Lent and the Good Shepherd: Good Shepherd Magnets

I love working with magnet paper.  You can use it in a printer, but it is also fun to draw on.  I took a sheet with me to York and drew up a set to use for the lost sheep story.  It was inspired by Butterworth and Inkpen's story The Lost Sheep, though I added in dark shadowy places (like the godly play story).  The boys loved listening to the story and Rowan especially loved telling it again and again hiding the lamb somewhere new each time.

I've drawn sets similar to this (but different stories) and copied it off on the magnet paper for kids to color and take home after church in the past, but haven't since leading godly play.  I do love that kids can retell the story to parents and play with it on their own at home through the week.  What do you think, is there room for a work a less open-ended option like this in a godly play setting?

Lent and the Good Shepherd: Reading Along

There are always stacks of books on every surface in our house.  Sometimes I sigh - my house will never be tidy - but overall I'm glad.  Most of the time the stacks are rather random, but with each season change or, if we are studying something in particular, I always position a stack of books that will be easy for little ones to find and explore.

Here are some of our favorites for our time with the Good Shepherd story.

Stories Jesus Told by Nick Inkpen and Mick Butterworth: This book is a must have for any toddler (and I don't say that lightly).  It is a collection of simply told parables that are great to read aloud.  The tale of the lost sheep is perfect for a wee one and is fun to read over and over (and you will be reading it over-and-over if my boys are any indication).

Beautiful Sheep: Having grown up on a sheep farm I have a special afinity for our wooly friends and all things wool.  I want my boys to understand that sheep aren't just sheep.  Heavens no, spunky, hard-hooved, ugly cheviots (sorry I have a grudge) aren't anything like stalky, dense, and oh-so-cute southdowns (I had my own flock of southdowns growing up.)  Jim's aunt sent me this book and it is a treasure.  This collection of portraits of various sheep breeds is just fun to flip through.

Little Baa by Kim Lewis:  I love Kim Lewis' books.  The rolling hills, sheep and simple stories are lovely for little ones and remind me of my childhood.  Little Baa is my all time favorite; the story of a little lamb who gets lost from his mother and the shepherd helps him find her.

Days on the Farm by Kim Lewis: This is a collection of Kim Lewis' stories and a couple are very applicable to the good shepherd story.  In one a little girl looses the bottle-baby lamb she is to look after and searches everywhere.  In another a little boy becomes a shepherd like his daddy.  Kim Lewis oblates the experiences of a small child on a farm simply and beautifully.  (And there are tractors, which makes these books a winner for Rowan!)

Dogger: Okay, so there is nothing about sheep in this book, but it is a treasure of a book about a precious animal lost and found.  The story is beautiful and helps a child enter into what it means to lose something that means so much.

Psalm 23 by Barry Moser:  I've looked at several Psalm 23 books and I think that this one is my favorite (at least for right now).  The shepherd is a small boy and the watercolors are soothing and clear.

Psalm Twenty-Three by Tim Ladwig:  The words of the 23rd Psalm are placed over illustrations of small children in a city, showing God's care in a modern setting.

The Lord is My Shepherd by Tasha Tudor:  I read lots of Tasha Tudor as a girl and while I don't feel the illustrations have the depth that the two listed above have, it is such a pretty little book!  I have this in a tiny book - just right for on our godly play shelves right beside Tasha Tudor's Lord's Prayer and the Prayer Book.

Tig and Tag books by Benedict Blathwayt :  These books are fun and I love the English countryside in Blathewaits work.  I have picked up a couple at charity shops and would recommend picking them up used if you come by them.


Any other shepherd/sheep/lost-and-found books you would recommend?

Lent and the Good Shepherd: Psalm 23

 I've been fascinated by mothers of great men in the past couple years.  I went to a lecture about Tolkien last year and was struck by how instrumental his mother was in shaping who he became.  And, at the book shower my family threw for Isaac last summer, my aunt gave me the book Moms Who Changed the World.  It has been sitting on my bed-stand for sometime, neglected, not for lack of interest... but because there are so many books that catch my interest.  Anyway, I've just begun it and have enjoyed the first half.  The thing that struck me the most in the first few chapters was the amount of memory work these moms (Susanna Wesley, Margaret Ruskin...) did with their children.  And they weren't memorizing a verse here or there out of context, they were memorizing passages.  Memory verses are great, but I am often annoyed at how some of the most popular 'memory verses' are memorized without thought to the greater story they are placed in, leaving them bereft of the meaning they are meant to convey.

I've been amazed at the speed my boys (and small children in general) memorize.  So as we play with the story of the good shepherd this Lent we are memorizing the 23rd Psalm.  I wrote it out and illustrated it and made copies for school and dinner time readings.  It is fun to hear Rowan recite the first lines and comforting to know that he is internalizing that 'The Lord is [his] Shepherd."  And in this time of change and unknowing I'm really needing these words too.

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.