Big Bang/Beginning of the Universe

We had a snow day today, and with everything closed and the streets quiet, my mind turned to the long view of finishing out the year in the Spirit Play classroom.

A small unit that we'll be doing in late winter is creation, working within the "Wonder and Awe" Source of Unitarian Universalism, and moving from the scientific explanations of the start of everything to creation stories from various cultures. So today, I spent a little time using leftover materials and made the items for the "Big Bang/Beginning of the Universe" story.

Something I like a lot about this story is that there is a built in way for the children to co-create the story with the storyteller; at a certain point, the children crumple up gold tissue paper to demonstrate the compression of elements into stars. They then add the stars to the underlay as the story turns to the formation of galaxies. I have found myself soliciting participation in a couple of stories thus far, and have very much liked the effect it had on individuals and the energy of the group.

Chalica, Worship is the Center

Today is the first day of Chalica. It has never been celebrated at this congregation before, so a very dedicated and talented lay leader and I put it together from scratch. What fun! We selected "Worship is the Center" as the Spirit Play story to show the principles off at their very best--along with the chalice, sources, and rituals of UUism.

Here is the finished layout of that story, taken earlier in the day after I'd practiced it a few times:

The laundry basket is there for scale; this story, intended for sharing in a multigenerational worship setting, is big! Our gathered group of 30 was small enough that we could all still more or less circle around, but I'm curious how this would be best done in a group of 50 or more.

On the back of the symbols, I made little cheats for myself, writing the source that each symbol corresponded to, and a phrase or two about what that source offered to UUism. This was very helpful.

The cape--which I must admit I first thought of as a little cheesy--was a huge hit! People loved it. The gold circle above has a slit up to the center, and it's double-sided with the other side being black fabric with little silver stars on it. You begin the story wearing the cape with the "universe" side out, then you transform it to the underlay, then back into your cape at the end. I flubbed the ending of the story a little bit, going out with a little puff instead of the Big Bang that was written. But at 10 minutes of memorized text, this one pretty well tried me! 

It was the second time we used Spirit Play with the whole group, and universally, people adored it. They commented on the pace, the holiness, the way everyone around them was holding their breath anticipating the next part of the story. I was shocked. And happy. This RE year began with a handful of pressing and unanticipated needs, and so we were not able to launch Spirit Play the way we wanted to. But this felt like a very special introduction, and 30 people got to experience it. 

"The Weight of a Snowflake"

Children's Chapel for December is about peace and the power of one. The story I built for it was "The Weight of a Snowflake," which seems to be of ambiguous origin on the Internets. I took the short script, modified a few small details, and put it into a Spirit Play format.

It took me about half a week to make it from scratch, and I'd say about 9 hours (including planning the rest of the Children's Chapel around it). Nine hours of work for 45 minutes of time with the children, plus maybe another session here or there that uses the same materials in a different way made me second guess my time management skills. Not loving these stats, I made a really robust take-home sheet for families this week to bring the ideas home. And I'm referring them to the YouTube version of the story to listen to and watch together as a bedtime story.

I know in my bones that full-week faith is how children are going to move from doing UU to feeling UU, and that latter is what is going to help them to access--and add to--the wisdom, depth, and strength that UU has to offer. I'm still working on getting there.

A recording of the story I found on YouTube:

And the first sketch:

Building the pieces:

Then the story, in three stages:

And here's the whole thing packed up in its basket. I remembered to include in the script a sentence for each item as I'm putting it away, too, which is a nice chance to provide a little summary or add a bit of new information. 

Using this for Children's Chapel, I also presentied each child was a little end-of-year gift, a crochet wool snowflake (seen in the first image, and set in a little origami paper box). As I handed it to them, I had a little message for each one about having a unique, strong voice, and using it to add weight to the truths that are important. And for feast, we ate popcorn drizzled with white chocolate. Popcorn, in Spanish, is palomitas, which translates literally to "tiny doves."

Finally, here was the little altar setting for the children's service, with the story off to the right:

(The drums were our musical accompaniment for "Peace, Salaam, Shalom," which was our hymn.)

There were only a handful of kids there, but it was so lovely. One boy remarked how the tree reminded him of Ygrdasil, the Norse tree of life. Another asked me to tell her mom about the snowflake present so that she could be sure to remember it right. Afterward, when I was chatting informally with one boy's mother, he stood nearby and made a connection with what I was saying that began with, "It's just like in the story, about one voice." Their answers for the standard Spirit Play question, "I wonder where you are in this story?" were just beautiful--one child was the snow, for his favorite holiday of winter; another was the olive branch in the peace dove's mouth, where he thought the stories must come from; another was the trunk of the fir tree, strong and soft. 

It was such an honor to be there with them as they talked through their wonderings and knowings. Truly, it was one of those sessions that I think I would have spent twice as long on if I'd known how good it was going to be, so my resolution is to get smarter about time while keeping a very firm grasp on my priority of promoting incarnational spiritual growth.

Embroidery for Beginners

A quick share:

A small, child-friendly beginning embroidery kit that can be held in the lap during church service. Large, plastic tapestry needle. Embroidery floss wound neatly on cardboard spools. Round-tipped scissors. Big-holed burlap. Wee hoop. Basket just the size to sit in a child's lap. Two or three such kits (or more, for a bigger church) could be stacked together in the foyer or just outside the sanctuary in a specially designated area for kids to get and put back themselves.

Update:

Adults and children alike have fully embraced this during-service activity, and have even worked collaboratively on a design over several Sundays! The adults seem tickled that they are "allowed" to do this, too. A friend of mine, Joy, reminded me that there is good brain science that backs up the theory that having something creative and repetitive to do with one's hands helps some to focus. This can help some church leaders to be convinced of the fitness of this offering for our Sunday services.

Bread Communion story

Bread Communion is at the end of November, so we introduced the ritual in this month's first-Sunday Children's Chapel. The Spirit Play training CD that you get when you complete a training has a combination Church Corner/Bread Communion/Guests at Your Table story (Section 3, "Liturgical Lesson Bread Communion") that we modified for the occasion.

I used a fair amount of verbiage exactly as Beverly Leute Bruce wrote it, so I don't feel as if I can share our version of the story here. But I can share the picture!

The preparation for this story was particularly fun for me! I love watercolor on wood, and I love salt dough sculpture. As the materials-in-progress sat on my counter this past week, everyone who came over wanted to pick something up and look at it. I think of intrigue as one of the most powerful catalysts for learning, so this pleased me greatly. And with the whole thing coming it at under $5, it showed that the recommended high-quality materials for Spirit Play stories don't always--or even often!--have to mean high-dollar.

There's an option in the story, which we included, where you pass the smaller basket containing the people, and each child adds one him or herself around the central basket of bread. That was good. I want to look for more opportunities to unfold stories as a group.

For part of this story, too, you introduce the Guests at Your Table boxes and pass around a bowl of pennies for the kids to drop into the box, asking them to envision spreading help, food, and love as they do. They really got into this part! I don't remember how we introduced the boxes last year, but I feel great about this Spirit Play story as a kick-off, and think we'll be using it annually for the foreseeable future.

Serendipitously, I found these beautiful cut-and-fold paper trees, called "Thankful Trees," to accompany the boxes at our family dinner tables.  We had some on our Children's Chapel altar, too, and sent the cardstock print-outs home for each child to cut, fold, and display.

Autumn Leaf projects

Here are a couple of autumn leaf projects. They could tie in with a story, but since they are the literal background of life itself in areas with four seasons, they don't really need an introduction or occasion.

Still, these would be lovely art choices for a story on the turning of the Wheel of the Year. The Neo Pagan Holidays and Holy Days CD (available on Spiritplay.net) has a lovely Wheel of the Year story, and in a year-long study of the Pagan Sabbats, author Jessica Zebrine Gray recommends beginning on Samhaim.

Leaf rubbings, a fall classroom favorite. We used soy rock crayons, which have a great texture and shape for doing rubbings. They're pricey, but last a long time since they don't break or wear down flat like typical crayons.

And this one was new to me: making overlapping cray pas leaf silhouettes. This is done by holding the leaf flat against the paper whilst making little "ticks" of oil pastel color all around the edge. You then blend the oil pastel outward, still holding the leaf firm against the page, and when you lift it, get this nice crisp-edged negative space. Have you ever seen these, occurring naturally on the pavement beneath deciduous trees? It's a little ghostly, the twin remains of fallen leaves and rain.

This project was how we introduced the oil pastels as a new art material. This particular brand of cray pas had its own tray, which was nice; Crayolas don't, and they immediately get jumbled up and mark on each other.

Weaving with CD Looms

Here's a new work choice for the Spirit Play classroom or a quiet lap-activity to work on during service: CD loom weaving.

There is a good tutorial here, as well as many colorful examples using fun and funky yarn and colors. I included a selection of colors in each box and basket, each piece about 3 feet long, and a 3x5 card with brief instructions on the back.  (I forgot to include the round-tipped child scissors in the box pictured, but they'd go in, too, so that the kids would have everything they needed at the ready.)

Here is one way to write out the instructions:

  

• ·         Move the shuttle over, under, over, under the warp yarn, or the lines going out from the center of the circle.
• ·         When you want to change colors, cut the old yarn, leaving a little tail that you can tuck in later.
• ·         Then, tie the new yarn with a small knot to the next closest warp string. Tie the other end of the new yarn to   the back of the shuttle.
• ·         Continue in your over, under, over, under pattern.
• ·         When you finish, tie your last bit of yarn to the warp string.
• ·         Remember, there is no wrong way to do this. The learning is everything.
• ·         Keep your weaving, or donate it to the church to use as a glare interrupter to help songbirds not crash into our windows. Thanks!

 It would be great to have picture instructions, too, for pre-readers.

At first, I thought we might build up a stash of these that could be used as glare interrupters to help songbirds not fly into our windows. But I'll have to get a couple of samples up and view them from outside to see if they work that way. They're lovely as art pieces just the same, and could be an all-the-time work choice or could be a special work choice along with a Grandmother Spider story or with the book "Extra Yarn," which is about a little girl who has a never-ending supply of yarn that she uses to knit for all her friends, neighbors, and even enemies.