While moms and teachers were attending the women’s retreat last weekend, the dads combined forces to lead the Multiage and Middler classes in a lesson with lots of action and energy. Beginning with an interactive drama (that we will perform on Children’s Sunday!) featuring some disciples, a jail, chains, and an earthquake, the kids (and dads) jumped right into the fun. Upon reflection after the drama, the children thought about what binds them (worries, nervous thoughts, insecurities) and how God helps to free them while the dads wrapped up groups of kids with crepe paper. God’s love then shook them up like an earthquake and the kids wriggled free of the bindings! Lots of laughter – lots of mess – so much fun! Creating prop chains, making disciple signs, and building Lego scenes of the drama rounded out the day with the dads. Many thanks to Josh Torgerson, Jeff Tustin, and Carlin Andrus for leading the day while the moms were away!
Tagged with Sunday School
Opening our doors on Palm Sunday!
Open Door Sunday School was back on Palm Sunday, where we welcomed all ages and all classes in every room to explore and interact with stations highlighting Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Enjoy the pictures!
Searching for the Lost
On Sunday our Multiage class read the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin and spent the morning searching for lost things! Have you ever lost anything special? Do you remember looking for it? How did you feel when you found it? These were questions we asked and wondered about as we celebrated how amazing it feels to be “found” by God and welcomed into God’s Kingdom with a joyful party – even if we do something wrong. Check out our pictures for a description of our WONDER-ful day together!
We searched all downstairs for 14 lost sheep! One sneaky sheep was in the recycle bin 🙂 Happy to be found! Another sneaky sheep got lost in the cold stairway. Poor sheep! Searching! Yay! We found them all! Building a sheep pasture Keeping the sheep safe Snuggling… 🙂 Creating origami sheep Baa!! We had a collection of I Spy and Where’s Waldo books Can you find Waldo? What else can you find? We even found 20 gold coins all around the room. A few were TOUGH to spot!
Celebrating baptism in Open Door Sunday School
On Sunday, all children and youth, ages 3-18, experienced the story of the baptism of Jesus together with drama and interactive experiences in every single classroom. All doors were open on Sunday, meaning children of all ages were allowed to float between rooms, choosing from a wide variety of activities for all interests and abilities. Check out the pictures from our fantastic morning together!
Beginning with a drama, John the Baptist was busy baptizing lots of people in the Jordan River Then along comes Jesus! At Jesus’ insistence, John agrees to baptize him Can you see the dove of the Holy Spirit? The youth worked to create the River Jordan with blocks and stones Much care was taken… …to add lots of details… …complete with fish and people Wow! Busy creating origami doves! Watercoloring in the Prek room Busy creating We even worked to build a river on the floor. Need a pool for the fishes! Water beads! Fun to scoop and dump in the water A very popular station! Lego recreation of baptism in the youth room Lots of building! Child of God mirrors were decorated too! Another very popular activity We ended our time together by washing away our worries, our grievances, and things we are sorry for… …by pouring water on the dissolving paper… …and our sins and sorrows were washed away!
Angels in Advent: a peek into Sunday School
Angels have been hovering all around us this Advent season, and we continued this theme last Sunday in our multiage Sunday school class. After lighting our third candle in our Advent wreath and a candlelit opening combining all three classes, the multiage children enjoyed finding angels illustrated in the book The Nativity by Julie Vivas and then watched a fantastic short video called An Unexpected Christmas, featuring God’s host of angels very surprised by God’s plan for Jesus’ birth. Check out the video here. We then explored three different activity stations: decorating angel coloring pages, creating sparkly angel messages, and reading Christmas books in an ever-expanding twinkling fort. The reading fort started under one table with three children, then grew (with the help of some very motivated kid engineers) to encompass the entire stage to fit everyone. Always room for one more!
A Wonderful Sale!
Check out the fabulous pictures from our FANTASTIC greeting card and chalkboard napkin ring sale, sponsored by Children’s Ministries and Sunday Fellowship! Last Sunday was a wonderful success, and we thank all who participated and supported our ministries and our lessons about Congregational Giving. The proceeds from the sale will be divided between Children’s Ministries and Sunday Fellowship and offered as our pledges for 2019. Stay tuned for the sale totals!
Earning, Spending, and Giving Away
As our preschool and kindergarten children continue to learn about Congregational Giving at WCUC, last Sunday they had a hands-on lesson on managing money. Assisted by several older Middler helpers, stations were set up around the classroom that either cost money or earned money by participating. Washing a truck earned one coin, babysitting earned another one. Serving food at the restaurant earned a coin, but buying food cost one. The children even had to purchase their snacks for two coins each! Sometimes the lights would go out and a coin would be paid for the electric bill. The heat bill was paid too. And all children were invited to share a coin that they earned back with the church. It was a fun and dynamic lesson about earning, spending and giving away money – just as Jesus taught us!
- Paying for snack!
- Signing a special card for a wounded veteran earned a coin too
- Washing trucks earned one coin
- Working at the restaurant earned one coin. Buying food cost another one.
- Babysitting! Hard work earned a coin
- Don’t forget to pay the electric and heat bills! And remember to give a coin to the church.
Puzzle pieces of faith
Last Sunday the children in all three Sunday school classes began a 4-week series of lessons about congregational giving and the special community of West Concord Union Church. We asked the children to think about our community as a puzzle – what are the essential pieces of WCUC? What happens if a piece is missing? The children thought of themselves as a piece of our puzzle too, recognizing (with the help of some very powerful quotes from other adult members) just how important their presence and energy are to the faith experiences of everyone. Next Sunday we will begin to talk more about money, learn about pledging and how the money is used at WCUC, and wonder about our dreams for the future.
In order to support the congregational giving appeal this year, the kids are again creating handmade greeting cards to sell during fellowship on November 11th. All proceeds from that sale will be counted by the children and offered as our 2019 pledge on November 18th. Check out the pictures to see a peek of their hard work and fantastic creations!
A window into our Sunday School classes
Last Sunday the Middler, Multiage, and Preschool classes continued our stories, our wondering, and our explorations together in a variety of ways. Here is a snapshot of what each class was up to:
Middler
- Gathered together by floating a hope (plastic egg) and sinking a worry (a rock) from the week
- Read the book Miracle Man by John Hendrix
- Talked about different people in our lives that we look up to the way the disciples looked up to Jesus
- Created GIANT airplanes that really flew!
Preschool
- Set up props and acted out the story of the Good Shepherd and the Lost Sheep
- Hunted for “lost” sheep around the room
- Sang “The Shepherd had 100 Sheep” (to the tune of “The Ans go Marching”)
- Colored door hangers to invite neighbors and friends to our Open House
Multiage
- Continued our explorations of the early church with puppets and props
- Created “sand hands” to represent how we are the hands of Jesus today, spreading his word and teachings
- Worked together with factory precision, focus, and dedication to finish decorating ALL the remaining door hangers for our Open House invitations. Kids estimated they colored about 250!
- Loved being the hands and feet of Jesus (“For real!”) as children and parents walked our neighborhood delivering our Open House invitations
Enjoy the pictures below of our fantastic Sunday together!
- Sink a worry; Float a hope
- Decorating our GIANT paper airplanes
- Writing uplifiting quotes and people
- Hard at work
- Flying!!!!
- Setting up our story of the Good Shepherd
- Don’t lose the sheep!
- After finding lost sheep around the room, we kept them safe
- Decorating door hangers to be distributed for our Open House
- Puppets, a “chariot”, and spreading the teachings of Jesus
- Creating sand hands
- Reminds us that we are the hands of Jesus now
- Busy colorers working to decorate 250 door hangers
- Done!