Godly Play: St.Valentine

As preparation for celebrating St. Valentine's Day on Feb. 14, I decided to go ahead and tell this story from Godly Play Volume 7 early. As many of you may remember, I started working my way through this volume last year. Since it is only available in English, I have been using it mainly for my own children. As I'm only averaging about 4 saints a year, I'll have them all done hopefully at the end of 2014.: )

Materials for the story:
1. St. Valentine peg doll
2. mortar & pestle
3. white felt crocus
4. scroll with "From your Valentine" written inside
5. purple underlay (since Feb. 14 falls during the time of Lent this year)

You may notice that this peg figure has eyes, while my other saints do not.
My dilemma was that Valentine is usually pictured with a beard, and
he would have looked really strange with a beard and no eyes! Maybe
I will have to add eyes to the others.

To tell you the truth, I avoided telling this story last year. Why? Because there are so many different versions of Valentine's story, and it is difficult to trace his historical facts. The legend may even be a conglomeration of two different persons. And because my children first learned about Valentine from a book with a slightly different take on his story, I thought it might confuse them to tell the Godly Play version.

But as I read and re-read the Valentine story in Volume 7, it began to grow on me, because it is a great example of someone selflessly loving another. A common thread running through each of the stories in Volume 7 is a dramatic childhood experience, either in the life of the saint or someone that he/she loved. In Valentine's story, this child is the jailer's daughter, who has been born blind.  As he is led away to his execution, Valentine thinks not of himself, but of the little girl that he has befriended. The story ends with the little girl's father reading her the note that Valentine has left for her. As she opens it, a white crocus, her favorite flower, falls out of the rolled up note. When she bends to pick it up, she realizes that she can see it. 

As I had previously suspected, my kids (ages 7 and 9) were thrown off by the differences in the details of Valentine's life that they had previously read in a storybook that we have. In that book, a big deal is made of Valentine marrying people in secret, because the Roman emperor had outlawed marriage in order to get more recruits for his army. In the GP version, Valentine is a doctor as well as a priest and more is said about his gathering herbs to help cure his patients. The kids had lots of questions about why the Godly Play story does not mention him marrying people. My response was to say that maybe the writer of the story decided that this was something we could leave out and still have everything we needed for the story. :) I then added that we don't have many written historical facts about Valentine from that time period, so there are several legends about him. I think any storyteller should be prepared for questions like this from children about Valentine's story, because the truth is that we can't historically trace much of his life.

After we got beyond this, we able to wonder about his life. What did we like best in the story? That Valentine prayed for his patients and he prayed for the little girl the most. That he was friends with the little girl. What was most important? That he thought about her in his last moments and not just about himself. What part of the story tells something about us? One child answered that he liked herbs just like Valentine. 

One of our children wondered some more in the Response Time:

The picture is unfinished, but you can clearly see elements of the story. It was unusual to see this child wondering about the story that was just told - in Godly Play children often wonder about a story they heard earlier and not the one that was just told - but very nice.

Hope your Valentine's celebration next week is lots of fun! 

You can read about our family's traditions in this post from last year. 

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

and Eco Kids' Tuesday at Organic Aspirations and Like Mother - Like Daughter

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Sketchy Sunday: Birds

We're joining the Artsy Ants again for Sketchy Sunday, and this week's theme is birds. 

My son decided has also decided to participate, so here are his sketches of a hawk and an apple for last week's fruit theme.

I am trying to use as many drawing mediums as possible this year, so that I avoid getting comfortable with just one. The black Pitt pens that I drew with last week are my favorite drawing tool.

I drew this owl with my least favorite, a pencil.

I adore my chunky charcoal. It has such a painterly feel to it. Though it is too thick for a sketchbook drawing, I used it anyway for this cardinal.

Next week's theme is "in the kitchen", so it'll be interesting to see what everyone comes up with! Be sure to visit the Artsy Ants to see the other sketches or join in yourself.

Candlemas Nature Table

Our nature table sat empty from the time Christmas was over until today. Mainly from lack of time, kids being sick and lack of inspiration. But this morning we had some extra time, and spontaneously made one for Candlemas.

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas. It is when the church remembers Mary and Joseph presenting baby Jesus in the temple, where he is recognized as the Messiah by Simeon and Anna. The name "Candlemas" comes from "candle mass" and is called so, because of Simeon's recognition that the child will be a light for all the nations. 

Even at age 9 1/2, the nature table tradition is still important to my son. I gave him and my 7-year-old daughter a few ideas and then let them decorate. She built the temple and he arranged the nature objects. (They had a few additional quarrels about what would go where, of course!)

My son's class at school rolls beeswax candles each year during Advent. Because we already have so many candles at Christmas, I usually save them for Candlemas.

Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus are from our Godly Play nativity set. Simeon and Anna are wooden figures from Young Children and Worship. Baby Jesus is lying on a bean-like pod from a particular tree that grows in the park near our home.

After breakfast we read the story of Jesus' Presentation in the Temple from the Children's NIV Bible, found in Luke 2:22-40. Amidst the squirming (lest you think that my children or anyone else's sit through these things quietly!), both of my children became very interested in the figure of Joseph. Was he really important in the life of Jesus? Why doesn't the Bible say very much about him? And how could Jesus have been conceived without an earthly father? 

After talking about these things, I brought up that Simeon and Anna recognized Jesus as the Messiah because they had been very close to God and "heard" him speaking to them.

How do we "hear" God's voice and how does he "speak" to us today? After some verbal wondering together, we then lit our Candlemas candles and thanked God for giving Jesus to be the light for the whole world. 

This the second year that we've done a Candlemas nature table. Click here to see the one from last year.

Linked to Eco Kids Tuesdays at Like Mother-Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

Some more Response Time Ideas

A Godly Play classroom can include all kinds of materials to help children creatively respond to and wonder about the the stories. And not just the classic story materials and art supplies that are usually seen. 

In Holland, our colleague, An from Belgium, brought these wooden toys for us to use in our response times. 

This hammer set is manufactured with younger children in mind to work on fine motor skills, but older children, teenagers and adults could also have a great time working with it in a Godly Play classroom. 

I like that whatever you create is not permanent and will eventually be taken apart. This helps children get away from the idea that our artistic endeavors are always something that we have to keep forever and put on our wall at home. Like land art, it a moment to be enjoyed between a child and God.

During one of our response times in Holland, I actually had a rather profound prayer experience  using the wooden Mandala above. I dumped all the blocks out and began making patterns with the colors. I watched as order and beauty came from chaos, and some of the shapes that come out of this had spiritual significance for me. It helped me to "hear" God's voice in a different way. 

As I've written in other posts, I also include Montessori Practical Life activities on my shelves when I have younger children present. Leslie from Thoughts from the Sheepfold has an article here that I have read over and over again about why we do this. 

Here is what we call a "transfer activity" below. The child transfers a hungry bird on the right to each apple in the ice tray on the left. This develops simple math skills and trains fine motor skills. 

When I visited my colleague, Heidi, in Wittenberg last fall, she had another interesting idea on her shelves. She had cut A4 mats of burlap and had a basket with bundles of colored wool in it. The children could then make pictures out of the wool by attaching it to the burlap. The unspun wool sticks to the burlap, so there is not need for glue. You'll be seeing more of that idea in our upcoming Easter Club 2013!

Burlap is an all natural fibre, and its rough texture is a
nice contrast to the soft wool.

What creative Response Materials have you used in your Godly Play settings?

Godly Play Trainers' Training: Part 3

I finally have some pictures to from our time at the Godly Play Trainers' Training in Holland to share with you, thanks to Satu Reinikainin, one of my fellow trainees from Finland!

We stayed in a guest house at this lovely cloister in Maarsen, Holland.

Front Row: Andrea (England), Satu (Finland), Rachel (England/Germany), Peter  & Rosemany Privett, Rebecca Nye
Back Row: Sian (England), me, Christie (Holland), Trinette (Holland), Anita (Latvia), Jacolean (Holland), Mari (Finland), Katie (Belgium), An (Belgium)

One of the first tasks that Peter and Rebecca, our trainers, gave us was to
unload all of the GP materials and figure out how to best arrange them in the room.
Core Trainings aren't always in ideal settings, so this was a very practical activity.

Peter sharing how to do the Trinity Synthesis, which many of us had
no experience with. The Synthesis stories are only done with
children who are thoroughly familiar with all of the core stories. 

Background work in Children's Spirituality

As promised, here is my third installment about what we did in Holland. (See Training another Storyteller and Storytelling and being trained by a peer for the first two parts.) We spend one third of our time delving into the theory and theology of children's spirituality. Without some background in this area, many things about Godly Play either don't make sense or don't serve the child in the ways they should. Since the field in a Christian context is relatively new, there are very few experts and we are all in a learning process together.

Part of our preparation for the training was to read and present material on children's spirituality to our fellow trainees. We were specifically told not to simply regurgitate the material in a lecture-style, but to choose the most important things and present them in a creative manner. 

Everyone was so creative and inspiring in the way that they chose to present the information. Far from being dry and theoretical, each presentation came to life through the personalities and teaching styles of each participant.

In the picture above, Jacolean and Christie are sharing with us about "Being in Parables with Children". They pulled their main points out of parable box and relayed the information as if they were telling a parable themselves. (And perhaps they were!) Then, they gave us an opportunity to respond by placing objects in the room next to the particular point that had stuck with us. 

The phrase that stuck with me the most that I have since done a lot of silent wondering about is  that "parables are at the edge of language". Simply hearing and repeating the words of a biblical parable will get you nowhere. Art and play can take us beyond words in order to gain deeper understanding. 

Rachel, who lives in Munich, and I teamed up to present two chapters in a book from Jerome Berryman entitled, "Clearing the Way for Grace". In a nutshell, Berryman uses attachment theory to assert that just as a healthy child forms a healthy attachment to its parents, a child will also form a healthy attachment to the church as an institution if he/she experiences an open, accepting, loving atmosphere in the formative years. Dysfunction comes in as a result of ambivalence and indifference towards children. Berryman then challenges the reader to think of the child as a living sacrament. 

We chose to illustrate the ambivalence and indifference towards children in the church's history by dividing our fellow trainees into small groups and giving each group cards, upon which the quotations of various theologians' views of children were written. The group had about 5 minutes to sort the cards into "yes", "no" or "maybe" piles, depending on their opinion of the quote. 

After giving a little more background information and sharing Berryman's challenge to think of the child as a sacrament, we passed around slips of paper with the sacraments written on them and challenged each person to consider how a child could be more involved in the sacrament they drew. 

And at the end of our presentation, we passed around small stones and markers and encouraged each person to take a stone and write a word or draw a picture as a reminder of what they wanted to take with them from this topic. 

Mari and Satu did a presentation on laughter in religious education. (Most people don't make a connection between religion and laughter, so I especially loved this topic!) Sean and Andrea spoke about the existential boundaries that we deal with in Godly Play. Trinette and Anita helped us to think more about the language of silence in religious education. And finally, Katie and An shared about "Children and Mature Spirituality". 

We are supposed to write up our presentations and send them to each other. So when I get the information, I'll write more on these things!

Godly Play: The Parable of the Leaven

My son has the flu, so we did not attend our church's brunch this week. Instead, I told both children "The Parable of the Leaven" at home. This parable is one of the core stories in the GP curriculum. It is also the shortest story of them all. Indeed, the text in the Bible is only one verse. As a result, it often gets dismissed by beginner storytellers. I remember thinking, "This is it?!" 

After the normal introduction about the gold box, how parables are gifts, and wondering about what the underlay might be,  comes this . . . 

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a woman who took three measure of flour . . . "

" . . . and mixed them together. She hid the leaven in the mixture . . . "

". . . which swelled up and was leavened all over."

"It got big and puffy like the bread you buy in the store."

But don't let the simplicity of this story throw you off. Precisely because it is so simple, there is a ton to wonder about and discuss. What is the leaven, really, in the parable and in life? Have you ever come close to a place where this happens, not just in the parable, but in life?

At our training in Holland, the Wondering after this particular story went on for what seemed like an eternity, because we all so fully immersed in it. In fact, we would have kept on, had our fellow trainee whose turn it was to train us not stepped in to lead us into the evaluation.

This story is also a difficult one to tell, again because it is so simple. You have to be internally okay with the language of silence and gracious in your movements. My colleague, Rachel, told this story in Holland, and I remember thinking, "I'm glad it's her and not me!" But she did an amazing job of not rushing the text or our responses, and the Wondering was some of the most thought-provoking that I've ever participated in. 

Yesterday, my son was under strict orders to only do silent wondering, since he was losing his voice. My daughter (who is 7) said a few things, but was eager to get to the Response Time, so our Wondering was a bit short. What was interesting was that she came back to the story at bedtime when she wondered what baking bread had to do with the Kingdom of Heaven? Would there only be one person in heaven and would she just be baking bread? (All this said with an irritated tone in her voice!) I reminded her that Jesus had said that his Kingdom was like this woman baking bread. I also reminded her that sometimes the door to the parable stays closed for a bit, but we can always come back again and someday it will open for us . . . 

Linked to Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now

and Eco Kids' Tuesday at   Like Mama~Like Daughter and Organic Aspirations

and Waldorf Wednesday at Seasons of Joy

and Sharing Saturday at Crafty Moms Share

Sketchy Sunday (and a New Year's Resolution)

When you spend a lot of time doing art projects with children, it can be really easy to neglect your own personal development as an artist. And I'm afraid that has been me the past couple of years.  In the business of life and working with children, I haven't always made time for my first artistic love: drawing. So far this year, the only New Year's Resolution that I have made is to start sketching once a day for at least ten minutes. In reality, I haven't met my goal every single day, but I do get to it several times a week, which is way more than I did last year!

As I was pondering how to keep myself accountable, one of my favorite blogs, The Artsy Ants, has started a weekly sketching challenge called "Sketchy Sunday". Each week they host a link-up for the week's theme and then announce the theme for next week. What a wonderful way to keep sketching and connect with others!

The week's theme is "fruit", so I chose to sketch a fruit that I had tried to draw: a pomegranate. I used black ink, colored pencils, and oil pastel. 

Last week's theme was "cold" and here are a couple of sketches below.

Thanks, Sylvia and Simona, for thinking up this great idea!