KCU Snapshots!

This week has been extremely eventful! We participated in a week-long event for Kid's Connection, which is our church's children's ministry. The event is called KCU (Kid's Connection University). The children sign up for a specific class to attend throughout the week, depending on their talents and interests. And we, as "professors," spend the week cultivating those talents and interests while teaching them how to glorify God. Whether it's skateboarding, cooking, science experiments, scrapbooking, choir, music video production, etc...we believe they can use their abilities to not only bring God glory, but also to impact their world for Christ! This week, I've been teaching the photography class. What a blast! Each day my class of eight kids has completed a specific activity to teach them some of the aspects of photography.

Here is an example of one of the activities we completed. It's called 'Bird's Eye vs. Worm's Eye.' We went around the inside and outside of the building, looking for objects that they could photograph from way down low (worm's eye view) and way up high (bird's eye view). Then we studied how differently the object appears from those different perspectives.

This was my absolute favorite activity of the entire week. It's called "Blindfolded Photography." I literally blindfolded the kids one by one and they had to snap random photos without being able to see. Then, I took their snapshots home and used my software to alter the photos and ended up with masterpieces. This was to show the kids the power of technology. LOL. It also had a life-lesson...in life, we don't always see what's ahead. We have no idea how certain situations will turn out. And we often times don't have much confidence that something beautiful can come out of a situation that we have no control over. But then God steps in, if we allow Him, and He takes what seems confusing and turns it into a masterpiece. A design that only He could have foreseen. This is an example from our "Blindfolded Photography."

Each day, we had a theme that was discussed at large group time and at small group time. The topics were Compassion, Kindness, Humility, Gentleness and Patience. So, I had the kids brainstorm ideas to create motivational posters for those themes. Here's what they came up with:

So, needless to say, it's been a crazy, busy, and exciting week. Tonight is our showcase night, where the parents come to see all that the kids have been doing. The artwork will be displayed, gallery-style, and I know the kids are so proud to show their parents all the hard work they have accomplished this week.