 40 to 45 children each week, but many individuals don’t attend every week. To encourage a family feeling even though kids are in and out, we feature a Mystery Person each Sunday.

The kids each fill out Mystery Person forms that tell us their favorite colors, foods, school subjects, and more. Then each week, we choose a form of a child who’s present that day. As we read the clues one by one, the kids try to guess who the Mystery Person is.

We review the rules each week:

  • No saying “yuck!” to the Mystery Person’s favorites.
  • Only one guess per child.
  • When you realize you’re the Mystery Person, keep cool. Even guess somebody else.
  • Everyone gets a piece of candy, and the Mystery Person and the one who identifies the Mystery Person each get two pieces.

Our children look forward to this every week. We all benefit from getting to know each other better, and we’ve found out some amazing things about our children. We’ve even asked our senior pastor and the children of our missionaries to fill out forms for us. That way we can feature each of them as our Mystery Person at different times.

Debbie Rowley
Santa Ana, California

6. Sunday School Kickoff: Children’s Rally

For our fall kickoff, we hold a Children’s Rally. We serve a free spaghetti dinner with all of the fixings and invite neighborhood families, our day care families, and folks within our church body. We have a team of people who love to cook, so they volunteer their time to prepare and serve the meal. They make homemade spaghetti, tossed salad with dressing and croutons, garlic bread, and brownies.

We set up tables at one end of our fellowship hall for our meal and tables at the other end that serve as booths. Ministry leaders run the booths, and booths have information on all the programs we offer to minister to children, our partnerships with area elementary schools, upcoming events, parenting classes, and family fun nights. At each booth, kids get candy, balloons, and informational handouts. Parents can also sign up to receive additional information or to help out in each area of ministry.

We make sure this is the only event scheduled so we have plenty of room. We also open up Sunday school classrooms and ask teachers to be present, so our Children’s Rally is an open house, too.

Because we provide a meal and child care, parents are willing to invest time in this event. It’s a huge success! We plan to do it each year to kick off our ministry season and to promote how we love God’s kids!

Brenda Stearns
Anchorage, Alaska