For many years I have been involved in
Children's Work in churches, schools and in our home.
During those years I have accumulated many visual aids especially for Kids Songs.
In the early years of this I collected book type visuals, and visuals on large cards but then added to this by making ones myself.
In the later years this then developed into PowerPoint presentations and now finally my husband Fred and I make videos with the words, graphics and music.
That obviously has meant that I have had to store and organise all my visuals as the quantity grew and also as the types changed and developed.
Today I'm going to tell you about how I organise all of my visuals both physically and digitally.
AND YES
I have not got rid of the actual
"Hard Copies"
(even after moving countries twice and house 13 times)
include
1. Large Card Type Visuals for Songs
2. Medium Card Size Visuals for Songs
3. Small A4 Card Size Visuals for Songs
4. Book Type Visuals for Songs
5. PowerPoint Visuals for Songs
6. Video Sing-a-long Songs
1. Large Card Type Visuals for Songs
Depending on the style of song of course meant different sizes of card but mainly in the earlier years this meant using A2 or A1 size card to be seen in a large room.
These were always much harder to store for easy lifting out to go with me and they were the more flimsy visuals so I wanted them to be kept really flat if possible.
I remember one time I just found two large pieces of strong cardboard and used long strips of Velcro to attach them together and make a kind of handle as a temporary measure before I found these large black containers that although they were lightweight and could not hold heavy weights were very suitable for for these slim lightweight A1 size cards.
2. Medium Card Size Visuals for Songs
This was when I would use A3 size which for me was easier to cover with sticky plastic and even more so later when we got an A3 laminator.
This was also a good size because one leader could more easily hold it up.
Also A3 was easier to get bags etc. for storage and transport.
These two bags below have been great for A3 so one holds all my A3 songs and the other holds all my A3 sized games and Quiz visuals many of which are on boards so do require a strong bag.
3. Small A4 Card Size Visuals for Songs
This was when I would use several A4 size cards for each song which is great for laminating, smaller to carry around from place to place and easier to store.
This was also a good size because for getting children involved in the song times as a few different children could be tasked with holding up various cards for others to sing from.
As for storage for A4 size, we could use box files, plastic folders, even concertina style folders.
Here is one of the storage ideas I have for A4. This was very lightweight in itself so even when carrying many A4 cards it I found it was never too heavy and it has lasted many many years because of the type of material involved and the good handles.
4. Book Type Visuals for Songs
For several years Fred and I had Good News Clubs in our home after I had been involved in helping others through Child Evangelism Fellowship with Holiday Bible Clubs and 5 Day Clubs.
Many of the visuals I had worked with were in book form either for doing Bible Stories or Missionary stories or longer songs and I always wanted to be able to get my hands on each of them easily and transport them carefully to keep them in good condition.
For this I needed bags to store and carry with me.
No keeping them in one place and then having to take them out and put them into another container if I could help it which worked fine at the start but when I got or made more and more and more .....
Well then I needed to do a bit of reorganising more often but still wanted it all as easy to sort through as possible and as easy to store as possible.
Most of the book style visuals for songs were slightly larger than A4 or letter or even foolscap size so I eventually found a strong opaque carrier for them and it also took the more unusual longer and narrower items I sometimes needed.
This was also great for memory verses and visuals for quizes.
5. PowerPoint Visuals for Songs
To be honest this is how I created my A4 visuals because here I would have the advantage of not having to cut out pictures to help illustrate the song but do it all on the computer.
The next step along the way was to be able to use a computer in some locations especially churches which already used them for their worship services. Then we could simply bring up the slides of the A4 cards, one at a time on the screen.
So in this case I did't need any size of container or bag to store the songs but simply store them on my computer and on a key.
Then there was the progression to the wider screen sizes which involved quite a lot of rearranging of the content on powerpoint slides.
But NO EXTRA BAGS for storage!
6. Video Sing-a-long Songs
The obvious next progression was to make videos of the songs.
The PowerPoints are adapted to having movement involved in the individual words and pictures that would have been within one slide and having this match up with the timing of the words being sung.
You simply need someone like my husband who can sort out the musical, sound and recording parts and then we both record our voices and he puts it altogether to form the video.
Again for this storage is simple on the computer and the key.
Plus stored on our Kids Songs Playlist on our YouTube channel which means that anyone can access any of our videos there.
At the moment we have 26 Kids songs and 4 Christmas Kids Songs uploaded plus another few already started in the visual end.
Up-to-date Storage
Well with having over a hundred songs already produced in one form or another over 50 years, yes it is 50 years since we started working with children, we still have songs in all of the forms mentioned above so there are still songs to organise.
We have to consider some songs which are better in one form than another perhaps where a physical copy of the song may be enjoyed by the kids more than one on a screen.
I did go through all my songs and other Kids materials a couple of years ago and gave away many items to help others have visuals in other places. However I still have many left.
One thing I am sure of and that is we cannot use only videos because children should have variety and not just think that everything revolves round screen time.
All of this still involves
Storage items
Keeping an Inventory
Computer files and folders
Excel Files
&
Backups
Anyone who has ever been involved in Children's Work will know how important this last thing is.
Some of the best memories you have over the years are the children you have worked with and in some cases their parents. We don't just teach Bible Stories, sing songs and have craft times and play games and quizes.
We are teaching from the Bible and having such an opportunity to influence their lives for God and on certain occasions the privilege of seeing those children coming to Salvation through Jesus.
So I have never regretted
the time to drive to schools or churches or to an open gardens
to conduct a Good News Club
or 5 Day Club
OR
the effort that I put in for all those years to be able to hold & turn the pages of Missionary Story books in the right way so as not to distract from the message
OR
the time taken to learn to tell the Bible Story fluently and cope with answering the questions that would crop up each time because children always have enquiring minds
OR
the creating of all types of visuals for memory verses, songs, quizes and other stories to help the children enjoy the time
when they are learning how much God loves them.
