This past Sunday we started our new theme for the month, Joy and Humor. Oh, what a glorious theme to work with as we head into summer after a very harsh winter! And, what better way to show joy and humor than in photos! I'm pretty sure most people won't be able to suppress a smile after viewing these shots! (You can click on any photo to make them bigger.)
For Sunday School we took the theme quite literally with making it a fun day for the Kindergarten through 2nd graders. We went out to play in the playground which was especially nice after experiencing a very wet, cold and miserable school week. We had hula hoops, bubbles, bean bag tosses, giant frisbees, sandbox play, and sidewalk chalk. I would say it was a joyous time had by all!
The beginning of the month we started a new theme, Transformation.Two of our classes for children follows the monthly themes and for this week I would like to highlight one of those classes. For the Kindergarten through 3rd grade Theme Explorations class we thought we would start with how a seed transforms into a seedling. Then, at the end of the month, we would observe how our garden transformed.
This part was actually quite fun to see. The children of this class had planted seeds of several plant varieties in March. The children had taken some plants home to grow, but several trays of plants had been set aside for the garden at WES. They hadn't seen the plant trays since planting the seeds. For this Sunday they saw their "seeds" again. This time as fully sprouted plants. One boy exclaimed upon seeing the trays, "I know what these are! These are the seeds we planted!" Another boy, upon closely examining a tray of marigolds, "Hey, I planted this tray! I know it has to be my tray because I accidentally planted two tomato seeds and now I see there are two tomato plants with all these marigolds!" It was so wonderful to see their excitement and ownership of these plants.
This past Sunday was our annual Spring Festival. Weather leading up to it was definitely un-springlike with a few of our more northern members seeing snowflakes on Saturday, April 25th. However, the weather on Sunday was sunny and definitely spring like.
We had a near full house for platform which included friends of our two families having the baby naming ceremony. The festival play was centered around the theme of the month, Imperfection. The story was acted out by children and narrated by Senior Leader, Amanda Poppei and Officiant Tony Nam. This was a story of a flower named Rowan who wanted to grow - despite the cold, long winter, despite not knowing what kind of flower it would turn out to be, despite weeds and wind. This was a story of the imperfect path of a seed growing into its own flowerhood. It had some curly leaves and twisted petals by the end, yet it was still beautiful and glorious.
After the play and after a couple stories from members who had imperfect dreams come true, we got to the touching double baby naming ceremony of Jack and Walter. Not many dry eyes in the room as we all promised to watch over them and care for them as a community.
See this all unfold in the slideshow seen above.
Following platform, there was the salad and dessert potluck which was abundant and scrumptious. The weather cooperated so nicely that it was pleasant enough to eat outside. And the children were happily entertained with a beanbag toss and sidewalk chalk.
Special thanks goes out to Molly Beiting for making the gorgeous (definitely not imperfect!) headpieces for the play, to Susan Runner, Becky Klabunde Tomer, and Tony Nam for decorating the stage, to Becky and Jonathan Klabunde Tomer for fixing the flower arch and making the flower display, to Trang Duong and Robyn Kravitz for sharing great photos for this album and video, and to the Sunday School actors, the WES chorus, and to staff for stepping up to create a wonderful and beautiful Spring Festival.
