Our midweek community service at college continues to go well. I've not managed to implement a fraction of the ideas that I have yet but actually I think it's a good thing.
We're having to take the changes slowly and steadily and we're all learning. We used the pattern of changing activities throughout the service again and it works well. In order to follow the different elements of the service we have to be able to change activities quite briskly and I'm glad the children are fine with it. We packed 20 pots of playdoh away in 3 verses of a hymn tonight and quickly moved on to the next part of the service without any tantrums or tears. We feel we've created the spaces in the service to bring different resources in now.
My observations tonight were the children were captivated by a battery operated tea light that one of them had brought in and they loved to follow what was going on in the service. LittleLanky was wowed by the gospel procession because they had candles too and she could compare. The other thing she loved was having her own hymn book. I had a music copy and she had a words copy that was smaller. She thought it was amazing and found her hymn book and stood up for every hymn.
It was lovely to watch how interested she was tonight. I feel we're onto something because they all seem so engaged not just ignoring their surroundings. I'm sure there will be plenty of bumps in the road ahead but for now it's enjoyable and LittleLanky is loving it. I don't ask for more in life!
I love your ideas, hope we can come and visit and try it out!
ReplyDeleteWhen R was little we would have a pattern to get her through a service: a snack during the intro, confession and Gloria; reading her baby's prayer book during the readings and sermon (sometimes she would choose a different book); playing quietly as possible at the back of church during the Eucharistic prayer, sayin the Lord's prayer together and then going up for a blessing.
It tended to work up until the notices, then we'd get very load "it is time to go home now?" inturruptions!
We also had a special bag that was just for church and let her pack it with a book, quiet toy and snack before we went out on Sundays.