26 Apr Determination – The Amazing Maze – May 2017; Our Plan

Life App: Determination—deciding it’s worth it to finish what you started. 
Theme: The Amazing Maze
Date: May 2017

We’ve Got This!

img_6465We were so excited as we approached May’s brainstorming session for set design. That’s because back in January when we were cooking up what we wanted to do for our Brain Games series, we had created an entire plan to use a variety of mazes on our backdrop and have the host complete one each week as part of the closer. Right after we landed the plane and I was writing this post about it, someone from Orange shared a “Christmas Gift” with us on the 252 Basics Partners page. This Christmas gift included the graphics for the months of March, April, and May. I saw that May was all about mazes and immediately went back to my team. We knew we had to shelve this idea and come up with something else. We also knew we would be so grateful when March/April came around and it was time to start thinking about what we were going to do for May’s set. We already had a plan! It was so nice to have that part of the process complete. We did touch base to finalize our plan this past week and we tweaked it a little based on what the scripts have going on each week. I’m very excited about where we are headed!

Turn Right, Now Left, Now Down, No-Up!

Our plan for this month’s set will be quite simple with regard to what is on the actual stage. We are mainly going to focus on the backdrop. Creating it might not be too simple, but the stage itself will be. Here’s what we are thinking:

  • We’ll paint our insulation foam backdrop with two colors – purple and green from this month’s theme graphics.
  • A large purple rectangle (7×12 possibly) will be painted in the center.
  • The backdrop around the purple rectangle will be painted green.
  • c3-mazeAn oversized maze will be taped onto the purple rectangle using white duct tape.
  • We’ve taken one of the maze graphics shared in the Large Group Resources from the 252 Basics matrix and duplicated it… flipping it, rotating it, etc. to create one large maze. 
  • We’ll project that onto the purple part of the backdrop, trace it, and then tape it off.
  • On this maze, we’ll have four “stopping points” denoted by circles numbered 1, 2, 3, 4.
  • Each week, the host will use the closer to have the kids help him complete one part of the maze.
  • Since we have three services on Sunday mornings, we need to be able to reuse the backdrop over and over again so, we’ll use a laser pointer to “mark” where the host is moving along the maze as kids give him/her directions.
  • Once the host hits the first circle on Week 1, he/she will stop and it will “unlock” the rectangular sign #1 hanging on the backdrop above or next to the maze (TBD). 
  • There will be four rectangles hanging above or around the maze.
  • Each will be black on one side and have a bottom line on the other.
  • They will hang from a string so they can be flipped over easily when necessary.
  • As the host flips the rectangular box over, it will reveal the bottom line for that week.
  • By the end of the month, all four boxes will be revealed (flipped over) and the entire maze will have been completed.
  • The stage itself will not have much in the way of set design but will include the props and materials needed for each week’s maze game in the opener.

Look for pictures of our process and finished product in the coming week. Hope your set design plans are going AMAZE-INGLY well! Comment below and let us know what you are doing!

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May – The Amazing Maze