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Ideas

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Make your HighPoint soar through any turbulence that comes. Check out these tips and ideas based on questions from customers like you:

  Decorations

What are some fun ways to build on the airplane theme?

• Make a realistic flight schedule by typing and printing out your HighPoint destinations using capital letters in white on a black background. Cut out and glue the destinations onto black foam core board found in any craft supply store. Attach the board to the wall, near the check-in area. It’s a fun way for kids to see where they’ve been and where they’re going. Click here to see example.

• Some churches have created backdrops of an airplane or airport. Another church built a “plane” with PVC pipe and white sheets, so kids actually sit inside the plane during takeoff.

• Set up chairs like an airplane with sections of chairs 3-6 across.

• Use the flight attendant idea for snacks (see Snacks).

• Allow flight attendants and kid volunteers to help with the take-off instructions like pantomiming putting on seatbelts and practicing putting on oxygen masks.

• Remind the kids to keep their belongings stowed under their seats as carry-ons. Also remind them to stay seated since they have “seatbelts” on.

Click here to see pictures of how churches are decorating for HighPoint!

  Organization

How can I make Check-In go more quickly?

• Make mailboxes or cubbies for the kids to keep their Passports in. They can pick them up and take them to their seats as “carry-ons” and then stow them under their seats. At the end, they can return them to their mailboxes.

• To make mailboxes, purchase an over-the-door plastic shoe holder that has about 20-30 pockets. Label them with the kids’ names and designate one pocket for the leader.

• Assign younger/shorter kids’ boxes on the bottom, older/taller kids on the top.

• Put the new Boarding Pass in the mailboxes for easy pick up when the session is over.

• When kids return the next week, they can put their completed boarding pass in the leader’s mailbox, which lets the leader organize the passes after the kids go home.

TIP: If you have a larger group, adapt this solution to having one mailbox per Hub Group.

What’s a quick way to pass out Passports and Stickers?

• Pass them out at the door as kids enter the takeoff area.

• Let Connecting Flight leaders give them out. (Use the stickers to mark Connecting Flight completion, attendance, bringing back Boarding Passes, etc.)

• Make a pencil mark on each Passport (at Check-In, Hubtime, etc.) Then have someone add stickers after the kids have gone home.

How do I keep kids from being distracted by their Passports during Takeoff and Landing?
The children should give their Passports to their Tour Guides. If you want kids to keep them, have them stow the Passports under their seats as “carry-ons”.

  Schedule

What if I don’t have enough time to do all the activities?

HighPoint is intentionally created to be flexible. Connecting Flights and Rotation Stations are the easiest parts to shorten or lengthen. Here are some tips:

• Use the Rotation Station time in lesson 5 as catch up.

• Spread the unit to six weeks and have review time at the end.

• See the suggestions for making check-in time go more quickly (see Organization) so that learning takeoff can begin on time.

  Snacks

What’s a fun and easy way to pass out snacks?

Have older kid helpers (like 5th and 6th graders) be “flight attendants.” They can wear aprons and fill cups or snack bags with the snack, like pretzels or goldfish, before the session begins or during the character skit. Let them roll a cart filled with the snack cups down the center aisle and pass out the snacks. Then the flight attendants can come back and collect the trash just like on a plane.

HighPoint customer requests we’ve turned into reality:

Organization

Customer: We’d like to use the name tags to identify Connecting Flight groups. Can you help with that?
HighPoint development team: We added colors to the HighPoint nametags (on the CD-ROM and on the website) for this purpose. Thanks for the idea.

Customer: After we make copies of the Session Guide, we can’t put the book back together. Can you help?
HighPoint development team: Great idea! The Session Guide is now 3-hole punched and perforated to make copying easier.

Customer: We don’t want to make copies. Can we purchase additional Session Guides?
HighPoint development team: Sure. The Session Guide (without CD-ROM) is available at a reduced rate when purchased at the same time as your kit. Just ask when you place your order.

Have questions or feedback? Contact us at newproducts@gph.org