St. Mark's Children's Ministry Workshops by the Sea     In the early months of 2009, our Christian Education committee led by researched several Sunday School curriculums to find one that had improved attendance and encouraged growth in Sunday Schools across the nation. The committee discovered the Workshop Rotation model created in the Chicago area by several Presbyterian churches to renew their Sunday Schools with creative and interesting lessons on the Bible. Kids rotate by class into a different workshop each week for a four, five or six week period. They will learn approximately 10-12 Bible stories over the year, deeply exploring the story through art, cooking, theater, games, film and computer. Our workshop teachers (See the Schedule of Teachers here. ) will stay with their particular expertise—cooking, theater, computers, art. They do not rotate with the kids, but instead, teach a lesson several times making adjustments for the age level of the class of students. Honour Harry paints a mural for one of the rotation workshop rooms. GODLY PLAY     Godly Play is an approach to religious education that offers children the opportunity to learn the stories of our faith by not only hearing but by seeing and being able to touch and sometimes even to smell the stories as they are told.    Taking a cue from the Montessori tradition, the teaching method is very “hands-on” for the children, and it engages them in the stories in profound ways, as they make the stories their own.

Goal: To implement multidimensional learning in a rotation model in Sunday School classes for grades 1 through 5 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. To encourage the children to experience biblical truths and faith stories so they may know and experience God and come to their own faith. Coastal Creation Station: exciting creative projects -painting, sculpture, stained glass, tie-dye, pastel, printmaking and mosaics. The Lighthouse Café: Our café will provide opportunities for cooking and eating that will be tied into our Bible story  Godly Productions by the Sea: exciting theater, puppetry, storytelling and Reader’s Theater. Seaside Cinema: enjoy great movies and discuss short films. Galilee Gigabytes: a fun computer studio for exploring the Bible. Computer games about the Bible and writing a newspaper for our Sunday School.   The child enters the room, seeing the altar shelf with the story teller seated before it. This shelf holds the Liturgical materials. To its right is the altar with three key images of the Christ: the Holy Family (Nativity set) in the center, flanked by the Light (Christ candle), and the Bible. Shelving on the opposite side of the room hold Old Testament and New Testament story materials. There are art materials and a desert box (sand for stories requiring a desert).    Everything has its place, and the teachers take great care to keep the classroom clean, neat and orderly. The child will implicitly receive the message that the room is a sacred place where s/he is cared for as well.     The format of class time follows our pattern of worship in that we gather to hear the story, we respond to the story, we pray, we share a feast, and we say “good-bye.”    The teacher gathers the children in to a circle to present a story, using a set of materials developed specifically for telling that particular story. The stories presented come from the Old and New Testaments, as well as from the Liturgical tradition of our church. The stories tell of who we are as the people of God. Care is given not to explain or interpret the stories, simply to tell them as they have been handed down through the ages.    The teacher, together with the children, wonders about the story, wonders where the children see themselves in it, wonders what could be the most important part, and even wonders how this story fits in with others. Children respond to the story in artwork, choosing the story materials to retell the story themselves, exploring stories previously told, or through other creative avenues. Children then gather in a circle once again to share the feast and say “good-bye.”