Spirit of Spirit Play Spreading

We have but one of our three classes set up as Spirit Play classes, but the concepts themselves--big and small--have percolated through our offerings so that things are a little different now than they were last spring.

The fourth Sunday of each month is "ShaRE Sunday," an opportunity for congregants to share a talent, passion, activity, skill, game, craft, etc., and for the regular teachers to get a Sunday off. Sometimes, a couple of congregants are off and running with this and I stand by watching happily as they orchestrate a multigenerational class of an always unpredictable number through a fun and interesting 50 minutes. Other times, a second person can't be found. I have a love-challenge relationship with this. On the one hand, both finding people to do ShaRE Sundays and coming up with and preparing components myself takes a lot of time, two to six hours, easily. On the other hand, researching themes, planning activities, and preparing materials is really fun! I feel giddy with excitement imagining how the session will go.

This coming Saturday is our "Blessing of the Animals," so this Sunday a (incredibly talented, knowledgeable, and skilled) congregant adapted for children a personality test that used animal archetypes. She led those gathered through a series of open-ended questions about animals in our lives--who they are, how they act, and what they tell us about ourselves. They then took a short quiz to see if they self-identified most as a Golden retriever, otter, lion, or beaver. The idea was to give them a little bit of self-knowledge as well as help them consider an animal's point of view. My job was to create the hands-on component of this session.

Here was what they walked in to see, along with a few other tables set up with cardstock and drawing materials, as well as extra pieces of felt and scissors:

And here is how they were used:

Finally, a close-up of a couple of final products:

This isn't, of course, Spirit Play. But what I noticed is that I am acquiring a kind of "Spirit Play lens" to add to some of my other lenses when I want to look at any given session, lesson, or activity to see if it's as good as it can be.

Looking through the Spirit Play lens, I asked myself--when I first began and all throughout the process of planning and preparing:

• Are these materials engaging? Are they the best I have access to?
• Are they arranged in an eye-pleasing way?
• Are they at a height and distance that young and older children can easily access them?
• Will everyone has ample opportunity (time, space, adult or older-kid help) to do the work they want in as self-directed a way as possible?
• Are there choices available for children who may need an alternate form of the activity, or who may want to express themselves in other ways? Are they equally attractively presented and accessible?
• What do the participants need to know to be successful with this activity? What's the best way for me to help them get this information?
• How do I envision the flow in the room, the physical movement? How about the rhythm?
• What's available for children who finish early? Who don't quite finish before it's time to go?

After my Spirit Play training, I am more cognizant of these factors, even if I knew and used a few before. I found that I now consider each of them to be essential! 

For example, in thinking about alternative forms of the activity, I realized that for non-neurotypical children and children with sensory issues, a tie-on, full-face felt mask might be very unappealing! I didn't think of this until this morning (of course!), so an hour before go-time I was cutting out paper versions of the masks and adding long, thin dowels so that the mask could be held a little bit away from the face, while still giving the full effect of "trying on" an animal persona. Don't you know that THREE people of our 16 chose those paper masks on sticks? If that wasn't a choice, I wonder if those people would have simply declined participating at all...?

What I learned from the training and reading is still paying off, still spreading through our program in new, delightful, inclusive, and lovely ways.