Here is our storytelling area. We sit on the floor in a circle here and the shelves help define a sacred space for our weekly storytelling. The shelves contain the simple, yet beautiful materials used to tell the stories. They are located relatively low to the ground to allow for even our youngest members to easily access them should they decide to work with these materials during our response time each week. |
The storyteller sits here in front of our focal shelf. Here we find our Holy Family materials as well as the materials for the liturgical action lessons. These materials really help connect what we do in Godly Play with the goings on in the church during the regular Worship services. This is an area of the classroom we hope to grow over the next year with the addition of baptism and communion materials as well as additional materials for Advent and Lent.
Here you can see our desert box. So many wonderful and important stories happen in the desert, that we have our own small piece of desert right in our classroom.
To the right of the focal shelves we have a set of golden boxes. Each of these boxes contain a parable. The golden color and shape remind us that parables are precious treasures given to us. The lower shelves contain a selection of books that retell, enhance, or extend the stories told in class. We hope to add additional parables to our collection soon.
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Located to the left of our focal shelves are the shelves holding our sacred stories. These materials help to tell stories of our deep identity - the sacred stories come from scripture and are "united by a theme of God's people searching for the elusive presence and the mystery of God." Through listening to these stories and wondering together, children are able to explore and express their own experiences with the presence and mystery of God, develop a language to discuss them, and understand that they can continue searching for God's presence all their lives. Core stories are found on the top shelf and follow a roughly chronological sequence through the Old Testament. Extension materials which enrich these stories are located below. We hope to add additional New Testament sacred stories to our space in the near future. |