{"id":200,"date":"2012-04-09T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/?p=200"},"modified":"2012-04-09T18:32:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T22:32:41","slug":"the-labyrinth-and-stations-of-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/?p=200","title":{"rendered":"The Labyrinth and Stations of the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Some time ago I published this picture of two boys in our 3rd-5th grade class using two labyrinths we have. I am not a labyrinth person (caution would make me add “yet” to that sentence…) but I have many devotees of labyrinths among my friends and family (namely my 20-year-old daughter, away at college).<\/p>\n

We have the two labyrinths in our classroom. One is the sand labyrinth<\/a>, and one is a quilted lap labyrinth\u00c2\u00a0I bought in the bookstore at Kanuga Conference Center<\/a> several years ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Our church is fortunate to have a canvas labyrinth that fits in our parish hall. I was allowed to help put it out for a few days on Lent 5, as well as to reserve a time for our children to use it. Unfortunately, while I hoped for swarms of children, I got several friendly adults, a teen, and a mother, and one child in “our” age group. Next year, perhaps, we can do more research to find a time when more can participate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Early that day during our Sunday School class, we had the gift of a new (to us) parishioner sharing a Stations of the Cross suitable for children ages 4 through 5th grade. Although our parish does a Stations of the Cross at our 7:00 p.m. Good Friday service, we had never done anything with young children. We were able to use our parish hall that day to have a different space for this experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Diane had 10 stations set up. We had pictures for 7 of the Stations from an old set that had been used in church until they upgraded. We also had a cross (made with 2 x 4s) that we use in our annual Holy Week Walk during the Sunday School hour on Palm Sunday. Beyond that, Diane promised to bring all the necessary supplies. I had no idea what to expect!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

She managed to slowly move through 10 stations in our allotted 50 minutes. Each station had some sort of brief activity (one involved tying two sticks together to make a simple cross; this was the only activity that required help from the adults present).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I thought the activities were perfect for meditation for this age group. At one station, she invited the children to dip a Q-tip into vinegar to taste the vinegar Jesus was given on the cross.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the station depicting Jesus being nailed to the cross, she invited the children to write their names on a piece of ripped cloth (as Jesus’s clothes had been ripped) and “nail” this cloth to the cross with pins. No one made a sound during this activity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the final station, when Jesus is taken from the cross and laid in the tomb, she had each child dip a finger into olive oil and make the sign of a cross on the palm of the person next to them. One first grader told me later that this was the “best” station.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some time ago I published this picture of two boys in our 3rd-5th grade class using two labyrinths we have. I am not a labyrinth person (caution would make me add “yet” to that sentence…) but I have many devotees … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,65,46,69],"tags":[100,108],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-stories-outside-the-classroom","category-lent","category-seasons-of-the-church-year","category-stations-of-the-cross","tag-lent","tag-stations-of-the-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.browniesmoke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}