Archive for the Category »Activity Bag FAQs «

An Introduction to Little TAKAs

09 Apr 2010 by Rachel

This is Part 3 of the Series:

Part 1 Starting Out
Part 2 A New Life Together
Part 3 An Introduction to Little TAKAs

Welcome!

I started Little TAKAs with the vision to provide to others the resources to set up kids activity bags for themselves and to offer good links to worksheets researched by “theme” to assist children in their learning and growing.

So as to maintain the quality of the links I would like to each year review the topics as they come up again, and ensure that the links are still current.  I haven’t quite worked out the best way to do this yet… the site at the moment is very much a work in progress.  I would like for links to be maintained as free on these ‘themed’ worksheet articles.  Providing this free links to resource is what makes Little TAKAs what it is and I don’t want to take away from that.

Where I provide product recommendations, reviews or information about membership sites I will endeavour to keep these very separate and very obvious to the user – that way if you, as my reader decides you wish to benefit only from the free worksheets, then you are very welcome to do just that.  My number one vision is to assist parents and ministry workers in providing kids with really good quality activities… to provide a tool to keep kids occupied while they are travelling, are sitting in Church, are at a restaurant… whatever might be the reason that some quiet time is needed.

I would like to provide to you a chance to easily set up Activity Bags for kids, like the ones that I have set up here for our Church.  I have found them to be a fantastic resource for my own Children when Church is on – and have received some really positive comments from other parents also.

I not only provide them at Church, but I also use these activity bags at home when I need a bit of quiet time (as an activity), and I have also been known to take them along when we have gone out as a family together… to keep the kiddies amused while we are waiting.

If you would like to be updated with parent tips, tricks and fun activity ideas then please sign up to our free newsletter.

We are committed to making this site the best that we possibly can, so if you have any suggestions or comments please do send me an email.

Little TAKAs aStore

I decided to set up an online store; you will find a link in the right sidebar to the Little TAKAs aStore.

This store is provided to you so that you can easily find all the ingredients necessary to put together your own kid’s activity bag (with a Christian, educational or family focus).  I also provide suggestions for products that might assist in Children’s Ministry, eg. Sunday School, Kids Church etc.

The aStore is still a work in progress… I would really like to add some additional kid’s books amongst other things.  Where I can I sell brands that I know and trust, including specific items that I have purchased, or my friends have purchased, or ones that I have done plenty of research on to make sure that they are a top quality product – I am therefore as certain as I can be that the items that I suggest are real good quality.

If you purchase anything from my aStore that you were extremely happy with, or alternatively were disappointed with, then please feel free to let me know this by either dropping me a quick email – or providing a review of the product at our aStore.  Your feedback re our site and the products that we suggest really is valued.

If there are products that you would like to suggest to me, whether you are a parent recommending a particular product to other parents, or you have a product that you think would be of benefit to my readers… whatever it is please feel free to drop me an email.

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A New Life Together

09 Apr 2010 by Rachel

This is Part 2 of the Series:

Part 1 Starting Out
Part 2 A New Life Together
Part 3 An Introduction to Little TAKAs

Once the house was complete and we moved in, we started to attend the Church near our new home on a much more regular basis.  One person had been looking after both Junior Youth and Senior Youth for a long time and was struggling with finding the time to get them running and well all on her own… it was decided that Paul and I would started leading Junior Youth, which meant that this other person could focus more time toward the Senior Youth.

Junior Youth was once a month and we did plenty of organising during the month to make each youth event as awesome and fun as we could possibly make it.  There were things that worked and things that didn’t… I think most people who work in child or youth ministry have had this experience at one time or another.  The really awesome thing was that the group grew from only a few each month in attendance at the beginning of the year to about 30 each month toward the end of the year.  We had so much fun… amongst other things we had a Mini Olympics, we had a trip to the acquatic centre and we had a Toilet Paper theme night – the kids had the opportunity to wrap us in toilet paper, lol.  We found that the whistle came in extremely handy as the group grew about 20 children.

We found out that we were due to have our first child the following year, and so started to do a hand over to a group of mums and dads who had expressed interest and commitment to keeping the youth happening once a month.

Once we had our first child I started to becoming more involved again, this time in bible study groups and I had been asked to take up the role of bookkeeper at the Church.  I had resigned from my position within government and started doing a bit of work from home, which has more recently (during the last 3 years) developed into my business, Proactive Admin Services.

Back to Basics

About 4 or 5 years ago Paul got a transfer through his work and we moved up to Queensland.  The first few years that we were up here were a bit tough, but we soon made new friends and started to feel that we belonged.

Gradually I started going along to playgroup, helping out with a few things at Church and attending a few meetings… which eventually moved me into the role of Secretary on Church Council.  For a while I was also asked to be on staff there at the Church to assist with their admin and finances.

While I was researching and setting up my Virtual Assistance business I got pregnant with our second child.  Both our children are a bit more grown up now… our eldest has started school and loves to help with everything from unloading the dishwasher through to helping out check and refill the kid’s activity bags.

Just recently I have felt a real need to move back to my initial vision, which is to do client work completely from my own office (no onsite jobs for me) – so establishing my business in line with the true meaning of my title,  ‘Virtual’ Assistant.

This really has allowed for me to start to focus my time towards those things that really do matter… my family, my kids, some volunteer work, some ‘me’ time… so really more life balance.  Some volunteer time is currently spent preparing the Kids Activity Bags for our local Church.

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Starting Out

09 Apr 2010 by Rachel

This is Part 1 of the Series:

Part 1 Starting Out
Part 2 A New Life Together
Part 3 An Introduction to Little TAKAs

The purpose of the next few articles will be to get you up to date on my journey from when I was little until now… hopefully providing to you some insight into why I started Little TAKAs.

Being a PK (Pastor’s Kids) I have been involved and active in Church from a very young age.  First it was very basic, but I still understood what it meant to serve others and things like that.  In my senior years of Primary School I became more involved in Church Ministries, including Sunday School and Kids Club.

In High School I became involved as a youth leader, including stepping into the role of youth secretary and I also continued to assist with Sunday School and Kids Club where needed.  I joined up with St John’s Ambulance and they trained me up as a Cadet Leader, which meant that at times I would lead the children that attended on parade, or maybe assist in various training exercises.

When I turned 17 I commenced a traineeship at a nearby Primary School.  I did plenty of admin and finance as part of the traineeship (my role), but the scope of work was so much more than that.  I not only did admin and finance, but I was also given the opportunity to work with children at times, including training them in computer programs, assisting them in the library and working with individual children that were struggling with their English.

From the traineeship I received a full time permanent position in the CBD assisting with admin and accounts payable.  At the same time as my being offered this full time permanent position, my dad accepted a call to a small town in Queensland.  I moved in with my Grandma in the outskirts of Adelaide, and then later moved into a small home with some friends.

Upon moving to Adelaide I helped out teaching Sunday School to children 4 and 5 years of age.  This was really awesome fun and I learnt a lot from the kids that I worked with.  I found out about social badminton and went along for the first time – which is where I met Paul (he hit me in the head with a shuttlecock, lol).  Over time Paul and I got to know each other a bit better and about 3 years later we got married.

When we first got married I had a bit of downtime from doing Children’s Ministry for a year or two while we searched for a new home…, while we waited to see where the wind would blow us.  The first time I stood on the block of land where we would build our first home I felt such a strong sense of satisfaction…, I somehow knew that this was going to be the very place that we would soon live and start a family in.

We purchased the block, found the home that we wanted to build and got the ball rolling… it was a bit of a long road to travel, but we got there in the end.

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Kid’s Activity Bags

25 Feb 2010 by Rachel

Today I would like to introduce you to the idea of kid’s activity bags.

It’s a well known fact that a child’s focus won’t hold for a very long time.  As an adult even my focus tends to wain pretty quickly if I have started to bore on a topic or if I get distracted by something else, but not quite as quickly as a child’s might.

An activity bag provides a compact, fun and easy way in which to keep children occupied when they say those dreaded words “I’m bored”, while they are waiting for their brother or sister to finish up their piano lesson, traveling in the car, or maybe visiting a friend’s house, or maybe so you can concentrate while you are at Church or in a meeting.

I am absolutely certain that so many Mums and Dads have already had this idea to set up an activity bag for their children.

When I started looking for an inexpensive way to put together the activity bags for both my children and the local Church I found heaps of free activity sheets and ideas on the net. The thing is though, to provide activities on a particular theme you have to go looking, and it takes time to look…

My aim is to provide some really good quality information and ideas on how you might go about setting up a kid’s activity bag for your child, including an ongoing supply of links to activity sheets and ideas that are downloadable from the net.  To find links to activity sheets and other ideas, check out the ‘Categories’ toolbar to the right of this post.

more…

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Educational and Christian Kids Worksheets, Crafts and Activities

19 Feb 2010 by Rachel

In a moment I am going to post some Kids Activity Sheets.  Before I do this I would like to explain a bit about my vision for this weblog.

What I am hoping to achieve is to research and provide parents with links to themed Educational and Christian worksheets, crafts and activities.  I have found themes to be a really good way to enhance my children’s learning experience.  As a parent, it can sometimes be really difficult to find the time needed to think up a theme, and gather some really good materials and resources relating to this particular theme.

“Educational” Themes might be anything from a “Letter of the Alphabet”, to “Space”, to “Types of Birds”, to “Transport”, there are so many – use your imagination.  I will try and provide links to some really good activity sheets on a couple of themes each week.  Sometimes the activities in a whole article will be in relation to a particular age group.  For example, the first theme, the “Letter A” would be most appropriate for children between the ages of 3 and 6.  I will let you know this at the beginning of a post where possible.

In a Church a Pastor, Lay Reader, or Lay Preacher will either select or be provided a theme for worship.  Everything from the Music, to the Sermon, to the Kids Address, to the Drama will stem out of that theme.  Often the theme will be in reference to a specific Gospel or Bible Reading.  I currently assist with the Kids Activity Bags at my local Church, and so will provide Activity Sheets, Crafts and Activities relating to the theme that my particular Church will be covering for the coming Sunday.  Sometimes the activities in these posts will be best for a particular age group.  I will try and provide age group references where I can in these posts.

Hopefully this blog and its content will be really useful to you as a parent, and might provide a base for your children to both have fun and develop their knowledge base at the same time.

Category: Activity Bag FAQs, Activity Bags for Kids, Christian Worksheets, Educational Topics, Worksheets  Tags: , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
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