Response Time Idea: Fish Toss

This year's Easter Club will be starting soon and so will my weekly posts, so I am going to try and post some unfinished articles in my inbox beforehand. We'll see if I get to all of them. ; )

This is a response time activity that one of my fellow Godly Players, Maxi, came up with. At the beginning of the school year, we told the Godly Play creation story and then did a series on each of the aspects of creation. 

Maxi, who is quite a hand a sewing and any kind of crafting, designed this simple game that the children have loved.

She made  beanbag fish, and then sewed a pieces of cloth onto wooden dowels. 

When you bring the dowels together and them pull the cloth taut, the fish fly into the air! The idea is then to catch the fish with the cloth again. 

This activity is a bit livelier than some response time activities, but it is definitely playful, and was a big hit with our kids. 

Lego Church

Even though they're made of plastic, I have to think that even Maria Montessori would have approved of Legos. The open-ended concept makes the creative possibilities unlimited. 

Last year, Rosemary Beales, a Godly Play trainer in Virginia posted the question on GP's Facebook page whether anyone had ever offered Legos during the Response Time before. The responses were mixed. Many people had positive experiences, but others also had some weapon-building going on.

In my context, most children start showing less interest in the story materials after the third grade. Whether this is because of their age or the fact that I don't have a Godly Play room with all of the materials, I can't exactly say. But I do know that both boys and girls in the 4th and 5th grades are avidly interested in Legos. I am very much considering adding a Lego station to our next after-school club to help draw in some of the older kids who are not attracted to the story materials and maybe not big on the art materials either.

Recently, my ten-year-old son made this church out of Legos below during his own play time at home. 

My favorite part is the Christ Candle that he made out of pieces from the Lego Knights series.

So, to continue Rosemary's conversation: How do you feel about Legos either in a Godly Play or Montessori setting?

New Idea for Resurrection Eggs

 Before I discovered Godly Play, I was still very aware that children need to explore their spirituality with all five senses. Resurrection Eggs were one of the first tools that I used with my own children to help them experience the mystery of Easter. In case you are not familiar with them, they are plastic eggs with small objects inside that tell the story of Jesus from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. It is a bit like the Stations of the Cross plus the Resurrection.

The eggs are numbered so that the children know their order
in the Easter story.

This is a peak at the objects inside.

Though there are many great resources for using these eggs in English, I have had to be creative in my German-speaking context. In the Easter Club for elementary school students, one year used the eggs as part of an Easter Egg hunt and the following year I told the Easter story using the objects found in the Easter Egg hunt.

This year I wanted to do something new with the eggs,  and also wanted to give the children an opportunity to explore the events of Holy Week more. When we use them in the Easter Egg hunt, the kids only see the objects briefly on that particular day. 

So this year, I decided to make a station during our Godly Play Response Time featuring the eggs. On a table I placed a felt underlay with a path leading to the cross and then to the empty tomb. The children are then able to take out the individual pieces and place them on the path where they can wonder more about them or ask questions. 

This is what I place on the station table during the Response Time
and how a child might lay the pieces out and play with them.

At our first week of Easter Club on Monday, this was a popular station.
Here a child explores them with a co-worker.

If you don't already have Resurrection Eggs, you can easily make them. Just check out this post from Lacy at Catholic Icing.

If any of you have other ideas of how to use Resurrection Eggs, please leave a message in the comments!

Linked to Eco Kids' Tuesday at Like Mama-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy