"Bible Surf Shack" computer workshop sign at Peace Presbyterian, Bradenton FL made with boogie board.  See how it was made.

Go to our Getting Started & Workshop Design Resources Menu

These workshop signs come from the Grovekids "Treehouse" (Rotation) Sunday School at Elim Grove Baptist in Bonner Kansas.

I've posted some of their workshop photos in Art

“It beats the socks off filling out a worksheet,” said Cheris Bass, co-leader of the church’s Sunday School program.

Once deciding to take it on, Bass said, the church members decided they needed to make it “the best thing ever.” She said they were inspired by a children’s area at that same Lee’s Summit church, which was simply named the treehouse, given their church’s name was based on trees.

So they decided to design the Sunday School area to look like children were climbing up into a treehouse, crossing a hallway painted to look like a swinging bridge before entering the treehouse — crafts room, science room, theater room, computer lab and movie theatre, all around a large children’s worship area decorated with street signs and all sorts of knickknacks. A taxidermied Alaskan black bear, donated by a church member, greets children at the top of the main staircase.

Each of the workshop rooms is decorated with murals to make it look like children are looking out from the treehouse at the Kansas landscape.

-excerpted from a local newspaper article

Peace Presbyterian's "Jesus Boat" welcoming the children to the Sunday School hallway.

The boat was made out of cardboard stapled to a rough wooden frame and painted brown. Jesus was modeled by a student and his head replaced by artwork.  The mast is also cardboard and the sail is a calico-like cloth stuff with newspaper.

Waves to be added soon.

A sign announcing current and upcoming workshops is further down the hall (Jesus is pointing to it).  See it in the next post.

The frame's curved edge is a thin 1" strip of pine from Lowes. It curved nicely. The frame was mostly for shape as tapling the cardboard to the frame created most of the strength we needed.

"Tracing Jesus"

The "planking" on the (cardboard) boat is painted on... an extra coat of the same paint applied with a rough brush.

One of our biggest objectives was to create an eye-catching design that was large enough to be seen by visitors from our main hallway. Many of our workshops and younger children's rooms have either a SEA or outdoorsy motif. And we have a small lake right out the door to the right of the boat. Jesus + boat seemed to tie it all together for us.

The Jesus Boat

Here are two photos of the model of the "Jesus Boat" based on a fishing boat found in the mud of the Sea of Galilee in 1986.  Click on them to enlarge.

Jesus Boat Model photos courtesy of Michael Minn,
http://michaelminn.net/countries/israel/galilee_boat

The "Lion's Studio" hallway sign at Peace Presbyterian, Bradenton FL

The Lion's Studio pulls double duty as our Video/A-V Workshop on some Sundays, and as our Art Workshop on others.

Our mid-elementary children's class used to be called "The Lions" so we kept that name and their stuffed animal mascot, but added the apostrophe to make it the "Lion's" studio because more than one group uses the studio now. "Lion's" is none other than Aslan the Christ-Lion in Narnia. Aslan is wearing a necklace we had made for him that bears his name (and also holds him firmly to the sign). A Narnia poster is hanging in the studio.

We have (too) long of a hallway and wanted to 'pull' people down it to see our classrooms. Signs like this did the trick.

The Flying Bulletin Board in our workshop hallway.

We needed a display board that doubled as signage and caught people's attention.

The board is a piece of thin "luan" plywood screwed to a simple frame and covered with starry cloth. On top of the cloth we glued two pieces of galvanized steel (inexpensive from Home Depot) to both create an eye & light-catching surface, and work with magnets.

Click to enlarge.

One of our fun design rules is that nothing sits "flat" on the walls, but rather, "floats" above the surface. One reason for this 'rule' is to counteract the boring and vertigo-inducing effect of our long and very straight hallway.

Some photos of the murals at St Andrew Pres in Tampa Fl

Notice the use of painted wood to make the critters and trees "pop" off the wall. Nice effect.

Detail of painted wood attached to mural.

"Sail" suspended from the ceiling in a classroom. The wood is painted pvc pipe.

Photos from Central UMC in Meridian MS

Signs pointing students to their workshops

Above: "Bible Street" theme for their hallway.

Below: Photos of various special decorations in their "Gathering Space" where stories are introduced prior to the workshops.

Photos courtesy of Central United Methodist Church, Meridian MS

United PC, Sterling KS

Our hallway serves as a Prayer Pathway (not only for kids but for anyone.)  We are fortunate to have a wide, long hallway.  Twisted trees stand at both entrances of the hall.  In addition to the Prayer Tree (by the bridge), we have plans for other permanent prayer stations throughout.

EDITED BY MODERATOR TO ADD TREE CONSTRUCTION INFORMATION (we have had several questions on how these lovely three-dimensional trees were put together:

Our pastor and her daughter actually made this tree. Here’s her response:

We took long sheets of kraft paper (the kind on a big roll) and crumpled them and twisted them to make long crumply "branches." The trunk is many of these stapled to the wall together, and then branches coming out of that, some of those stapled to wall, and some of them suspended from the ceiling with fishing line and paper clips. The leaves are garlands that we bought at Hobby Lobby.

The tree’s trunk was actually attached at an outer corner of two walls, so I think that helped give the tree more dimension.

Workshop Entry and various signs at the Golf Course Road Church of Christ, Midland TX

Click to enlarge

Here is a sampling of the Bible timeline 3-dimensional mural at Goodwood Church of Christ. You can see more photos of their space along with some "how to" pointers at Education Hall Makeover.