Tuesday, February 28

Lent and The Good Shepherd

I've been enjoying Joan Halmo's Celebrating the Church Year with Young Children this past year and love her idea of weaving the Good shepherd story through lent.  After reading The Good Shepherd and the Child: A Joyful Journey by Patricia Coulter et al. in December, I've been eager to work with the story more with my boys.  A sense of security is so central to a small child's world and certainly to their spiritual development.  We've been talking a lot about needs lately as we work on NVC (non-violent communication) with the boys and the good shepherd story is such a beautiful invitation to believe that all our needs can and will be met.  A lesson that I'm working on learning myself as well.

So my lenten project with the boys is to work with this story playfully and thoroughly.  Last year it was fun to share thoughts on prayer with children each week in this space, and so, this year I'll try to be here each of the six weeks to share something on the the good shepherd.
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The godly play story of the good shepherd is one of my favorites!  I love moving the figures through the green field, to the quiet waters and through the dark and shadowy places.   I love building the sheep fold and wondering what it might be.  I love searching for the lost lamb and sharing the shepherds joy when he finds it and brings it home.  If anyone out there is thinking of delving into godly play and wondering where to start, this story is a wonderful place to begin.  The script starts simply focusing on how the good shepherd meets the needs of the sheep.   And, once that script is familiar, there are add ons of the lost lamb and the wolf.  The figures can be easily made of paper or finding some toy lambs and a person of some sort isn't very difficult.






5 comments:

Storyteller said...

Beautiful pictures - thank you for sharing them. I would agree that this is a great place to start with Godly Play. The materials are, as you say, relatively easy to assemble - especially since the usual expectation is that the figures will be drawings (or flat) rather than the 3-D ones shown here. (I say this not to be critical but to emphasize, for others, how easy it can be.)

Watkins said...

That is true, I really resist the 2-D figures because when we used 2-D figures the kids didn't play with them nearly as much. Plus, I just prefer working with the 3-D figures.

I do think the distinction between historical events being in 3-D and stories being in 2-D is helpful, but this story particularly I've kept 3-D.

Little Nut Tree said...

How lovely (and how cute your baby is!) I've been reading your blog for a few weeks because of the Godly Play stuff, it's been very helpful.
For Lent, we are going through the life of Jesus with my old children's Bible and a set of little peg dolls. The children chose what colours to paint them and for some reason they picked dark blue for Jesus as well as blue for Mary. (The others aren't assigned to any particular character.)

Laura said...

The Good Shepherd is such a wonderful concept--I especially feel close to it since we were raised on a sheep farm and thusly I'll always feel a special affinity toward sheep. I love all the wonderful 23rd Psalm books out there because Liliana loves them and she also loves singing "The Lord it My Shepherd...always, always, I'll walk with him always" because she can actually say the word "always."

Dreena M. Tischler said...

I have awarded you the Liebster Blog Award. You are under no obligation to do anything. You can read more about it at
http://brightlove-livinglargeinabigfamily.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-first-blog-award.html