You will need printouts, scissors, stapler, elastic, sticky tape, and things to decorate – pencils, pens, craft glue, glitter, beads, stamps, stickers, any thing you can find!

Crowns are such fun and easy to make, you can make small ones for dolls, large ones for humans, even giant ones that go round the whole room. The images show some simple designs to get you started. Print or trace onto sturdy card and cut out for younger children in advance.

If you print onto an A4 sheet then stapling a small piece of elastic will allow you to stretch the crown round the head. Attach the elastic to the edges with a stapler, allowing the un-stretched elastic to be about half the length of the card piece. Try and leave the flat side of the staple next to the head and cover with a small piece of sticky tape if you think it may catch.

If you don’t have elastic then you need two crown shapes stapled together to make a crown large enough for a human head. You may think elastic is too much trouble but it actually saves time adjusting crowns to fit children’s heads, saves time cutting out the back of the crown, and uses the same amount of staples!!!

Enjoy your crowns, I’m sure Mary would have loved to place one of Jesus’ head, but we all know what kind of crown he was set to wear.

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Gift= WISDOM

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Here are the images you need for the hero’s attributes linked to Mary’s Perfume (John 12).
(English and Serbian)
 
The images are displayed small here, click on the image you wish to have, then save the image that loads.
 

English

Serbian

German

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Remember there are a few crafts for this lesson, and these crafts are a springboard, easily open to modification!

This one is particularly good for older girls, though anyone adept with a pair of scissors will be fine. Alternatively it’s a nice gift to take away and can be made very swiftly by an adult.

You will need good scissors, felt pens, non-fray fabric (such as felt) perfume bottles or scented oils, cotton buds, and paper towels (extra stick on embellishments, and interfacing are optional)
 

Giving each youngster a small piece of fabric (if you are using interfacing to stop fraying or just to make it more sturdy iron this on in advance). Ask them to cut a shape that they associate with the story today, jugs, perfume bottles, crowns, crosses, or anything with a solid centre. Add any decorations and then place a slit in the middle to act as a button hole. Place the shape on a couple of paper towels and start creating it’s perfume. Encourage the youngsters to either chose one scent or mix as few as possible, you don’t want the fabric too wet. At the end of the lesson slip the fabric shape onto a button on the youngsters outfit, they will carry the scent and story with them for the rest of the day.

 

Alternatively make it a keyring, just make a small hole and add a jump ring to an empty keyring or existing one, or use a small dab of glue and attach it to a ribbon which can in turn be worn as a necklace or tied onto an ankle to give the wearer ‘smelly feet’.

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You may notice there are a few crafts for this lesson. Remember these crafts are a springboard, they are easily open to modification and all are simple to make. The craft you chose will probably probably depend as much on the make-up of your group as the resources you can find.

This one is simple to resource and doesn’t involve any smelly things, though it’s easy to incorporate them if you wish.

We will be using the full page jug image. It can be found here.
 

You will need scissors, pencil, pen, craft glue, coloured plastic bags, printout, extra decorations such as stamps and bath beads (optional).

Prepare the plastic bags first. Cut the top handles and bottom off the bag and flatten out the remaining tube.

Taking a reasonably sharp pair of scissors strip the bag into long 2 cm wide sections. remember to make the width half at the edges to allow for the fold. In reality the strips will probably get cut again but this makes it easier to start with.

Repeat the action with different colour bags and bundle same colours. the children will need at least 2 colours each. you only use a fraction of the bag for the craft so if you have a small group you’ll probably only need one bag of each colour.

using craft glue attach the bags to the image. the trick to getting a nice glassy feel is to leave space as you stick down, scrunching the pater a plastic.

glueing is simple. I found white craft glue was better than a glue stick but both give different results. double sided tape could also be used if glue is an issue. The middle of the area needs very little glue with the glue mostly folding the edges in. you will probably have to trim smaller bits to get a nice fit.

you can leave the craft there, it’s simple and straightforward. but if you wanted to be more adventurous then why not continue with the decorations.

If I had bath beads I would have added them and then done another layer of plastic, but alas none could be found so I settled for stamping words. You could add stickers, a memory verse, the child’s name, or anything you wished to emphasise, placed right there in the oil that Mary was going to honour Jesus with.

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The best way to tell this story is by using as few words as possible. Use these notes to help you. The bits in bold are suggestions on what to say

Equipment needed:
 a smelly liquid, perfume, oil, or a cosmetic
 a real towel or perhaps a few (or paper towels)
 a crown (you can make this in advance out of card)
 a volunteer who has removed their socks and shoes (or a tray with two footprints on it)

Set the scene. get the children to sit round a table or in a circle on the floor. if you have a large group then consider doing this in small groups. Once you have the children seated and quiet start.

Can you imagine eating a meal with Jesus and his friends. This story takes place shortly before Jesus was put on the cross. Jesus’ friends had started to realise just who Jesus was.

(Who was Jesus?) bring out the crown. Jesus was the King of all Kings, he was God’s son.

Mary realised this, but she didn’t have a crown to put on Jesus’ head, but she did have something else. Mary remembered that long ago the Jewish kings were anointed, they had oil poured over their head. They also anointed people when they died. Here was the King of all Kings, who was preparing to die and he hadn’t been anointed. Mary went and got her best perfume, a big jug of it.

Bring out the perfume, pause to let the children smell it and act out your words from now on.

Mary took the perfume and poured it over Jesus feet. The smell filled the room. One of the disciples said it was a waste of money, but Jesus told them that what Mary had done was right and wise. She had anointed a king and prepared Jesus for what would happen soon in Jerusalem.

Mary had shown wisdom, wisdom is not the same as knowing lots of things, it’s about using what you know in the best possible way.

Mary with her perfume is today’s Bible hero because she showed us Wisdom.

If you wish finish the story by offering to anoint the children’s feet. We are all children of God, members of his family and princes and princesses in his kingdom.

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Smelly games and lots of liquids make this lesson on Mary one worth spending a bit of time on. There are not many lessons that allow us to use so many different sensory textures so do take advantage of the opportunity.

Smell bags – I love this game, it sounds like a lot of work but really it’s very simple. You need some kind of container, a cloth bag works the best but cardboard boxes with salt shaker holes are just as easy. You then need to find some familiar smells, shampoo’s, perfumes, soap, chopped vegetables, spices, cleaning products, candles, fruit, flavoured crisps, you’ll be amazed at home many you can find even in a sparsely equipped homestead. Either place ‘the smell’ inside the container or onto a tissue inside the container and get the kids to identify the it.

Bucket logic – this is a simple logic problem great for older kids and repeated on the worksheet. You need a large container of water and two different size containers – but not measuring jugs. You also need either scales or a measuring rod to determine the correct amount. Read the worksheet for more details. Don’t worry about being too exact with the measurements just add the capacity of the two containers together and divide by 2.

Wet footprints – this is a lovely game for young children if you have a paved or concrete area that is safe to move about in. Removing socks and shoes play ‘follow the leader’ trying to stand in the same footprints. Lay out a very wet towel or doormat for the children to walk over, It’s easy to tie this one back into the teaching too.
 

Ticklish feet – a parachute game for younger children. Sit round the parachute with your knees bent to the sky and your toes facing inwards. A trustworthy child is given a feather and allowed to crawl under the fabric to test who has ticklish feet, knees and such. The automatic reaction is to bend your feet under your body, if everyone does this declare the last person to move the winner.

Deceptive smells – blindfold a volunteer and let them smell what they are about to eat, then (holding their nose) ask them to take a big bite. Talk them through the process,’I’m just cutting it up /spreading some on this bread/ dipping this biscuit into…’ The classic is smelling onion and eating apple, but be as creative as you wish. Jam and shampoo work well, as does cloves and raisins. If you are with older teenagers you can call their bluff and not swap the products!

Water run – this is defiantly a game only suitable if you can get the resources and have a space you can potentially get very wet, but it will be memorable. Tell the youngsters the bare bones of the story ie ‘the story is about a woman who pours oil on someone feet’ and then say you would like their help to act out the event. Only problem is that the oil and the feet are too far apart. Reveal a few rolls of sticky tape and a mixture of tubes, these can be made of anything but the less absorbent the better. Challenge the youngsters to wash each other feet from a distance using at least 2 tubes.
 

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