Miriam's Cup (a Passover Story)

Happy Passover Rosie

Palm Sunday Family Service

In place of our usual palm fronds, you are invited to bring leaves or a small branch from outside, or to use these beautiful (free!) printable palm fronds or palm crosses from Catholic Icing!

After viewing the service, you can join us here for virtual coffee hour from 9:30-10:00am on Palm Sunday, 4/5.  If you missed it or want to join us at another upcoming children's ministry gathering, you can see the schedule and type your name in to claim a spot here!

Other Holy Week Children's activities (not live, these can be done at any time!): Maundy Thursday Agape Meal (available Thursday morning) and Good Friday resurrection scene activity (coming soon!)

To send in prayers for a future family service upload them here or email me!

And last but not least, here's the directory update form mentioned in the announcements. 

Pre K Religion Lesson for 3/24/2020

Hello Pre K families,

This week in Pre K religion we are thinking about love! 

1. Start by listening to this story about love, Love Is by Diane Adams, illustrated by Claire Keane. 

2. Learn the song "I've got peace like a river." First we'll learn the words:

3. Now sing along with this recording!

4. Think about the ocean of love all around you.  Write "Love is..." on the top of a piece of paper and draw a picture of love.  It could be a picture of a time when you saw someone show love or it could be a time when you showed love to a person or animal, or to our earth.

Please take a picture of the drawing and email it to me at tashlock@st-andrews.org by next Monday, 3/30/2020.

Have a great week!
Chaplain Taylor

Lower School Chapel for Tuesday, 3/24/2020

Go in peace!
Chaplain Taylor

Second Grade Religion Week of 3/23

Hello, second grade families!

Here are this week's lesson materials.  I hope that by switching to this format instead of google drive it will be easier for you to access them! This week we are celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year, celebrated during the spring equinox. 

1. Start by watching this video about Nowruz.

2. Play this matching game to learn about the different items on the Nowruz table, called the haft sin. To play, you are looking for matching pairs (match the name of each item with its picture by dragging one card to the other.)
  

3. Go for a walk outside to look for signs of spring! Draw a picture of one sign of spring that you noticed and write two sentences describing it. Perhaps that can go into your gratitude journal from last week! If you haven't been thinking each day of something you are thankful for, today is a great day to catch up or to start again. 

4. Take a picture of your drawing of a sign of spring that you noticed with your two sentences and email it to me at tashlock@st-andrews.org

I miss you all and hope you have a great week! Happy Nowruz to all who are celebrating!
Chaplain Taylor

If you need bread for Sunday's Eucharist...

Hi everyone!

If you saw Father Channing's email this week you will know that we are having an at home Eucharist this Sunday! If you don't happen to have a loaf of bread lying around, ready to be broken up and shared here is an easy, no-knead recipe you can make as a family. Making bread isn't nearly as scary as most people make it sound, and this recipe is especially easy and produces a very rewarding result.  I think this is the perfect Saturday afternoon (small, manageable) project and the perfect first-time bread baker's recipe!  It is a half recipe of Alexandra Stafford's mother's "Peasant Bread" from her book Bread Toast Crumbs.

To make it with me, you will need:

• a mixing bowl to make the dough
• an oven safe bowl that holds about 4 cups to bake the bread in (see note, below)* 
• 1 tablespoon butter to grease the baking bowl
• 2 cups flour (or for a gluten free variation, make a half batch of this recipe from the same author!)
• 1 cup of lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast (This is less than an envelope of yeast so you do need to measure it. If you only have active dry yeast, use the same amount but mix the yeast and sugar into the water instead of the dry ingredients, then leave it for 5-10 minutes until it gets frothy before adding to the dry ingredients. If you don't have yeast at home but are interested in making bread for Eucharist, I use this even quicker and equally easy recipe for traditional Irish Soda Bread a lot and it would be a great choice! I never have buttermilk on hand so I use regular milk curdled with about a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice.)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 hours (the vast majority of this is hands-off time so you can be doing other things!)

To make the bread:

1. Whisk together the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. 
2. Stir in the water until you have a soft, wet dough. 
3. Preheat the oven to 350 F for one minute then turn the oven off (it should be around a hundred degrees). Cover the bowl of dough with a cloth and place it in the warm, turned off oven to rest for an hour.
4. While the dough rests, use the butter to grease your baking bowl as thoroughly as possible. 
5. Take the dough out and preheat the oven to 425 F. 
6. Use two forks to punch down the dough and scrape it away from the sides of the bowl onto itself. Then use the forks to quickly and decisively transfer the dough to the (well-greased!) baking bowl. 
7. Leave the dough uncovered to prove for about 20-30 minutes or until it reaches the top of the bowl or slightly above. The original recipe recommends setting it on top of the oven if your kitchen is cold.  
8. Bake the bread for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 375 and bake for 15 more minutes or until golden.  When you take it out again the loaf should fall easily out onto the cooling rack. 
9. Cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting.  To prepare the bread for Eucharist, flip it over and score a deep X in the bottom.  

Happy baking!

Taylor

*a note about bowls: you can test the bowl size by filling a bowl with water using a regular measuring cup!) A oven safe bowl of similar size will work, or two bowls (perhaps from your dishes if they are oven safe!) that hold about two cups each would work too! The recipe was designed for Pyrex "Cinderella Bowls"  so if you have any of the old Pyrex bowls with the wide spout on one side and the narrow spout on the other, use the one marked #441 on the bottom! If you only have a partial set and bowl  441 is missing, double this recipe and use bowl #443.  If you don't have any oven safe bowls near that size, multiply the recipe by 1.5 and use a loaf pan (the bread won't rise quite as high but will still be delicious!).

Staying active and calm while stuck indoors

I don't know about you, but it is very hard for me to sit still and stay inside for days on end.  Here are a few ways I have found or had shared with me (so far!) to stay active:

1. GoNoodle is something we use sometimes during rainy day recess at school! It's designed to "create and harness good energy!" They have everything from mindfulness and breathing activities to short guided dance and exercise videos.  
2. Chore jar: Erica shared a great way to get up and moving! Just like the jar of Bible verses, you can make a jar of chores that need to be done and have everyone draw one to do.  
3. Dance party! You could definitely listen to one of the concerts from the first just for fun post and use it as an opportunity for a family dance party! 
4. Do Yoga With Me has a yoga class for ages 3-8 that parents can join in, too! You can stream it for free or buy and download the class for later. 

As always, more ideas are coming soon, and please share anything you would like to add either in the comments or by email. 

Some favorite resources for Faith Formation at home!

If you want to keep the faith formation going, here are a few of my favorite resources for faith-based activities to do at home!

1. If you need a children's Bible, I recommend Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Children of God Storybook Bible.  This is the Bible we use at the 9:00 service and for school chapel.  It includes a selection of "greatest hits" of the Bible in a very kid-friendly form.  Best of all, Archbishop Tutu selected a different illustrator for each story so it's absolutely beautiful and represents all of God's children around the world.  My one criticism is that it doesn't show ability/disability very much.  It's available to order online, but you can also get it as a Kindle book if you want it right now! I particularly like the gift edition that has a recording of him reading the stories, or you can get the recording on audible. (If you order from Amazon don't forget to go to Amazon Smile and select Saint Andrew's as the charity to donate a portion of the proceeds to!)
2. Praying in Color is a fun way for kids to pray.  You can visit their website here, or go directly to the downloadable coloring sheets here. 
3. Faith at Home from Forma (usually linked in the children's ministry newsletter) continues to have great conversation starters based on each week's lectionary passages! 
4. Last for today is one of my absolute favorite blogs for craft and activity ideas.  Catholic Icing has an amazing variety of faith formation activities that have to do with the liturgy, certain Bible stories, and celebrations in the church calendar.  It is written for Catholic families but is equally useful for Episcopalians! If you look closely, you might see that several of my Sunday School ideas over the last few years have come from this blog's author, Lacey.  Here's a link to her post for those who have suddenly been thrown into homeschooling by COVID-19. 
5. Make a Bible verse jar! Write favorite Bible verses on slips of paper and put them in a jar.  Each day, take one out to read as a family.  Here is a list of verses you might like to include. Thanks, Erica, for sharing this idea from school! 

As always if you have information on additional resources that you would like to share, comment below or send me an email of ideas for a future post! I'll be back with even more resources soon, starting with a post about creating a home prayer space. 

Some fun things to do while sheltering in place:

Are you looking for some things to do with your kids now that everyone is home for a while? Here are a few of my top recommendations:

1. Go on a virtual vacation to one of 31 National Parks with Google Earth!  
2. Color some amazing art with Color our Collections: over a hundred museums around the world have turned art from their collections into coloring pages that are available for free! 
3. Do a science experiment from LiveScience! They have a lot of science projects that you can do with what you have at home, organized by topic and by age.  
4. Read together! If you are running out of books (because libraries are closed and delivery is slow... etc.) click here for a collection of videos from #OperationStorytime, where famous people read children's books on social media. 
5. Have you wanted to expose your kids to amazing classical music but worried about the length of the program, late night timeframe, etc? Now you can attend a virtual performance from the Metropolitan Opera, London Symphony Orchestra, a variety of more contemporary performers (click here for a list of livestreamed concerts since this has a variety of artists, you should definitely use your discretion about what will be age-appropriate), or NPR's list of streamed concerts of various genres! 
6. Get creative cooking together! Even if you can't get to the store, lots of food blogs have "pantry" categories (including one of my favorites, Smitten Kitchen).  Aside from being a great life skill to have, cooking is great for developing math skills and kids are more likely to try an unfamiliar food (which could happen more often than normal based on what you have available and how often you want to leave the house!) that they have helped to prepare.  

I'll be adding suggestions a few at a time over the next couple of weeks using the justforfun tag, so if you know of great resources or want to share your experience, please comment below or send me an email! 

Talking to kids about COVID-19

Good afternoon everyone,

For the first of our COVID-19 resource posts, here are some resources for talking to your kids about COVID-19:

1. Here is a video from brainpop that explains what the coronavirus is in a kid-friendly way. 
2. Here is an excellent article from Virginia Theological Seminary's "building faith" about how to talk with your kids in a non-anxious, developmentally appropriate, and theologically appropriate way. 
3. Here is a comic that explains the new coronavirus for kids from KQED, and an article about how kids, parents, teachers, librarians, etc. are using this comic around the world.  
4. Here is an article from the New York Times about talking with teens and tweens about coronavirus and managing any feelings of anxiety. 

If you have or know of other great resources about talking to your kids about the coronavirus or want to share your experience, please email me or share in the comments for this post!  

Welcome!

Hi everyone,

Welcome! I started this blog as a place to share resources with families in our Saint Andrew's community.

If you are here looking for resources during the coronavirus shelter in place, they are organized by category.

Church families can find resources for:

Faith formation at home: formationathome
Talking to your kids about coronavirus: talkingtokidscovid
Just for fun (staying entertained): justforfun
Staying active while activities are cancelled: stayingactive
Sunday morning (worship and at home Sunday School): sunday

School families can find resources for distance learning lessons using these tags:

Chapel: saeschapel
Pre K: saespk
Kindergarten: saesk
1st Grade: saes1
2nd Grade: saes2
3rd Grade: saes3