Monday, June 14, 2010

First Day School: Anabaptists/ Finishing Parables/Summer Plans

The "teen" class didn't do that much this past Sunday, as it was just the LSG and I and we were running late.  We sort of planned visits to the local Mennonite Church and a nearby group of Amish to finish our study of the Anabaptists and talked about what we'd like to ask, but we haven't actually talked to the congregations yet.

The Little Friends and Lower El "class" (again, just us) finished up our use of the parables for now with some "parables about parables" (as opposed to actual parables of Jesus) - the Parable of Parables and the Parable of The Deep Well - both really good lessons. There are some good parable synthesis lessons but they are really for older kids so we are moving on to a limited selection of  Old Testament story-based lessons next, still with an emphasis on God's presence in everyone and all around us.


We talked about how summer First Day School would be a little different from how it has been this school year - with more lessons and stories and less materials work.  We also introduced the idea of "junior meeting" - basically an effort to practice being quiet and still for a few minutes in the hopes of working on those skills for Meeting.  


I'm planning on doing Creation and Adam and Eve (I really like the Adam and Eve enrichment lesson and have some good midrashim too) at our next lesson, Noah at the first July lesson, The Great Family and the Ten Commandments at our second July lesson, and the Prophets and Books of the Bible (just a little intro.) in August.  Then I'm going to be finished with this whole Bible story thing for awhile as I move on to the Quaker Testimonies for next school year.  The Teen class is covering Unitarians and secular humanists (and Quakers, etc.) next.

2 comments:

Saints and Spinners said...

Oh hey. I wonder if you would like When the Beginning Began, by Julius Lester.

Lone Star Ma said...

I really do. I couldn't get the big kids (when they were younger) as in to Lester as I am, but thanks for reminding me for this go-round.