On behalf of the Christian Education board, please accept this year’s annual recap for the Education Program. It was another good year for participation by the youth and their families, and much of that was due to the programming developed by the CE Board.
The first half of the calendar year — or the second half of our school year — pretty much picked up where we left off in the previous fall, with the story of Moses and the Exodus. We tailored our schedule in such a way that the rhythms of the year took into account participation — winter attendance slacks off a bit due to winter sports! We used the Progressive Christianity curriculum some weeks, and we continued to develop themes that we used in the spring.
Spring found us returning to developing a puppet show to coincide with Children’s Sunday. The development of this was quite interesting, in that we chose to work with one continuous theme all year long, and when Barbara Paulson from No Strings Marionette Co. joined us, we were able to jump right in and develop the show. She came a couple of times before the spring to teach us how to make some of the special puppets (Flies!) with the kids. We were so happy to work with Barbara again, and the use of puppets to teach the stories of the Exodus was so successful.
This fall, our home cooked curriculum was based on the stewardship of the earth. We took mental pictures of the nature we could see from the classroom window, and we talked about what we couldn’t see, including the “wood wide web”, or how the trees were able to communicate with each other using the underground mushroom network. Truly powerful information and an appreciation of the extent of how complex the earth is. We composted leaves and we started a worm farm, and we hope to use the compost in the spring to create new life.
Our advent art centered around advent wreathes, and our Christmas celebration was an adaptation of a play Peter wrote 20 years ago!
I would also like to thank our board — Harriet Grenier, Kristin Wolf DeJong and Ben DeJong, and Dave MacGowan, who provided me with excellent support throughout the year. Special thanks to Dave, who FINALLY retired from the CE board — he’s served a couple of terms. And thanks to Peter for his insight and ideas for our programming — his guidance was invaluable — and to the Council for fully supporting our goals and programs.
Finally, thank you to the parents, grandparents and caregivers for the children who attend our Sunday School. I enjoy seeing them week in and week out, and thoroughly enjoy planning programs that will interest your children and keep them involved.
Respectfully submitted,
Tom Stevens