The insight reports share that most of the students in my immediate community are 2nd grade and older which inspired us to begin CLUB345 for 3rd-5th graders six years ago. The 2017 CLUB345 theme came from Children’s Ministry Deals presenting the life of King David in colors. Each night we gathered with a color theme matching the life of David. We’ve been waiting all year for this very night to close out the 2016-2017 school season with our CLUB345 families.

We were blown away at the generosity of Team Smith who provided a taco bar with lots of color for family dinner for us all. Each fifth grader was presented with our traditional parting gift of their first names in scriptures that are timely for wisdom and continuing to grow in the knowledge of our great God. 5×7 frames come from Amazon, decorated lunch bags serve as the background, and a long list of scriptures collected over the years make for an inexpensive yet personal gift for each fifth grader. If you’d like the list of scriptures, send me an email at dedereilly@comcast.net.

Families went on a color scavenger hunt – gotta fit in the white lunch bag and can only collect from the children’s hallway. THEN, 20 seconds to return it all! Afterwards, it’s outside to play our two favorite games: the shoe game and a pool noodle sword game.

Amazon offers a Color Powder Party Box we ordered in January for around $50 for fun beyond belief, then continued the messiness with kiddy pools filled with water and Dollar Tree water shooters. Our BEST idea was to put out on social media a request for a free, amateur photographer to take the photos. Mamas weren’t getting anywhere near the color powders and we wanted colorful photos to use for the remainder of the summer for various purposes. Ms. Martha took AMAZING photos and had a dvd dropped off at my office door before I arrived with keys at 9am on Monday.

The littles in the family got a chance to play with ‘the big kids’ and it is the best thing we do to build their excitement for when they start third grade.

“The end of a thing is better than it’s beginning.” Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV