My Godly Play Room

 My first challenge when Godly Play gripped me was where and how!

Whilst not essential, it is highly desirable that the children have a space of their own and be surrounded by the stories. My one conviction was that I would not be running this from my car as I had seen one Storyteller doing - as my car already suffers from being very small with a growing (in size not numbers!) family.  Immediately I knew that this challenge should not defeat my thoughts on Godly Play as whilst our church does not have a spare room we have access too many spaces and surly we could work out some good ways to share them.

So our Godly Play room shares what is called 'The Upper Room - the balcony room of the church hall which is used by the school as their German Language room. To my perfectionist eyes I lament the visual pollution of this room but it is a trade for the space and comfort (It has heating and cooling), proximity to the church (we can just hear the music so we know when to go back) and the storage cupboard which means we can have a portable room as such. So we have a fiddly set up and pack down to restore to a class room (which greatly pains me for the long term of running Godly Play).
But  the first photo shows our Old testament stories (We haven't done these yet)

 Our back row of shelves is a row of desks which holds our parables (we have done most of these now).

 We have another set of portable shelves for our response shelves which holds a whole lot of stuff -playdo, plasticine, papers,feathers, shells, glue sticky tape, paper plates, paints, crayons, fabrics and so on - I keep changing things adding and taking away.

And this fabulous storage room. The 2 shelving units and our focal table all roll in here during the week - each week I spend a bit of time sorting through he last few generations of resources which I have moved all into this cupboard and I am gradually tidying and pulling out to use (and adding to!).
The third side of the cupboard has our work in progress - which has blown out a bit but a tidy today has it looking functional again. It just needs time. If Godly Play can take root in this congregation I think I need some more mobile shelving for the parables but  my fear is that there may not be future hearts prepared to tackle storytelling in this style. But my hope is that there will. It is still new and it needs to be nurtured.
Pentecost tomorrow - so I'm off to bake some cake for the feast.
Blessings and Wonderings.

This is The Holy Family

 

This the Holy Family.....  And that is how this year began.
Last year Godly Play found me, I tried to ignore it but it was under my skin. I spent a whole lot of time reading about it, learning about it, dabbling badly in it when it sort of fit in our current sunday church program and at homes and finally I did some training to really understand this philosophy and style of faith formation.

Let me tell you it's not for the faint hearted, in fact for me it is almost a lifestyle choice. A decision to fully soak myself and most of my family in Gods stories and to look at where we are in the stories. After a lot of prayer and preparation this year we have been running Godly Play sessions at church. I have so valued the support of others online in this community that I thought I should give back with some of our experiences some good, some bad. Godly Play is a slow process, it is slow to learn, slow to deliver, slow to reap rewards and when you start from scratch the room builds oh so slow. I have long prayed for more patience, and lament that God won't just give it to me but demands I practice and hone it. How much would I like to say that after 6 months of Godly Play it came easy to me and my team, that we always achieved a state of "Godly Play" but we are all still learning and each time is so different.

So where am I in the story of the Holy Family, well perhaps I was a sheep but perhaps now I'm leaning towards the shepherd or at least one with 'L' plates

God Bless

Project Life - In Progress

Just keeping it real here but showing proof that Project Life is happening -even if not much blogging happening I hope to be able to share some photos soon. I am preety much done up to Week 5 and 5-8 partially done Which isn't bad as it is week 8 now. Way more time consuming then it looks but it is journalling, photo album and scrap s0....

The hurdles I have experienced have been

- getting photos developed regularly and the right size and orientation. Solution -I succumbed and bought the sweetest little photo printer The Selphy CP800 bargain and so easy to use.

- Too many photos for Week 4 when we went camping so I did an insert page and again I succumbed and bought some 6x 12 page protectors (These only arrived yesterday) so that slowed me down a little too.

- As a result of buying a mixed pack of 60 pages from Project life I have had a group of pages with 4 square pockets which there is nothing in the Project life core kit to fit in them. Again I succumbed and having just used some blending scrapbook paper to start with I have bought some Project Life paper to do mini scrap layouts in these pockets.

- My supplies of alphas and embellishments is low so I am going to have to (you guessed it succymb one more time).

_One other hurdle I have come up is being smack bang in the middle of term and well and truly in routine I am finding it hard to find reasons to take photos. I am playing with a few different journalling techniques but wary of it becoming junky.

Anyway thats how it stands I have also kept completely up to date with my one line journal (soooo much easier) and I am slipping madly behind in my housework sighh. So embarassing have just had a tradesman out and I felt like I just kept moving Piles of junk around. Could so do with some enthusiasm to spice up the idea of tidying some of them up but sooo hard to find that mojo.

Cheers

In My Kitchen Today

I have just put the icing on some Lemon Slice for the families lunches - not for me :(. I make lemon slice a lot -it is a family favourite and has no eggs in it so is very popular. Unfortunately the recipe uses 1/2 a can of sweetened condensed milk and a little bit mmmm what to do. Usually I throw it out or Darling Husband has a shot at it with a spoon and then I throw it out but last night I quickly googled and found some recipes for condensed milk cookies. Divided the recipe by three (figured I had 1/3 of a tin left) threw in some old choc chips and oh my how they expanded (not to self can roll them much smaller) Condensed milk cookies for lunches too. SO quick and so easy - I hope they are yummy too

Its nearly time for my lunch but I will leave you with this slightly blurry picture of something new I bought this morning Do you know what it is? I can't wait to use it

Cheers

New In my Side Bar

Well I have bitten the bullet and changed my sidebar from Finished projects to goals of things to start and finish - I am trying to find some structure to the new year and stay on top of stuff. I found it so good last year to have all the Christmas stuff done in July and so on , so I want to keep the momentum. I am aiming small with ensuring Project Life stays on track and adding in some sewing and scrapping. After all there is more to life then craft and blogging and there are oh so many ways to spend the hours -like cleaning :( and cooking :( .

Any ways keep me honest and see if I get them done

Cheers

On the way home - The final Chapter

So as we pulled out of the caravan park and turned to drive to Goolwa for the 4th day straight it started. Bethany wrote her first song - set to the tune of Go tell it on the Mountain with an Australian twang ala Colin Buchanans Go tell it to Australya.

It went I dont want to go to Goolwa (over and over) it fit well and we thought it was hilarious.
In Goolwa we went for a 1 hour cruise on a steam paddleship the Oscar W it was cute and freezing after the other hot days and we had no jumpers but we had fun exploring the little old ship watching the workings of it and seeing the Murray River from a different aspect. Then it was time to go home, unpack and back to reality before the big return to school


Hope you enjoyed our little trip
While i have been catching you up I have also been working on some sewing projects (gifts) and my Project Life I am also right up to date with my Post card calendar which is good to.


More soon
Cheers

Our Last Week of Summer Holidays Part 3

Now the great thing about camping is the time you really spend together. Once the kids get settled we spend some time playing games together. Game of choice this holiday was Rummikub which I believeis Gin Rummy without cards. The only problem is that I am very competitive and seldom lose On the third day of our trip we drove to you guessed it Goolwa and rode along the Encounter bike path all the way to Port Elliott (where we ate ice cream well except for me:() It was a 20 km round trip so we were all tired after that.

Whilst relaxing Sir TP and I read The Key to Rondo which is an excellent young persons book and we will be looking out for more Emily Rodda. Hubby is working through Wicked (which is quite difficult reading) and I finished reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to the children.

Tragedy did befall us when Miss B took a tumble off her bike and onto her head leaving a nasty graze and a lot of very loud tears and also the bandage she has been sporting for the last week.
But alls well that ends well and we packed up on Thursday to go back to not home, but you guessed it Goolwa on the way home.

We had one more little adventure there, But I am afraid that that is another story

Cheers