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Category: Children’s Work

Who Are You | Collective Worship

I keep running from one thing to another and have been neglecting my blog.  I’ve got loads of creative stuff I’ve done but none of it has appeared here.  This morning (far too early this morning) I was inspired by @frsimon “Oh yes we do!” posted on his blog.  I have been looking for inspiration for what I am going to do for collective worship this year and “who are you” seems like a big enough question for us to sink our teeth into.  @RevLeahVS and I were chatting and she told me about Fischy Music’s Big Big Questions and the kids always complain if I don’t bring the guitar with me.

(I’ve just bought a massive crate and some castors so I should be able to get the electric guitar and amp and a giant paschal candle and laptop and all of the other assorted gubbins I need to play with 200 primary school kids for 20 minutes rather than the acoustic)

Here is the prezi I used.

Here is the intro video I mashed together for it.

Here is Simon’s script.  And if you prefer it… his prezi with icons of each of the Saints.

Shrove Tuesday | Pancakes, Fire and Burial

I’ve been asked a couple of times about what we’ve done on Shrove Tuesday.  We have a pancake party for people of all ages at which we do some serious shriving!  We decided to make a big deal out of Lent because it makes Easter much more special.

Burying the Alleluia

Box

In the past we attended a big nonconformist church and each week we sang “He is Risen”.  This happened every week throughout the year.  It would drive Ruth to distraction because there was no sense of rhythm or season.  I’d regularly hear “but it is lent” or “it is Christmas” on the way home from church.  The word “alleluia” can become punctuation rather than an exclamation and removing it from our vocabulary during lent makes it much more meaningful when we get to Easter Morning.

Someone once told me of an ancient tradition of “burying the alleluia” like a body out in the graveyard.  “Isn’t that a quaint ancient thing they used to do?”  A quirk of history.  Well it got my imagination going.  So I bought this box from The Range.  A quick trip to Google images and whilst waiting for pancakes we did some colouring.  And singing!  We sang all of the alleluia songs we could think of.  We got it all out of our system.  We danced and sang and ate pancakes, and coloured, and laughed and joked and prayed and had more pancakes and then headed out into the grounds.

All of our “alleluias” were placed into the £2 box from the range.  Then we dug a hole and buried them.  “We’re not going to be saying alleluia until Easter”.

Ash

“Where do you get ash from for Ash Wednesday?”

The fridge.

Palm Crosses

And everyone else’s fridge.  “Last year I gave everyone a palm cross on Palm Sunday.  You probably put it on the fridge or the dashboard of the car.  Please can you bring it to church next Sunday ready for Ash Wednesday?”

When I was asked where I got ash from I made this video to illustrate how easy it is to turn things into ash.  A friend said “and next year you should do that with the congregation and pancakes”.

Lo and behold.  We burn things in a wok.

Fire

Prayer Baubles | All Age Worship Idea

I’m in the midst of running numerous Messy Christingle afternoons for our local school.  I was thinking of ideas to engage slightly older children (Years 5 and 6) so went to my happy place – The Range (UK shop).  I came across these empty baubles (£1.99 for 6) which gave rise to this…

IMG_6184

I cut a few sheets of red and green paper into strips.  I asked the children what they were most looking forward to for Christmas.  All sorts of different answers came but the first was “spending time with my family” and the second was “giving presents”.  OK, I admit that these were total gifts as answers but we also talked about sprouts along the way as well.

On one side of the paper we wrote a prayer for our family or friends.  I showed them mine – “Lord I pray for my mum” and explained that she wasn’t very well and that was why I wanted to pray for her.

On the other side we were “inspired by your answer that you look forward to giving” and wrote a prayer for people who are in need at Christmas.

Then we rolled them up and put them inside the bauble.

Then we added two pinches of glitter (that bag of shiny cuttings that cost a measly £1 from The Range).

Add a piece of thread and voilà!

Advent 10 - Holy

Prayer baubles that we can shake during the worship as a prayer.  Then you can take it home and hang it on your tree!