Pentecost (Whitsun) Nature Table 2012

With a tinge of sadness, we said 'good-bye' to Eastertide and then 'hello' to Pentecost and the beginning of summer with our Pentecost nature table. 

To the left you will notice our red box that is filled with things that remind us of what happened on Pentecost. (To find out what is inside, click here!)

The wooden flame stacker reminds us of the Jesus' disciples being filled with God's amazing love and power after receiving the marvelous gift of the Holy Spirit. I hadn't planned on using the rainbow stacker, but my daughter added it and it seems to fit beautifully with everything else. Another reminder of the hope that God gives us each day. 

Butterflies . . . 

and more butterflies!

I hinted that you might see these butterflies again. (See this post to find out how we made them!) I love how the felt mimics the translucent texture of a real butterfly's wings.

Linked to The Magic Onions

Celebrating Pentecost / Pfingsfeier

Materials from "The Mystery of Pentecost"

We're still celebrating Pentecost here, because "Pentecost Monday" is an official holiday in Germany. Though Pentecost is one of the three great feasts of the historical church, as my on-line friend Jill points out, it gets little attention from either the church or secular society. Here it is more or less a family holiday where people spend time together in their garden. That's a shame, because what happened at Pentecost is vital to the Christian faith. Ich möchte euch gern von unserem Feier gestern erzählen! Obwohl Pfingsten zu den 3 größten christlichen Festen gehört, wissen viele Menschen nicht so rightig worum geht's. Das ist schade, weil das Geschehen beim Pfingsten zentral zu dem christlichen Glauben ist, nämlich dass Gottes Gegenwart den Heiligen Geist immer bei uns ist. 

In our children's group, I emphasize two things about this holiday: 1) that God gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit and 2) that this is the birthday of the church. Each year, we bake a birthday cake and share it in children's church to remind us of the gift we've been given and this special birthday of the worldwide church. This year, I didn't get a picture of the cake, because it was gobbled up so fast! In der Kinderkirche betone ich 2 Dinge über diesen Feiertag: 1) dass Gott uns den Heilgen Geist schenkte und 2) dass dies der Geburtstag der christlichen Gemeinde ist. Jedes Jahr backen wir einen Geburtstagskuchen und essen ihn in der Kinderkirche zum Geburtstag der Kirche. Ich habe aber kein Foto von dem Kuchen, weil er schnell aufgfressen würde!

Central to our celebration was the Godly Play story, "The Mystery of Pentecost". This story is sparse in language and gives the basic facts of what happened at Ascension and Pentecost without making it seem fairy-tale like. It also gives the listener a lot of space to think through and imagine for themselves what really happened. This is important, because the whole story just sounds crazy to the modern reader! Wichtig zur Feier war die Godly Play Geschichte, "Das Geheimnis von Ostern", die  sparsam erzählt, was am Himmelfahrt und Pfingsten passiert ist, ohne dass es märchenhaft klingt. Ich schätze auch an dieser Geschichte, dass der Zuhörer viel Raum hat sich selber vorzustellen, was da geschehen ist. Das ist wichtig, weil das, was in Apostelgeschichte geschrieben ist, hört sich dem modernen Leser einfach verrückt an!

The story begins with a red box that looks like a golden parable box, except that it is red. In the German version of the story, we point out the the story must have some qualities like a parable, but that it is in fact not a parable. (This honors the historicity of the story.) Es fängt mit einer roten Schachtel an, die der goldenen Gleichnisschachtel ähnlich ist, außer das die Farbe rot ist. Als Einleitung sagt der Erzähler, dass diese Geschichte müsste so etwas wie ein Gleichnis sein, aber ist doch kein Gleichnis.

In the picture below, the 11 disciples, represented by their shields, and the other men and woman who followed Jesus, but whose names we don't know (represented by the blank shields), are gathered at the Mount of Olives. Jesus blesses them and promises to send the Holy Spirit.) Then they witness Jesus ascending into heaven, which is told through a gesture. (Gestures are also a powerful part of Godly Play that help communicate difficult ideas, leaving the listener to imagine the mystery for themselves.) Unten sieht man die 11 Jünger, von ihren Wappen dargestellt, und die anderen Jünger, deren Namen wir nicht wissen, von leeren Wappen dargestellt, auf dem Ölberg. Dort sehen sie Jesus emporgehoben in den Himmel, das durch eine Geste dargestellt wird. (Geste sind ein wichtiges Element im Godly Play um schwierige Konzepte zu kommunizieren und dem Zuhörer einladen das Geheimnisvolle für sich vorzustellen.)

The disciples return to Jerusalem and choose Matthias to replace Judas Iscariot. Fifty days after Passover, they are gathered to pray, worship and wait for God's gift of the Holy Spirit. If you are familiar with the Parable of the Good Shepherd, you will recognize the brown felt strips here that form the Upper Room as being the same ones that make up the sheep pen in the parable. Although Jesus is not physically there, the Shepherd has not left them! Die Jünger kehren wieder nach Jerusalem zurück und wählen Matthias um Judas Iskariot zu ersetzen. 50 Tage nach dem Passahfest versammeln sie sich um zu beten, Gott loben und auf das Geschenk Gottes zu warten. Wenn du das Gleichnis vom Guten Hirten schon kennst, werden die braunen Filzstreifen sofort erkennbar. In dem Gleichnis formen sie den Umriss von dem Schafenstall und hier sind sie das Haus, wo die Jünger gewartet haben. Obwohl Jesus nicht körperlich da ist, hat der gute Hirte sie gar nicht allein verlassen!

After the rushing wind, their tongues seeming to be on fire, and being filled with joy and power to love and do things beyond themselves, the disciples become "apostles" and go into all the world to tell the story of Jesus. The last configuration before the Wondering phase shows the brown felt strips being transformed into a star, remniscent of God's guidance in the Christmas story. Jetzt kommt der gewaltiger Wind und es scheint ihnen, als ob sie mitten im Feuer sind. Sie werden voll von Liebe und einer Kraft, die ihnen helfen, Dinge zu tun über ihre eigene Kräfte hinaus. Sie werden "Ausgesendete" und gehen überall in der Welt um diese Geschichte von Jesu zu erzählen. Das letze Bild vor dem Ergründungsgespräch zeigt, wie die braunen Flizstreifen in einen Stern verwandelt sind, der uns an Gottes Führung in der Weihnachtsgeschichte errinert.

An 8-year-old was immediately drawn to the symbols on the shields and wanted to know what they meant before I had finished telling the story. A 6-year-old verbally commented that she wanted real figures and not shields. So, this may be a story that older children find more interesting, but I will have to tell it in more settings to really see if my hypothesis is true. Ein 8-jähriges Kind war schon von Anfang an von den Wappen fasziniert und wollte alles über sie wissen. Ein 6-jähriges Kind aber sagte, dass es "echte" Figuren wollte und konnte mit den Wappen nicht anfangen. So, vielleicht ist diese Darbietung interessanter für ältere Kinder, aber ich müsste sie mehrmals erzählen um zu wissen, ob meine These stimmt oder nicht. 

To complement the apostles' shields, I made a control chart for the older children from the website that I used to draw the symbols. The name of each apostle is written in English and German, so that the child can match the symbols with the right person. I then told a short story about the reason for the symbols when asked. Als Ergänzung zu den Wappen habe ich eine Kontrollkarte gemacht mit den Namen von den Jüngern auf Deutsch und auf Englisch. Nach Bedarf habe ich den Grund für die Symbole der Jünger erzählt. 

Hope you had a Happy Pentecost and I wish you a wonderful start in the week! Ich hoffe, eure Feiertage waren schön und ich wünsche euch einen guten Start in die Woche!

DIY Pentecost Materials / Godly Play Pfingsmaterial

I hope you all are having a wonderful Pentecost Sunday!  Before I share with you about our celebration here in Berlin, I would like to share with you about the materials that I made to celebrate this special day. Ich hoffe, dass ihr einen schönen Pfingssonntag gehabt habt! Bevor ich von unserem Feier hier in Berlin erzähle, möchte ich ein bisschen von der Vorbereitung teilen.

Last year, I told two stories from Young Children and Worship at Pentecost, because I felt that the Godly Play story might be too abstract for the younger children in my group. But this year, I read through the GP story again and decided that I hadn't given it a fair shot. So, I stayed up until 1 am on Friday night doing this . . . Letzes Jahr habe ich 2 Geschichten von Young Children and Worship zu diesem Fest erzählt, weil die Godly Play Version mir zu abstrakt für die Jüngsten in meiner Gruppe vorkam. Aber dieses Jahr habe ich die Geschichte wieder gelesen und wollte ihr eine faire Chance geben. So bin ich am Freitag Abend bis 1 Uhr wach geblieben um das Material für die Geschichte selbst zu fertigen . . . 

In this GP story, the disciples are represented by their historical shields, which are very interesting to older children. There are also blank shields for the male and female disciples who would have been present, but whose names we don't know. The shields are usually cut using a handsaw. In dieser Geschichte werden die Jünger Jesu mit den historischen Wappen anstatt Figuren dargestellt. Es gibt auch "leere" Wappen für die Jünger und Jüngerinnen, die anwesend waren, aber deren Namen wir nicht kennen. Man schneidet die Wappen normaleweise mit einer Handsäge.

Though I have many talents, sawing wood is not one of them. So I rushed off to the local hobby shop to find something that I could paint the shields onto that would still be attractive and true to the story. Obwohl ich viele Talente habe, ist das Sägen wirklich nicht mein Ding.: ) Deswegen beeilte ich mich am Freitag zum Hobby Shop um eine passende Lösung zu finden. Etwas, das immer noch attraktiv und treu der Geschichte und der Montessori-Pädagogik wäre.

Here are the things that I bought. Red felt for the underlay. A cardboard box to be painted red. (The box for the Pentecost story mimics the gold parable boxes, but it red.) And then I found wooden discs that were probably meant to be used as game pieces in a board game. Perfect for painting the apostolic shields. Ich habe das Folgendes gefunden: roten Filz für die Unterlage, einen Schachtel aus Karton (die Kiste für die Geschichte gleicht dem Schachtel für die Gleichnisse, aber sie ist rot), und Holzscheiben für die Wappen.  

Painting the box red. Der Schachtel wird rot.

After I painted the symbols, I outlined them with a black Sharpie pen and Pitt artist pens. Nachdem ich die Symbole gemalt habe, habe ich den Umriss mit einem schwarzen Edding und Pitt Filzschreibern gezeichnet.

My on-line friend, Leslie, from Thoughts from the Sheepfold, tells me that the storytellers in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd are encouraged to make their own materials in order to know the story in a deeper way. I think this is great advice for Godly Play storytellers as well. I actually didn't know all of the symbols for the apostles and would not have been able to tell a child each of their stories had I not made these shields myself. I used this helpful website as my guide. All of the materials for this project together cost 18 Euros, which is definitely more cost-effective than what is in some of the on-line shops. So, if you are on a budget and have the time, give making your own materials a shot! Meine On-Line Freundin, Leslie, von Thoughts from the Sheepfold, sagte mir, dass die Erzähler bei Kathechese des guten Hirtens immer ihre eigene Materialen herstellen um die Geschichte auf einer tieferen Ebene kennenzulernen. Ich glaube, es tut Godly Play ErzählerInnen auch gut dies zu machen. Ich habe selbst die ganzen Symbolen der Jünger nicht gekannt und hätte sie einem Kind nicht erzählen könnte, ohne dass ich dieses Projekt angenommen hätte. Dabei hat mir diese Webseite sehr geholfen. All das Rohmaterial für de Geschichte hat insgesamt 18 Euro gekostet. Viel preiswerter als das, was man in On-line Shops findet. Also, wenn es euch an Geld mangelt und ihr Zeit habt, kann ich das Selbstbasteln nur empfehlen.

Stay tuned and I will share more tomorrow about the actual story and the children's reactions to it! Morgen werde ich von unserem schönen Fest berichten!




Linked to Keep Calm Crafting On at Frontier Dreams

Wool Creations / Märchenwolle

I haven't posted much lately, because of being busy with end-of-the-year stuff at my elementary school. But I have managed to find some time to get in a couple of craft projects before Eastertide is over. 

When this little guy showed up on our nature table about halfway through Eastertide, my daughter was so excited!

I found it in this book at the library. One of my favorite pastimes is looking at old craft books there. It's such an easy project. You take a long piece of wool and make two knots. One for the head and one for the body. 

Another fun project from the book was a simple wet-felted butterfly which my kids and I did together. I must admit that I have always been a little leery of trying to make things out of wet felt, because it always sounded complicated. But the author explained that all you need to do here is gently rub wool that has been dampened with a little soap and warm water in your palm to stretch it. 

My test butterfly. I always test projects, before i do them
with kids to see where the pitfalls are.

My kids wanted to craft something with me on Mother's Day, so we gave it a try. The first thing we did was to make a butterfly pattern by folding a piece of paper and then drawing one half of the butterfly to make it asymmetrical. 

Then, we dampened and stretched the wool by rubbing it in the palm of our hands. I don't have pictures, because my hands were wet and I had to help the kids some. Here my son stretches the pattern over his wool to get ready to cut out the butterfly.

We then used paint to dye the wool.

Then, you take two long strips of wool and twist them to make the body and feelers. Here my son is sewing the body to the wings.

My daughter painting her butterfly purple.

You can see the seam on my test butterfly.

And these are our finished butterflies that will soon show up on our Pentecost / Whitsun table!

I'm linked to Keep Calm Crafting On at Frontier Dreams!


and The Magic Onions

Eastertide Guest Post #6: Beulah Land

Our latest post in the Eastertide series is about another storytelling-based concept for children's ministry.  The author is Margaret Pritchard Houston, Families Pastor for St. George's Church, Campden Hill (in Kensington, in London). As well as writing about children's ministry for the Church of England and Diocese of London, she maintains a blog about her work at St. George's: For All the Saints. If you follow that blog already, you'll have seen her photo of the St. George's Play and Pray area on Easter Sunday this year (Storyteller has reproduced it in the picture above.)

Is your eye, like mine, immediately drawn to that Easter image of Christ victorious standing before Martha at the empty tomb?

These are not the flannel-graph materials from the Sunday School of mine or Storyteller's childhood. So we asked Margaret to introduce them and give us a feel for what it's like to work with them. So here we go . . . 

I need to begin with a confession.  This is not an entirely objective review – my mother developed the Beulah Land storytelling materials, and I grew up using them, travelling with her to workshops and handing her the pieces she needed to tell the stories.

But this post is based not on childhood memories but on my own experiences using them in my own ministry at St. George’s Church, Campden Hill, in London . . . 

To read on, please join us here.

Learning about the Impressionists

After we returned from Texas, there was a lovely parcel from London waiting for us. A dear friend's soon-to-be mother-in-law sent us a set of "Katie books" by James Mayhew. These adorable books are about a little girl and her grandmother who visit museums together. Grandma always manages to fall asleep just before Katie crawls into a picture frame to see what's going on. There are several books in the series, and while they all have virtually the same plot, my kids found them absolutely fascinating. We've read each one over and over again in the course of the past month. 

After I read Katie Meets the Impressionists to my 8-year-old ("Mom, what is an 'impressionist'?), he presented me with this the next day:

Needless to say, I was thrilled to see him experimenting with what he had seen in the book and learning from the masters. If you are looking for a new art education resource for your child's library, any of the Katie books would be worth acquiring. 

Highlights from Easter in Texas

I'm just getting around to posting pictures from our time in Texas. We were lucky enough to be there over Easter and the weather was just gorgeous. Here's a glimpse of some of the ways that we relaxed and had fun.

One of the best things was chasing around my 2 1/2 year-old niece that I don't get to see often enough.

And watching her with my 6-year-old daughter in their matching dresses . . . 

Pretty cute kids . . .

We also spent time in the Hill Country swimming with friendly dogs . . .

Climbing trees . . . 

Exploring nature . . . 

And enjoying the bluebonnets . . . 

Back in Houston, we played in Grandmama & Grandpapa's pool . . . 

Did a spontaneous botany project with Grandpapa . . . 

Hung out with my sweet mother-in-law, whose life work was teaching elementary school students and raising two exceptional sons (one of whom I married!) . . . 

Did I mention that we loved how everything was in full bloom?

 And I even managed to read something that has nothing to do with Montessori, education or children's spirituality.: )

Linked to Happy Family Times at Crafty Moms Share and Happy Whimsical Hearts

Listen more, Speak less

Once I was chatting with my daughter's former dance teacher and asking her how my daughter was doing in the class, since my daughter rarely mentioned what she did there.  I was more than a little shocked when the teacher commented that, of course, my daughter doesn't speak much about the class, because "small children don't have the means to reflect on things". As someone who works with children, I know this to be completely untrue. Even toddlers can and do reflect on a regular basis. Sadly, we adults often miss these golden moments, because children most often reflect in non-verbal ways and need time and space to transform their thoughts into words. 


At the recent Godly Play conference in Belarus, Peter Privett gave some helpful hints at how to draw children out and allow them to process verbally. His main advice was to "listen more and speak less". A helpful thing to do is to count internally to seven before answering a question or comment. We adults always think that we need to fill the empty space in conversations, but children often need that space to get their thoughts out before we inadvertently change the direction of the conversation by jumping in too quickly. 


Another practical thing to do when a child asks a question is to gently "throw the question back at them". In other words, don't answer the question for them right away and assume you know where they are going with the question. He gave the example of a little boy who asked him what kind of car God drove. Peter paused and then asked, "What kind of car do you think God drives?" The little boy thought for a moment, answered that God probably drove a Volvo, and this led to a deeper conversation between the two of them about the kinds of things that God likes. 


This should be a no-brainer, but it is important never to laugh at children, even if we are just "laughing with them". Even if we think a particular answer sounds cute, the child may be getting at something deeper than we realize. Children definitely want to be taken seriously and will stop conversing with people about spiritual things if they feel that they are not. 


Okay, please know that I am learning these things, too, so I hope that this doesn't sound judgemental in any way. I kicked myself quite a few times when Peter spoke about what not to do, because I had done almost all of them.: )  Let's just agree to listen more and speak less with the kids we walk with, okay? 

Eastertide Guest Post #5: On the Emmaus Road

Featherglen came up trumps for our Eastertide Guest Post series with not one, but two blog posts. I introduced her in yesterday's post about her Eastertide garden. Today she shares several ways of telling and remembering the story of the Emmaus Road. I appreciate how sensitive she is to the context of worship - the community, the physical location, the resources available. It's wonderful that she's included so many photos (please honor her request, "If you want to use any of them, please be lovely enough to ask me first."). We took the liberty of re-arranging them slightly, dividing the post into an introduction and then three sections.

Although all the accounts of the Resurrection are amazing, one that I particularly love is the appearance of Jesus to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Yes, it is strange that they don't recognise Him - but then they aren't expecting him either - somehow He is the same but different - that's certainly what I'm hoping for myself anyway! What I love is that He doesn't just jump in and shock them and say 'I'm back!' but takes the time to walk with two grieving, wondering men. He walks alongside them, listens to them and then starts to help them put the pieces together. It is only in the breaking of the bread that finally they see Him. It certainly reminds me of my own encounters with Jesus.

For us in L'Arche, it has been a powerful theme, that God walks with us . . . 

To read the rest, please join us again at Wonderful in an Easter Kind of Way

Eastertide Guest Post #4: An Eastertide Garden

This week's guest post is from Featherglen, a new friend, that we met through the Celebrating Lent link party. She and her husband both work as members of the L'Arche community in Inverness, Scotland. Her sidebar list of topics shows her major concerns to be her faith, her family, handicrafts, and the L'Arche Community. Featherglen's life sounds very romantic - living in the Scottish Highlands, married to a French jeweller and gardener, members of an international movement building faith-based communities with people with learning disabilities, supporting them to reach their full potential... yet her writing is honest and down-to-earth.


As a mother, member of a L'Arche Community and a church, Lent can, ironically, turn into a very full time. Although this is usually in a good way, by the time Easter has arrived and been celebrated in various ways, I'm ready for a break. However, despite not growing up in a liturgical tradition, I have grown to appreciate many aspects of such a way of worship, Bible reading, and the sense of celebrations in their appropriate times. This is sometimes also very helpful for the adults with learning disabilities that  are at the heart of L'Arche. Advent and Lent are two very important times of the year for us and we take time to deepen our relationship with God during them. I came across Godly Play when looking for ways to share the biblical story creatively, and it seemed to be instinctively right for us. One story I love in Godly Play is the Circle of the Church Year and as a family we have been very struck that 'You can't keep Easter to just one Sunday, so it keeps on for six more weeks'. I find it very liberating knowing that there's no hurry to celebrate Easter - we have all the time we need!

 In our family we made a 'Lent garden' - a large plate filled with sand and a bare branch, along with a wooden figure of Jesus, representing his time in the wilderness. It sat on our kitchen table and we added a stone each day at dinner time. By Palm Sunday we lifted out the stones, added some soil, then replaced the stones into a path to the bare branch. We sowed some wheatgrass seeds and made a tomb from clay, giving it time to dry out. A cross was added on Good Friday . . .

To read the rest and see how this beautiful Easter garden has slowly came to life, please join us at Wonderful in an Easter Kind of Way.

  

Pysanky Part 2 (with kids!)

Just before Easter, I learned to make Pysanky (Ukrainian Easter Eggs) at a workshop here in Berlin. I was then quite eager to try it out with my own kids as part of our Eastertide activities. So I ordered A Kid's Guide to Decorating Ukrainian Easter Eggs that came with the dyes, beeswax, and a kistka (the tool for applying the beeswax).

I tried it out first with my 8-year-old son, who really enjoyed the experience. The most difficult part for him was drawing the actual design on the egg. I suggested that for the first egg, we should actually try to follow one of the designs in the book, in order to learn how it's done. Not an easy thing for this creative fellow to do!

He had no big problems applying the beeswax with the kistka, although there were a couple of splatters here and there. One potential problem for children is that they load too much beeswax into the kistka and then it comes out in a blob on the egg. This definitely happened a couple of times. I also think an art exercise like this one helps children to learn patience. Making pysanky is a tedious, but rewarding process.

I also decided to limit the colors to four (yellow, orange, red, green)  until we got the hang of what we were doing. I added blue to our third round.

 

This is what the egg looked like after the final color of red was added:

Here is the fun part where we melt the beeswax and rub it off with a tissue to reveal the design. Afterwards, you need to varnish the eggs with a non-water soluble medium. Then, you can either blow the inside out or leave the egg intact. 

Our first two eggs looked like this:

In our second round, my six-year-old daughter joined in. She also enjoyed applying the beeswax with the kistka. The process proved to be a little long for her and she became a bit impatient towards the end. Her egg was not as detailed, but still very beautiful.

As with anything, practice makes perfect. The pencil drawing on my son's second egg was much better this time.

Here are all of our finished eggs. They are on our table and we enjoy looking at them as we eat!

Linked to Keep Calm Crafting On at Frontier Dreams

and Friday's Nature Table at The Magic Onions

and Sharing Saturday at Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart