About Albert's Prayer Arrows
Who is Albert?
Albert is Kay’s puppet. He is a chimpanzee and has been with her for more than 30 years.
He is Allergic to bananas but loves beef burgers. (Yes I know he’s a puppet – but children love a back story!)
He has been everywhere with Steve and Kay and was best known in Whizz Kids at Spring Harvest, where Kay and her Hubby led the 5-7’s work for over 14 years.
Why Arrows?
When Kay worked with Scripture Union, her mentor used arrows to explain prayer to children.
With permission, we took that idea and expanded it. We used the final resource all over the place and often received requests for a format that others could use.
So, we produced Albert’s Prayer Arrows in a little book with the help of Spring Harvest, and a friend (Neil Crook) who did the fabulous art work for us – based on the Puppet.
The book is very basic; a Bible verse, a three line explanation and of course – the wonderful pictures. We would do the booklet differently now, and probably add one more (lament), but they work well as a memory tool for children and adults alike.
The activities seem quite ‘wordy’!
As I said, the little book just explained different aspects of prayer very simply. What we have done here is take it one step further and give an activity alongside.
They are designed for "going deeper" into what each arrow means.
These work better as a church based activity, but could work in a family setting. We have done these with children aged 5 up to 11, and all coped (including those with additional needs).
The activities here would normally sit within a longer teaching session with lots of space to creatively explain what each arrow means – one per session. We even did a whole camp using these as the basis for the daily teaching!
The words on this website are the basis for the grown ups to use/read with the children in their care, but children are more than welcome to read it themselves if they want to!
As the grown up, you know the children in your care – we have never met them. So we need you to take those words and put them into a form your child(ren) will relate to and is within their own experience.
What about children with additional needs?
Yes, some children may struggle with the text – so it’s fine to just use the activity at a basic level. In time, we hope to do an easy read version of them.
But many children with additional needs are deep thinkers, including those with learning disabilities.
We want them to have the opportunity to encounter Jesus through prayer in the same way any other child would, and not assume ‘they can’t’ just because they have an additional need or disability. These children might surprise you in how they grasp the concepts we cover.
You may want to take a week over each arrow and do the activity again in different ways. As we set more up on the site, we will add other prayers on similar subjects that you can use during that week and link them to each arrow.
NOTE:
All the prayer arrows will be coming soon - they just need moving over from the old domain host.
We have had to change the site over from another provider. This is due to platform changes made by the old provider not working with our accessibility settings. Please bear with us as we have to rebuild the whole site.
