Our very talented artist daughter Grace Mitchell created a Bear Hunt observation checklist for families to do on neighbourhood walks during the current COVID-19 restrictions. It is in the stykle of "One Fish, Two Fish". She is sharing it freely and I'm putting it here for ease of access.
Download Bear Hunt_Grace Mitchell PDF
Or click on the image to the right to download as a JPEG.
Rosefield Uniting Church's fifth Interactive Christmas event was held yesterday on a scorching 41 degree day in Adelaide. The extreme heat certainly reduced attendance, particularly of families with pre-schoolers, but it was still a great evening. We have a spectacular group of helpers who come out every year for this event.
For the second year we tried to have the first half-hour for families with young children, catering for our Playgroup and Mainly Music families. Celia did a great job. We had a great band and a humorous drama. But families with older kids turned up for this session, so we'll rejig it a bit it for next time.
Here's how the program went. Copy of setup here - Download PROGRAM_SETUP_2015 PDF.
Here is a copy of the Map handout showing the location of the activities - Download Program Handout Map 2015 PDF and the Room signs - Download Room Posters 2015 PDF
1. Arrival Activity - Angel Christmas
We had a bunch of paper mache angels and provided a range of ways to decorate them with clothing, hair, facial features etc.
Here we also gave each family a paper bag to collect their stuff in, and their copy of the map.
2. Mary Christmas
People come from the arrival activity into the church for a session which opens up the story with media, music and drama. As well as the Mainly Music items for young children we had
Then we had a whole bunch of activities that people could explore at their leisure.
This is from July 2015. The theme was about the Parable of the House on the Rock and about the foundations of home life.
1. Arrival Activity - We didn't have one for a change. I thought of a few but couldn't find one that I liked.
2. Video - We linked the theme with short clips from the movie "Despicable Me" so we started off with a couple of these to introduce the story.
3. Theme Introduction
In May our theme was “Family Matters” and we started to explore the theme of families. (Story of boy Jesus getting lost and going to the Temple.) Today we’re continuing that theme and asking about the foundations of our home life? What makes our family life, our home life, strong and what give it structure? So our theme is “House Rules” and we’re using the metaphor of building a house to think about what kind of family life we’re building.
4. Song - "Put On Love"
5. Prayer of Thanks - interactive prayer. What are we thankful for about our families?
6. Video - " Despicable Me" clip
7. Reflection
8. Video - "House on the Rock" - Holy Moly
9. Reflection
I'm blogging a backlog of [email protected] programs... This is from August 2015.
The theme was based on the parable of the Sower and the Seed.
1. Arrival Activity - Name that Seed
We put out 10 different seeds in bowls and people had to guess which one matched the names of seeds provided. Download Name-That-Seed (PDF)
In the background was a video of slow motion plants growing that I put together from Stengel's time-lapse videos with a track from Toumani Diabate - "Cantelowes" from "The Mande Variations".
2. Welcome and Theme Intro
3. Song - ""Move When Jesus Says Move"
4. Prayer of Thanks - we thanked God for tiny things, asking people to name them
5. Video - Parable of the Sower and the Seed - Holy Moly
6. Theme reflection
7. Video - Parable of the Sower from the movie "Godspell"
Continue reading "[email protected] - "From Little Things"" »
Last night's [email protected] was on the theme of "Welcome!". We have been working through a series on Parables of Jesus, and took a slight detour due to recent events in the news. The promotional image was meant to be somewhat ambiguous in terms of who is being welcomed and who is needing welcome.
We had several newcomers so it was good express welcome!
The program was as follows:
1. Arrival Activity
We played the episode "Cats and Dogs" from the Aardman series "Creature Comforts" - the video is about dogs and cats being critical of each other.
2. Welcome and theme introduction
Here's an overdue post about what we did at Interactive Christmas last December at Rosefield. Our theme was "Shine".
Download Interactive Christmas Poster 2014 (860kb PDF)
1. Starry Christmas
The activity involved decorating a Christmas star. We had little Christmassy peg gift tags with stars on them. The pegs were glued to a wooden chopstick with some ribbon trailing and then decorated with glitter and stuff. I don't have a photo.
2. Bright Christmas
Our plenary session involved a drama with three not-very-wise people and live music with Kylie Brice.
Download Drama - Following a Star (48kb PDF)
(We preceded all of this with a special music half-hour for families with pre-schoolers. This was run by our Mainly Music team and about 50 people turned up.)
Interactive Easter was held again on Palm Sunday in March. Since many families go away over Easter, we 'rehearse' the whole of the Easter story at the start of Holy Week - from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. The program was similar to what we have done previously. We open from 5-7pm. People come when they choose. We channel them through the first two activities and then they can do activities in any order, however we try to get them to leave through a final room experience.
1. Arrival Activity
Craft activity making a donkey (but without the palm leaf with the tacky verse). People also received a guide/map of the activities and a bag in which to collect and take stuff home.
2. Plenary Session
We run this about every 15 minutes. The aim is to start the story that they are about to experience, in this case starting Holy Week with Palm Sunday. The segment usually has music, drama, visuals. On this occasion it was
Download Plenary Gathering – Interactive Easter 2015 (PDF of Script)
Yes, it's on again in a few weeks... All systems go!
Download Interactive_Christmas_Poster_2014 (800kb PDF)
Interactive Easter 2014 at Rosefield Uniting Church started with an invitation to make and decorate palm leaves in the church foyer. This also serves as a kind of 'holding area' while people wait to enter the worship space. On this occasion we also gave each family an Easter basket for collecting things as they moved through the activities. The idea was that they would end up with a take-home Easter story of text and symbols. So at several activities there were laminated story cards and symbols to collect.
We run the plenary session every 10-15 minutes and bring people through in groups from the foyer. The aim here is to make people feel welcome, introduce them to the Easter story, and explain the activities. There was narration, we used a video clip from the "Holy Moly" Holy Week & Easter DVD from Sparkhouse, and the musicians sang "Love Has Come Again" with some images onscreen.
Download Plenary Gathering Script (54 kb PDF)
