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FOR CHILDREN Nursery for newborns to 2 years old Sundays from 8:45 AM until the conclusion of the 11:00 AM service Learning Centers for preschool Sundays from 8:45 AM until the conclusion of the 11:00 AM service Learning Centers are designed to utilize developmentally appropriate materials and equipment carefully arranged into activity areas which will provide an atmosphere encouraging engagement, exploration and creative expression. Our Learning Centers are decorated with children's themes, color and light to bring comfort, joy and inspiration to our children's environment. Each center is filled with age appropriate activities, equipment and resources, and care is provided by trained staff. Godly Play© for young elementary and older elementary Sundays from 9:50 -10:50 AM - September through May Godly Play is an approach of faith formation and spiritual direction for children rooted in the liturgical practice of the Christian faith*. It is both the child's journey of becoming aware of God's presence and the acquisition of religious language. Godly Play is supported by caring adults, stories told from the heart, a beautiful environment and sacred shared time. Godly Play was developed and classroom tested for more than twenty years by priest, author and teacher Jerome Berryman. In Godly Play we tell Bible stories to children to encourage them to enter into the stories and relate them to their personal experience. Godly Play is concerned with spiritual development of each child as an individual and with modeling the appropriate moral behaviors expected of people living within a Christian community. We treat each Godly Play room as "sacred space." A greeter or door person waits at the door to help each child become ready to enter the room quietly. After a Bible story is told to the students, the storyteller and children use "wondering questions" to reflect on the story together. Each child chooses whether to respond t the story in this manner and then each child chooses whether to respond to the story with art materials or play. Every child has a personal folder that serves as a spiritual journal. As a part of this program children learn how Christian people live and work in community. Many parents who have children in the Godly Play program find that their children will begin to retell Bible stories - often in the car on the way home from church. Parents also report that their children "wonder" aloud at various times during the week about the meaning of the Bible stories they heard on Sunday. A testament to this was shared by one of our own All Saints' families; "One Pentecost Sunday we were getting ready for church and I reminded my then 8-year old daughter that it was 'wear Red Sunday'. Her immediate response was 'do you mean it's Pentecost Sunday?' I knew that the only place that she cold have possibly learned about Pentecost Sunday was in Godly Play. I was really impressed by that..." *Liturgical practice here refers to a general order of public worship as well as a calendar of Bible readings (lectionary) based on the liturgical seasons. In western Christianity, the seasons are Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time (Time after Epiphany), Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time (Time after Pentecost).
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