Miracles of Jesus I

Oh, my goodness. I can't believe how long it's been since I posted here.
Well, we've just completed the Miracles of Jesus Cycle from WorkshopCycles. The kids made a great book on the miracles:

Jesus walk on water:


Jesus calms a storm:


Jesus heals someone who is blind:


Jesus provides a miraculous catch:


Jesus heals someone who is paralyzed:


continued in the next entry...

Miracles of Jesus II

Jesus multiplies loaves and fishes:


Jesus turns water into wine:


Our Workshops for this cycle included the normal movie, games, computers, and music. Some extra-fun Workshops included:
-making a 3ft by 10 ft poster of the miracles
-making this book
-making tornadoes (from pop bottles)
-making sponge cakes (the miracle of taking a little and making a lot)

OEC@K Children's Program

Harcourt Parish hosted the Children's Program for the Ohio Episcopal Celebration at Kenyon. We had a great group of kids and helpers and although the program was simple, it was a great success (reminder to self!!).

The Eucharists at OEC@K attempted to be family-friendly. Luke tested that theory, and it was well-received. All the children were invited to join the bishop celebrant around the altar.


Our program theme was based on Jamie Lee Curtis' book "Is there Really a Human Race?" We found a ton of fantastic activities based on the book here.

And of course, we made up a few activities ourselves. One of the things we did was give each child a disposable camera and help them do a photo scavanger hunt to take pictures of people and things that help the human race. (The 2-year old's pictures contained a lot of grass and sky!)
Here are some of our group posing with a Gambier firefighter, definitely someone who helps the human race:


Another activity we did was offer free cold water to folks on this hot summer day. The kids loved this activity, and I think the adults did, too.


In the car a week later, little Luke began saying "Free cold water! Free cold water!" Young brains are sponges. I'm glad we're filling these kids' brains up with the Good Stuff.

12 Who Changed the World

Our last WorkshopCycle for the school year was "12 Who Changed the World" and, of course, was about the disciples. The kids did a lot of nifty things, but my two favorites were ones that weren't in the WorkshopCycle curriculum (which is making me consider writing my own rotations instead of using canned ones...)

Instead of a plain-old drama, I thought we could liven things up by having the kids create some sort of puppets. As I surfed the web looking for great, easy puppet ideas, I decided up on Kitchen Untensil Puppets. You can find directions here. I dug through my kitchen drawer and went to Goodwill and found a nice assortment of items. Then I dug through my "fun fabrics" pile, got some yarn and googlie eyes and pipe cleaners, and was good to go.

The kids used info they had gathered about different disciples to make the puppets. They had a great time making the puppets one week, and using them the following week. They turned out so well!


And then our final week was the week I was looking forward to most of all (well, eating bugs last December came in a close second!). We were going to print t-shirts with fish. REAL fish!!!

Well, it turns out you can't buy real fish in the grocery store around here. Sigh. So we used fish stamps, and the kids still had an amazingly fun time.
I bought a bunch of white kid's t-shirts, and dyed them ahead of time with several colors of blue and green, and God helped out because when I hung them on the line to dry it rained and the shirts turned out even more ocean-like than I'd imagined!

It was a beautiful day, and we set up outside. I lured my friend and amazing fabric artist, Jo Rice, into helping lead the day (thanks, Jo for leading and for taking most of the following pictures!)

Here's Jo with Maggie and Emma at the table with the Versatex paints and stamps:


Here's a close-up of one of the shirts:

And here they all are, hanging to dry on the church lawn.



Excellent!

Easter Creations

On Easter we have a combine Sunday School and they do a fun craft project. This year, they made egg carton caterpillars (and we had plans to make tissue paper butterflys, but time got away from us). The caterpillar/butterfly image is a Christian image of resurrection, perfect for Easter morning.
The kids really enjoyed making their caterpillars beautiful!

Play Altar

I usually don't make blanket proclaimations, but Every Church Needs A Play Altar. Really. We added one to our preschool classroom a couple of years ago, and it is a favorite activity week in and week out.
Ours is a side table that was just sitting around. A sewer in the congregation made simple altar cloths in the liturgical colors with matching stoles (actually, they're reversable, one color on each side, 2 sets):


We added an inexpensive brass communion set and a couple copies of Gretchen Prichard's Alleluia, Amen. Occasionally, we'll have some wafers. But the kids go *crazy* when they have wafers and would go through a roll a week if we let them. So it's a special occasion thing.

I grew up with a Children's Altar, but it was as Revered and Transcendent as the main altar. Just like kids like to have a play kitchen or a play workshop, they also like a play altar. If you need any help figuring out how to make it work at your church, just ask!

Esther Cycle

WorkshopCycles includes Esther as a cycle. This wouldn't fall into my top-50 Bible Stories of all times, but they've got a cycle ready to go, so we're using it!

Week 1 was the Art cycle, and kids made noisemakers out of empty water bottles. I wish I'd gotten a photo of some of the kids and their creations, but we'll just have to deal with this.
1) Start with an empty water bottle:

2) Add beans, rice, rocks or anything that will make a good shaking noise. Screw the lid on (put a bit of glue on it if you want to make it permanent).
3) Decorate! We chose to decorate them as people. I cut up a few old polo shirts and sewed them into covers with arms and legs, then the kids added decoration.
4) Add a head--you may use a styrofoam ball, or we used quick-dry clay
5) USE! As the Esther story is re-told, shake your noisemakers to drown out every time the name "Haman" is said.

Our other workshops for this cycle include:
-Computer activity
-Purim Drama
-Games (red light/green light, rock paper scissors, etc)
-Kitchen: making Hammentaschen for coffee hour

The Beatitudes Cycle

Harcourt Parish Recently completed our WorkshopCycle on the Beatitudes.

Our activities included: Making a Blessing Cup out of quick-dry clay, Computer and Movie workshops (always a hit), fun with the Doxology, and making Blessing Cookies for coffee hour (like fortune cookies, but with blessings inside).

Presenting: John the Baptist!

This year we ordered our Children's Pageant from Creative Communications. It was a pageant mainly about John the Baptist (and thus helped my High Church side be comfortable that we presented on on Advent 4!).
The pageant was simple, very elastic (easily changed to work for a smaller or larger group), and inexpensive. We would happily purchase something from them again.

Here is Zachariah and Elizabeth being introduced:


Although it was a Children's Pageant, we did also use some adult actors. Here's our daddy holy trinity of John, Gabriel, and Zachariah:



And here are the children performing their "Big Number:"

John the Baptist: Science

I hope to add more Science Workshops into our program. This was our first one, focusing on "arise, shine for your light has come."

In this Workshop, the Leader put together solutions with different chemicals that create different colors of flame. Here, you can see the bottles of solution, and the children with their long wooden qtips:


The children listen as the Leader explains how there are many different colors of flame, but they all possess attributes of heat and light. Just like each one of us have our own unique gifts, but all those gifts can be ways for us to show God's love to others: