Tourist Night can be a very creative night for all the children at your church! I recently hosted a Tourist Night for our Sunday night program and it was a blast! Here are some ways you can make this theme night a lot of fun for your kids!
Dress-Up Ideas
The kids were asked to come dressed in their “tourist” outfits. I was so impressed with all of their creativeness! We had Disney tourists, Hawaiian tourists, Hollywood tourists, and we even had one boy come dressed in his cape and mask and said he was Robin touring Gotham City! I loved the crazy hats, fanny packs, cameras, umbrellas, and all the tacky outfits! Of course, I had to add to the tackiness! I pulled together an outfit from things at my home and the kids said I was the “Crazy Tourist Lady”. Yes, I guess you could say I was!
Decorations
I like to pick a focus wall on our hallway and use that as my backdrop for decorations. Plastic tablecloths are a great way to add color to the walls (I like to bunch mine up by stapling them over string and bunching several together). These pennants are a great addition to the plastic tablecloths you hung on the wall. Or if you want to use flag pennants you can get these. Buy these globe inflatables and hang them from the ceiling. Or you could print out airplanes off the computer, then cut and glue them to foam board, and hang them from the ceiling too. Create a large passport to lean up against the wall. Use a overhead projector and transparency to enlarge and trace a passport onto foam board. You could also find camera images online and enlarge them and hang on the wall. Lots of fun ideas for you to do!
Activities
Class Map of our Town Our 3-year olds & Pre-K kids designed a class map of our town. The leaders reminded them that many people come to our town on the weekends to tour our city. They asked them what some of their favorite places are. Using light brown butcher paper, they created one big class map of our town, listing the places that the children mentioned. The kids drew a square and colored it which represented their favorite place in the town. The leader then wrote above the square the name of the place and drew roads to connect all of their favorite places. After they finished, the map was hung in their classroom.
Create-Your-Own-Map Our Kindergarten and 1st Graders designed their own maps. The leaders also talked with them about their favorite places in our town. They did the same things as the younger ones, but created their own maps using the light brown butcher paper. Then they folded them (like a map) and took them home.
Tourist Scavenger Hunt Our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th and 5th grade classes went on a Tourist Scavenger Hunt around the town Square! Our church is located 2 blocks off the Square so it’s great that we can walk and do things around town with the kids. Each class was given a list of places around the Square that are fun spots for tourists to visit. Their job was to get a group picture (or group selfie) at each location. Some of the places were shops, some with certain things inside a shop, one was even in front of the bathrooms at our local park (every tourist I’m sure makes a stop there!). After their picture was taken, they each had to say one thing that they were thankful for. They could not say the same thing twice either. We all had fun running all over the Square taking photos!
Bible Lesson – Acts 16:16-26
Our Bible story for the night dealt with Paul and Silas in prison. What does that have to do with tourists? Remember that these men traveled all over telling others about Jesus. They saw many cities and got to meet new people and experience different things in each of the cities they visited. In one city, the people did not like them talking about Jesus and they were arrested and put in prison (Acts 16:16-26). Despite their incarceration, these men sang songs of praise to God and prayed. They gave thanks to God no matter what. That’s what we wanted our children to remember. Even in the hard times, we give thanks to our Lord.
A theme night can be as fun as you make it. Whatever you want to do, go for it! You can decorate as little or as elaborate as you like. If you are all in, then the kids will be too. Have fun with it! The kids will remember it. Below are some of my favorite pictures from the night.
For more fun theme night ideas, check out these posts:
