November 24, 2009
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Allah’u'abha
Sorry I’m late – I’ve been trying to send out reports the day of the children’s class but this time I was lazy I think :P
Last weekend’s children’s class went off without a hitch; we even got to the Vietnamese Centre a couple minutes after 2 PM and found that … had already come and opened the door, and that … had already arrived with her son. My co-teacher and I taught the first lesson from Book 3 again (on unity), mainly because we realized we hadn’t had time to photocopy the colouring page for the second lesson yet. As well, it gave us the chance to recap our work from the previous week, and to work on memorizing the song ("We Are Drops") and the quote from that lesson. We played the game described in Lesson 1 together, with everyone taking their turn in the middle once. It’ll definitely be more entertaining once we have more children than adults.
An interesting and relevant observation was made: when the mother asked us if we knew of another song we could sing in French, we went ahead and sang a rendition of "O God, Guide Me" (that is, "O Dieu, Guide Moi"), explaining the French terms along the way. She seemed impressed and showed no objections to the term "God", as we thought might have arisen from someone of her background. To end off, we sang a melody set to the quote—"So powerful is the light of unity"—again and encouraged each other to remember and practice it. Again, we encouraged both of them to invite friends and acquaintances to the class.
Cheers and congratulations for another week well done!
Dan
November 14, 2009
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Allah’u'abha friends
This Saturday’s class (Nov. 14th) was less quiet than the previous one as we got our first child in the class and were able to actually teach the class for the first time. yay! … and I arrived at about five minutes to two, and saw …’s contact walking outside with her "very mature" 4-year-old son, trying to see if the door was open (which it wasn’t). We waited a little while for the centre manager to come open the door, which he eventually did, and we passed the time by chatting and singing songs. It was raining, but thankfully we had umbrellas and a little shelter. … and … came by and shared their umbrellas with us too, and we were able to make a few more introductions.
The class was short and simple, which worked out fine. We started with a prayer for children, sang a song ("We Are Drops") talked a little about unity. We read the story of ‘Abdu’l-Baha and the Christian merchant, which both … and his mom seemed to love. It was a great teaching opportunity for her, who asked questions about the exile of Baha’u'llah in ‘Akka, about ‘Abdu’l-Baha, and so on. Since she was present, we tried to explain the story a little more in detail than we might have otherwise. We skipped the game, but spent a long time colouring—all of us.
At the end, we discussed the class a bit and encouraged both the mother and son to invite ppl they know to come and participate in the children’s class. The son was so cute and told us he knows lots of the kids in his kindergarten class, so we told him to tell his friends in class that he goes to a really fun class where he sings songs and listens to stories and talk about unity.
Let’s hope that things keep on going like this, and that we get more and more people into the class in the coming weeks; still, this is a welcome development. Further to our great conversation this morning, we should be able to make even greater strides. Thank God for giving us the opportunity to be part of this!
Cheers
Dan
August 15, 2007
lesson
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learning concepts
Our love should be like the rays of the sun: we should love everyone, even those who mistreat us.
activities
story: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the unkind man, Ruhi Book 3, pp.45-46. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá shows love to a man who reviles and curses him for twenty-four years.
handprint flowers: trace your hand and turn it into a flower! a lily, to be precise.
rose tag: played much like freeze tag, except that when a player is tagged, he/she must sit down; a player must untag them by kneeling, touching the ground and saying (planting) “the rose of love”. helps the related quote (see below) to sink in.
reading/prayer for study
In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love.
reference
O FRIEND! In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold. Treasure the companionship of the righteous and eschew all fellowship with the ungodly.
(Hidden Words of Bahá’u'lláh, Arabic, No.3)
experience
May 13, 2006: ~1.5 hours, 2 children, average age 6. Mother’s day. The class started late, but we managed to hit on most of the main activities. We practiced and sang prayers with our two participants: “Blessed is the Spot” and “Say God Sufficeth”. We read the story of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the unkind man and had a good conversation about love and gratitude, which segued very well into the handprint flowers – the children’s Mother’s Day gift. Gotta go – more soon.
August 15, 2007: ~1 hour, 3 children, average age 8. Outreach class. We began with a new format for this class, to accommodate our group’s high energy level: colouring first to calm the kids down. So far, it seems to work like a charm – it may take a few minutes to convince some of them to colour instead of playing games, but once they’re convinced, they’ll be able to concentrate enough to say prayers together. We also created a new movement-based game for this lesson, called “rose tag”; it’s explained above.
