Ideas for Organizing Your Children’s Missions Classroom

Ideas to Tame Your Space, Time, and Materials

• • Purchase a basket or crate in which children can keep the current issue of Missions Journey: Kids Adventure. Designate a separate box in which you can store old issues to use for pictures to cut or even to give to children who visit your missions discipleship group.
  • Save favorite recipes, crafts, or activities from Missions Journey: Kids Adventure throughout the year. Put them in a binder in plastic sleeves. At the end of the curriculum year, use them as a fun review to send home over the summer — let children pick what to include from each issue.
  • Post a set-up checklist and allow early arrivers to help set out copies of Missions Journey: Kids Adventure, pencils, Bibles, etc., each week. If possible, have a sharpener available so children can prepare pencils or colored pencils for your meeting time.
  • Depending on your space and age group, consider having individual supplies ready in pencil boxes or pouches. Children can decorate their own box and be responsible for keeping their glue, scissors, crayons, and other supplies organized and put away at the end of class.
  • Large (2 gallon) ziplock bags make a great place to keep Missions Journey: Kids Leader Kit materials. Posters that have been cut apart can be placed in smaller bags and placed inside the larger bag, and posters can be rolled up to fit inside. Keep the activities you used during the missions discipleship group available for children to play with while waiting to get picked up at the end of the session.
  • Start a verse “hall of fame.” Display all of the monthly verses on a central bulletin board, in a line around the wall, or in some other visible area where they can be left all year. Challenge children to memorize the verses. Purchase a special prize (gift card, High Five Badge/Patch, etc.) for children who memorize and are able to recite all of the year’s verses.
  • At the beginning of each month, gather all of the extra materials you will need for the lessons in each unit. Designate a special box or basket to store each week’s extra materials. Soon, children will automatically know to look there for the extra items like number cubes, craft sticks, or whatever else might be needed for an activity. This will also help you because you are prepared in advance, and you have a way to easily carry items back to the church’s supply closet or resource room when you’re done with the unit.