March - Palm Sunday and Easter!!

We had a lot of exciting things happen this month!  Palm Sunday, the musical, the Easter Egg Hunt, our Prayer Stations, Easter, the cherub choir...whew!!  It was a full and fun month :)  Here are some highlights below!


SUNDAY SCHOOL
This month the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th graders learned the Easter story - specifically the death and resurrection (we did not concentrate this year on Holy Week).  The preschoolers did this as well.  The third graders finished their journey through the Old Testament and made it into the Gospels just in time for Easter! :) We're excited for you third graders!  Your journey is coming to an end and I know you've had a fun time with Ms. Parker!  

One highlight is that some of our children participated in Prayer Stations on Palm Sunday.  The children were divided up into groups of 3 and went around to each station (with an adult) and experienced different ways to pray - using all 5 senses!  I don't know about the kids but I had a great time :)  Here are a few pics of the experience...

Ms. Sally had the 4th/5th graders totally engrossed in the story of  Easter.  Their questions and observations were awesome!

Did you know that some creative people have made Bible Lego Stories?!  Look them up on youtube :)  The kids love them, and this month we watched the Easter story.

The third graders got to learn about Queen Esther while doing a puppet show!

PRAYER STATIONS

The group in the foreground is creating a lego cross.  Every time they picked up a lego, they were to read what that color stood for and then pray for what was listed (see below).




Our finished product!  You can see it in the hallway!

Another station was the "prayer web".  The kids picked a color of yarn and weaved it in and out, looping it around the outside frame while praying silently.  Thank you Dick for making this awesome prayer web for us!!


finished product!  It's hanging in the hallway - check it out!


This was our "Stacking cups" station.  Each of those cups fit inside another (like nesting dolls).  There were two sets - the first set started with the church (smallest) and grew larger until the biggest one was the world.  As they stacked they prayed!  The other set started with them (smallest) and grew to each member of their family :)  Thank you Carol for setting up this station!!



This is one of my favorite stations.  The children started with a plain white piece of paper, wrote something like "Thank you God for Jesus" down the middle.  Then, as the adult read the instructions, the children ended up with a cross at the end :)  very cool!




This seemed to be the favorite...because they got to use their sense of taste :)  While learning of the history of the pretzel, they snacked while making their own out of pipe cleaners!  Do you know about the legend of the lenten pretzel?


Nice pretzels :)  Do you know which way is right side up?  Ask your kids!  They can show you!


Our last prayer station was a listening station.  The teacher played 3 very different types of sounds/music on the ipad and while the children listened, they drew whatever came to mind...and while they drew they prayed.

The stations were on Palm Sunday when the children also processed in the first service waving palm branches, and acted out Jesus riding on the donkey in the second service!  And, of course, Palm Sunday is when our cherubs sang for the first time!!  They did awesome!!  I am very proud of them :)  Next time, we will put a microphone on them, so I apologize if you couldn't hear them...but they were adorable :)  Thank you Ms. Anne, Ms. Alysha and Ms. Barb for all you did to help make it successful!  We may see them back for Mother's Day but that's still up in the air :)

The Easter Egg hunt was a lot of fun!  I saw a lot of you there and many helped!  Thank you very much!!  We had close to 70 kids there plus their families.  I prayed all week that God didn't send us too many kids...but I still wanted a lot of kids!  (it was a pretty specific prayer :)  God came through!  We had just enough eggs/candy/prizes for all the children.  Next year we'll have to prepare more eggs! :)  First we met in the Fellowship Hall and heard the story of Easter and about Jesus' love for us...then we headed outside to hunt!

I hope everyone had a blessed Easter.  I loved seeing all the families worshiping together.  

Next month the children will be practicing and recording their Milestones and hopefully we'll see their videos during worship in May!  God bless!