25 new from si smith - advent comic, calendar and flatpack models

25 is a set of comic pages from illustrator si smith. each comic page tells an aspect of the christmas story. the speech bubbles on the pages have been left blank for you to fill in or tell the story in your own words and ways. there is also a digital advent calendar with 25 windows that are hyperlinks to the comic page of that number. as if that wasn't enough, there are then 25 flatpack models that you can print on card, cut out and glue to make the characters that relate to the day of that number.

many of you will be familiar with si smith's amazing 40 resource for lent. i love his work. it's breathtakingly good. and manages to work for all ages. the drawings in 25 are recognisably his style and the models are  creative and fun.

blackburn diocese of the church of england had the vision/nous to commission this resource. they have produced a CD ROM with these resources on along with all sorts of other worksheets, powerpoints song suggestions and other stuff. you can order this from them for £25 plus VAT by e-mailing jean .

si and the diocese have kindly agreed to let us sell the resource as a download on proost so that it can reach a wider audience. so i am very excited to announce it as this month's upload. we've uploaded it as early as possible to give you time to think about using it for christmas/advent. we have done it as two downloads - the comic and calendar, and then the models. it's in the books section of the web site. if you become a subscriber, you get access to our new content every month as well as the whole back catalogue - what are you waiting for?!

i could imagine using it in a christmas service of all ages, in a classroom setting at a school, in childrens ministry groups at a church, or in a home/family setting. so for example with a family, each day in december open up the advent calendar on your computer. invite a family member to click on the window of that date in december and tell the story together. you could find that part of the story in the bible. you could print that page off to give everyone for that day or look at it on the computer. print off the model for that day from the flatpack and then each day someone in the family (or everyone if you want to make more) can make the model and gradually build up a nativity scene through december.

like all proost resources, use with imagination. we'd love to hear how you use it. take a photo and/or e-mail us a story.

at one level it's a bit embarrassing making a proost resource a worship trick but it's si smith's work, we love it and it totally desrves to be one - worship trick 16 in series 3.

Comments

[Mark Pape]

Hi Jonny

Was just wondering if we could use the digital calendar on church websites?

[Paul Bowman]

Hi Jonny,
Just downloaded this from Proost (which is a super site). It's a beautiful resource. Thanks for making it available. Do have a wee prob with the calender though a drawing error message comes up on Day 4 and Day 6 (Mary and Zac). Any suggestions. Really beautiful though.

[jonny]

that's weird - it works fine for me. not sure what to suggest? what version of acrobat or whatever are you using?

[jonny]

ok i have looked into it a bit more and some versions of acrobat reader had a problem - you're right. no idea why? but i have now changed it so that it works with those. so... if you have a problem i suggest just download it again. if you're a subscriber just log in. or if you bought it you get 3 times that the code works so just download again. hope this helps...

[Paul Bowman]

Yeah, its a strange one. I have an earlier version (4 I believe) and it works fine on that, but version 7 and the latest one version 8 had this wee glitch. No biggie as it's a fab resource.

Great Blog by the way, I'm a regular reader (not sure if I've commented before or not) really enjoy it. Thanks Jonny.
Peace
Paul