A few pic of completed story sets

Parable of the mustard seed, close up.

Mustard Seed, full view.

This was the first set I ever made. Tells the story of the Nativity.

Day 7, Story of Creation.

Day 6, Story of Creation.

Day 5, Story of Creation.

Day 4, Story of Creation.

Day 3, Story of Creation.

Day 2, Story of Creation.

Day 1, Story of Creation.

All 7 days (upside down, my view)

Pics from Children's Sunday

Godly Play Never Rests!

It's been slightly crazy the last few weeks! Since I've updated the blog, we've done 2 regular sessions of Godly Play, Creation and The Mustard Seed. Both stories were fairly easy to organize and the kids are really starting to get into the idea of the "work". The hardest part of preparation has been finding the large sheets/bolts of the colours of felt. If you're starting to build your collection and happen to see a colour, but don't need it yet, get it anyway!
I'll work on posting some pics of the sets soon.

What I'm really excited to post pics of is our Children's Sunday Service! We decided to invite the adults to Sunday School for a Sunday! The kids handed out invitations the week before during church and we had an excellent turnout -57! I sat on the floor the whole time and we tried to make a circle as best we could. The kids sat on the floor with me, and one or two adults did as well. Some adults were quite eager to sit in the front row while others quickly claimed the back. We tried to at least stagger people so that everyone could see. The children acted as the doorkeeper, and asked each adult if they were ready and gave them a bulletin as they came in. The bulletin had the announcements as well as some instructions in case folks got confused or had questions. We opened with Announcements and sang our first hymn "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus" I told the story The Boy Jesus in the Temple. The kids were pretty good about answering the questions considering there were so many people there. Many of the adults afterward said they were impressed by how intrigued the kids were with the story. During the wondering time, one of our more comical adults made a joke. He said "I wonder why it took Jesus' parents a whole day to realize he wasn't there. Weren't they paying attention to him?" Well this question sparked a bit of conversation, as people began to question what it would have been like to walk to Jerusalem. Then one of the kids said "Would it have been like a parade?" Yup, they got it! We then moved on to the "work". We had no idea how many to expect or what their interests would be so we guessed a bit. The kids helped to pick things. They asked for fun foam, play dough, and baking (I made a church shaped cake and brought in my icing set). We added sewing M&S bags, building crates for some of our stories, colouring and crossword puzzles. There was at least one person at everything. The majority of the kids went to the cake. A surprising number of adults went to the colouring, and the sewing was very interesting. In the sewing room, two preteens, and a large number of ladies had a great time. The ladies suggested the prettens operate the sewing machines while they pined and offered assistance. They were having a great time chatting and really established a great connection with the preteens. One older gentleman visited each option of work and just watched everything going on with a big smile on his face. After the work we showed all of the things we had offered, a full offering plate of offering envelopes, M&S bags, a crate for the stories, fun foam projects and the completed cake! Then we shared the Bible story, and the prayers of the people and ended with the Lord's Prayer. Then we sang a grace and had our Feast. It was hard to get folks to quiet down for ending instructions, but the energy in the room was amazing! We ended with Jesus Bids Us Shine, and as each person left they received a personal blessing from me. The feedback we received afterward was amazing. Everyone seemed to enjoy the service. One person told me "This was an experiment that went very well." Another person told the other Sunday School leader that if church were like that all the time, she'd come more often. In the end, session asked if we would be willing to do it again, perhaps in the spring! So we will have Godly Play for everyone again to end Sunday School for the year. Here are the pictures from the service, and I will take some close ups of the story to add as well.

Session 2 down!

This past session was also a great success! We had only six kids, but all who were there really got into the story. I decided after telling the story that I would join them with their work, normally only the door person is there to assist, but I still don't know the kids very well yet, so it seemed like a good bonding time.

We had set out the play dough, colouring sheets, a foam craft kit, and stuff to make paper bag puppets. I was surprised at the choices: no one went to play dough, nor to the Godly Play materials. The oldest child went to the colouring. No one went with their best friend. Although the kids felt shy about the "I wondering" questions, they did get into the idea of naming their sheep. I was pleased when three of the kids made "sheep" from their paper bags without prompting. I'll have to try to remember next time to bring my camera to sneak some pictures of their work.

We timed our feast a little bit better this time and the leftover time was barely enough to rearrange the space before the blessing. Four of the six kids came to church today, with two offering to take part. They were so well behaved though and paid attention very well.

Both the door person and I are on the joint M&P committee with the neighbouring pastoral charges. At the last meeting we were asked if we could talk a little bit about what we were doing. I was quite pleased with folks interest in Godly Play.

Our next mission is to convince Session that we should join the children for worship (ie a Godly Play Session) on Children's Sunday instead of regular worship. I think there is some interest, but I'm sure there will also be a fair bit of resistance.

I'm also trying to figure out how to do the Advent cards...we'll see what happens with those!

Reflections from the first session and preparation for the second

Well, I had intended to post right away again with how our first session went, but life kind of got in the way!

The first session went really well. I made a couple of mistakes while telling the story, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They weren't big fans of the snack we had, so I'm glad we decided the parents should take turns bringing the snack, this way they'll like it at least once in a while.

The play dough was a BIG hit. I let them take some with them up to worship and they brought their mats as well and played quietly with the play dough all through worship. My recipe is sort of like this:
1 cup of water bring to a boil. Add 2 Tbsp of oil and 1/2 cup of salt. Stir to dissolve the salt. Add 1 package of kool aid mix, stir to dissolve. Reduce heat and add 1 cup of flour and 3 Tbsp Cream of Tartar. Remove from heat and knead as soon as all liquid has been stirred in. Store in Ziploc baggies and refrigerate. Will keep for a LONG time.

Our biggest problem seemed to be keeping my time with the kids uninterrupted by adults. This makes me question how the adults perceive themselves and how they perceive the children. Do they feel they are more important than the children?

The children really seemed to enjoy their blessing, especially the younger ones. I have to say though, for not having seen Godly Play in action, my doorperson did a great job!

I'm glad that we've decided to only do this once every 2 weeks, as once again, I don't have the story memorized yet. I do have to say though, that I think I did a pretty good job at making the props for this one. I photocopied the patterns from the back of "Young Children and Worship" , coloured them and stuck them to "fun foam". Then I covered the coloured side with clear contact paper. They look pretty good in my opinion! I have been having a hard time finding the right box though. In the end I had to spray paint one gold. I feel like I have seen so many gold boxes at the dollar stores over the years, and when I actually go to look for one, I can't find it!

Because of the popularity of the play dough last week, we'll definitely be doing that again. I think I will also add the patterns for the figures to the colouring pile. I think some of the kids might really like that. I picked up some fun foam kits as well and some shrinky dinks, but we'll likely save those till next time. This week I'll also introduce the idea of playing with the story to them to make 4 choices to play with.

We're doing a 2 in one again this time - "The Good Shepherd" and "The Good Shepherd and the Lost Sheep" My hope/plan is to do "Creation" after this, then "How the Church Tells Time" and then be ready to begin the "Advent" ones. I'm not sure how I'm going to build the props necessary for "How the Church Tells Time". I suspect with fabric as, I personally would prefer that medium!

Stay tuned to see how it goes!

Nervous Nellie!

Well, we're starting this weekend. Are we ready? Maybe.

We're going to try this new thing. It's not really all that new, but it's new to us. "Godly Play" is a method or curriculum of telling the stories of the Bible and the Church. It recognizes that children's play is their work, and that adults need to work at playing. The method of Godly Play has been developed by Jerome Berryman overtime and with experience. Recently, Godly Play has been brought to the attention of the Maritime Conference through the report of Children's Ministry called "The Shape of their Light" which can be downloaded in it's entirety here: http://www.marconf.ca/pdf/The_Shape_of_Our_Light.pdf
After reading this report I felt the need to be trained as a Godly Play Story Teller. I completed the training in May 2009 and starting my ministry in a new pastoral charge July 2009. Upon coming to this charge, the current Sunday School Organizer asked if I would be willing to be "hands on" with Sunday School, as she had heard that might be of interest to me. When I suggested Godly Play might work, she was very excited! With the blessing of the Session, we decided to have our new version of Sunday School at 9:30am every second Sunday beginning October 4th 2009.

We don't currently have the full set up. The books seem to tell us that this is ok, just add a story at a time. Also because we are only meeting every two weeks, we aren't going to have the 4 orientation sessions that are suggested either. I'm going to try a modified version of the 4...we'll see how it goes! We're expecting around 10 children, so we'll bee meeting in the basement. We're a bit worried about how cold it will be. As for work, we've decided to go with colouring/mandalas, clay, beads/crafty type things for this Sunday and based on what we see the kids choosing this Sunday, we'll make a decision about a 4th type of "thing" plus our story collection as it grows. I will also wrote a note to the parents to explain what "Godly Play" is, what a session looks like, and what the ettiquet is for the children, plus ways they can volunteer (ie, preparing the feast, doorperson, set-up, clean-up, collecting materials, etc)


Dear Parents:
I am pleased and privileged to be able to work with your children at Sunday School this year! You might have heard or noticed that we have decided to try a new curriculum this year. It’s actually more of a method than a curriculum! “Godly Play” focuses on the theology of childhood and helps children by giving them language to talk about God. Although Godly Play is not a new method, Storyteller training has only recently become available in the Maritimes. I was accredited as a Storyteller in May of 2009.
Each Sunday your child will be greeted at the door and asked if they are “ready”. This gives the child an opportunity, place and space to transition into being in the church. After taking a moment to slow down, your child will enter the circle with the rest of the children. We will have a prayer and then hear a story based on the Bible or Church tradition/history. After the story is finished, we’ll have a time of “wondering”, a conversation that comes from the story. As the time of wondering comes to a close, each child will be invited to do some “work”. As children, their “work” is play, as adults (should you decide to join us some Sunday) we have to work at playing. Each child will get to choose what work it is that they do. Whatever they choose, it will be an opportunity to connect the story to their own personal lives. After fifteen to twenty minutes of work, the children will come back to the circle for the “feast”, this is a simple snack that includes fellowship with one another, making it a feast. When you pick up your child, the doorperson will let us know, the child will receive an individual blessing from the storyteller before they go.
So what can you do to help us? Each week we will need a feast, a simple snack of fruit or crackers and some juice is perfect! If you could volunteer to look after this once or twice it would be wonderful. Doorpersons or Greeters (what D___ did today) may also be needed, especially if I am away. Props for the stories are always needed. If you are skilled in woodworking or sewing you’ll be able to help us. Once we move as a worship community downstairs, help might be needed to transform our Godly Play space into a worship space.
Please find enclosed further information about Godly Play.


Enclosures
The Godly Play Philosophy in a Nutshell
Disruptions in the Circle
Ten Best Ways for Parents


So here's to Sunday! I "wonder" how it will go?