Off to Minsk!

Today, I'm flying to Minsk, Belarus to co-lead a Godly Play Core Training with Heidi, my colleague from Wittenberg! We will both be leading for the first time in Russian, so we would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

We are very excited about connecting with the ladies there and supporting them on their Godly Play journey. I'll give you an update when I return!

All Saints' Orthodox Church in Minsk
Royalty Free Stock Photo courtesy of 123RF

More Autumn Fun: Leaves and Chestnuts

After gathering some leaves in the park, we just had to make crayon rubbings with them to explore the patterns.

This year, we experimented with baking parchment (Backpapier) as the foundation. We put the leaves underneath the paper with the vein side up and used Stockmar block beeswax crayons to make the rubbings. 

The crayon appears pastel-like on the parchment paper. 

Our refridgerator is now nicely decorated!

We have also been crocheting! After my daughter learned to finger crochet recently, it inspired me to pull out my crochet hooks. I found a great on-line pattern for acorns at Squirrel Picnic and made these guys below. (You may remember my acorn obsession!) 

Both kids also wanted to learn to crochet, so I have been teaching them as well. So far, they get really tired after about 10 minutes, so we'll see if they continue with it.: ) But at any rate, it is great for their fine motor skills and developing the ability to learn something new and follow instructions. 

I also made this acorn necklace below using the same pattern but with embroidery skein.

What kind of autumn activities have you been up to?

Saturday Shout Outs!

It's time for Saturday Shout Outs! again, in which I pass on some articles that got my attention this week. 

Skeletons Can Improve Drawing

by Art of Education
This is an interesting article about getting students to observe before they start drawing - to draw what is really there and not just what they think they see. My favorite part is the use of the biology skeleton that most schools have hanging around somewhere.

Salz (Salt)
by Naturkinder
A science experiment leads to art. How cool is that?

How to make a Senet Board
by Adventures in Mommydom
This is a fun way to explore Ancient Egypt. Here Tisha reconstructs a board game with her children that the ancient Egyptians played.

Would Maria Montessori have approved? 
Technology for Montessori Teachers
by The Father Life

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ideas in this article, since I am definitely for limiting technology with children. But there are some interesting ideas here to ponder.

Engaging the Old Testament Story

by Playfull Theology

Do we enter into the full story of the Old Testament or do we treat it like a cafeteria, picking and choosing? Or like a TV series where we can miss an episode or two? A question that concerns me for the children I teach, especially since we can't meet weekly to build continuity.

How about you? What caught your eye this week? Leave a link in the comments so we can all enjoy it.

Godly Play After-School Clubs

I recently gave a my blog a small make-over by adjusting the template widths so that I my pictures can be larger without bleeding into the side bar. When I first started this blog, I couldn't read any HTML and was fairly clueless about any of the technical things. It's been a fun journey discovering little by little the mechanics behind blogging.

You may have noticed that I also redid the header buttons to make it easier to find things. (Archiving is really important after you have been blogging a while, so that people can locate what you've written about.) If you click on the "After-School Clubs" button, you can find links to all of the Advent, Easter, and theme-based Godly Play clubs that we have put together since 2010. 

Maybe you will find some fresh inspiration here! 

Art Project: Peace Tree

Here is a step-by-step look at the Peace Tree project from our after-club club, "Me + You = We?", that focused on tolerance and peace-making from a biblical perspective. Hands and trees (specifically planting trees) have been symbols of peace for generations, so I chose to combine them in this project. Also, I love the suggestion that peace grows organically. 

This is also great project if you have limited time. Or if you want something that is less messy, since the watercolor pencils give the effect of paint without actually having liquid paints.

For this project you"ll need:

- large, thick white paper
- colored construction or collage papers
- hand patterns (Mine are made out of foam rubber.)
- watercolor pencils (I used Stabilo Woodies.)
- regular pencils
- paint brushes 
- water
- scissors
- glue

Step 1: Draw a tree with the watercolor pencils.

Step 2: "Paint" the lines of the watercolor pencils with brushes and clear water. This produces a light, airy effect.

Step 3: Trace and cut out hands in different colors using the collage papers.

Step 4: Glue the hands / collage pieces onto the tree. 

When making my example above, I purposely drew a very simple tree, so that the children would use their own ideas rather than simply copying mine.

Here are some of the results of the student work:

The two children who worked on this picture together drew symbols of the Trinity onto their tree.

Playful Parables

People often expect faith and religion to be heavy and serious. Sometimes it is, but you can always bring a sense of humor into it. (I personally believe that God laughs a whole lot more than we realize!) The parables are a great way to bring the "play" into Godly Play. 

The parables are a genre in Godly Play intended to ignite creativity and help us think out-of-the-box. There is a sort of Wondering at the beginning of each parable that provides lots of opportunities for play. The storyteller pulls something out of the box and invites the listeners to imagine what it could be. Then, the storyteller often acts out whatever the listener has named.

Here, during the Parable of the Good Samaritan, I took the brown underlay out of the golden box and asked what it could be. One child said, "A shawl!", so I put it around my head as a chorus of giggles broke out.

Then, I took out the two black felt pieces that represent the mountains that the robbers hide behind in the story and asked what they could be. One child said that they were the blinders that you put around a horse's eyes to prevent them from looking to the side, so I, of course, pretended to be a horse and put them up to my eyes. Again, many giggles. After all, who expects their teacher to do something that silly? It all reminds me to not take life so seriously and have a little fun along the way. 

This playfulness sets the stage for being open to the parables themselves and whatever God might want to speak to us about them at that moment in our lives. Although most of us grow up hearing a certain "interpretation" of each parable, there are many levels of interpretation and meaning. If this were not so, Jesus would have given an official "answer" to each one. Instead, he bids us to come and play, seek, and find. 

Doesn't that sound inviting?

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

Saturday Shout Outs!

It's time for Saturday Shout Outs again where we share things that have inspired us this week! 

Here are some posts that I just had to share with you: 

Zentangle Flags 

at Mini Matisse

I've become quite a fan of Zentangles lately, so I was thrilled to see this post about doing them with kids.

Fall Activities with Water Beads 

by Deb at Living Montessori Now

Deb always has beautiful ideas and this inspires me to try and come up with a way to use water beads as a Response Time option in Godly Play.

Atrium Beginnings 

by Leslie at Thoughts from the Sheepfold

Flower arranging as a Response Time option? Absolutely brilliant! I am excited that the Atrium year at Leslie's church is up and running again.

Back to the Basics: Respect 

by Storyteller at Wonderful in an Easter Kind of Way

Here Storyteller reminds us of one of the foundational principles of being with children.

What about you? What has inspired you this week?