This week’s lesson is “The Circle of the Church Year”, from The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2. Told by Godly Play Canada Trainer Lindsay Bradford-Ewart. The Complete Guide to Godly Play: Volume 2.

This lesson sets the context for the whole year. Each year, the Christian people move through a circle of memory and expectation to open themselves to the elusive presence of God. In the Godly Play classroom, we pay attention to this circle of movement each week as we move the golden arrow each Sunday on the large Circle of the Church Year wall hanging behind our focal shelf.  This invites the children to move through the Church’s special kind of time, marked not by numbers but by blocks of colour.  

You will notice on the presentation “lock” that there are three hands which point to and mark the three Great Times in the church year, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost whose blocks are marked white for Christmas and Easter, and red (HOT!!!) for Pentecost! 

The wondering questions at the end of the presentation are:
– I wonder which one of the colours you liked best?
– I wonder how the colours make you feel?
– I wonder which colour is most important?
– I wonder if you have ever seen these colours in the church? 

After the wondering questions are finished, your child(ren) could be invited into work time thinking about the presentation. While we do not like to direct children into specific activities some suggestions might be:
1. To create their own Circle of the Church Year – perhaps by drawing a circle on paper/cardboard, or using a paper plate if you have one. You could divide the circle into 8 segments: 1. Advent, 2. Christmas, 3. Green growing Sundays (following Christmas), 4. Lent, 5. Easter, 6. Easter season, 7. Pentecost, 8. Green growing Sundays
2.  To draw something using the colour they liked best
3.  To find objects in the colour they liked best
4. To cut out pictures from flyers or magazines in the colour they liked best and paste them on a large sheet of paper
5. To paint penne pasta in white, green, red, blue, purple and make a necklace (or use beads if you have them)
6. To make a collage with all the colours
7. Or…. ? 

We hope you enjoy this week’s lesson with your child.