The week before Easter, Ferndale School contacted me and asked if I could go in, following Covid testing and social distancing measures and talk or “do” something with the nursery children. I agreed and was actually really excited about the chance of going into school with the children again after such a long time!
I thought hard, and prayed hard – – how do you explain Easter to 2/3 year olds?? After a lot of deliberation I came up with “paper plate” work!!! I sorted out pictures of Easter eggs, Easter chicks, bunnies, donkeys, Jesus on a donkey and a cross. Right! Ready to go. School was going to print off a page of 9 pictures x the number of children as my printer is failing!! They were also going to provide the number of paper plates.
Then – came another phone call!! Would I be able to do a second session with the 4 year olds? Yeah ! – ok!
A further phone call – Foundation 1 wanted me too!! We now had 150 children expecting exiting things to do!!
Cutting out the pictures was actually quite therapeutic. Off I trundle to school – it was a beautiful day, so we sat outside and I started! Explaining about the eggs and chickens / new life was fine! Then we came to the bunnies ! you try explaining to toddlers the concept of rabbits and new life without getting yourself into real problems! We skirted over that one!! The donkey we talked about Jesus’ mother on the donkey at Christmas and about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
We placed the cross in the centre of our plates and wrote our names underneath as Jesus is there for each one of us. Slight problem there – I did 3 plates, so I had to think quickly about names. I suggested Barbara / Pebble (the name of my dog) and Ferndale! They were to choose! I know my place!
- Pebble first
- Ferndale second
- Barbara third.
It was truly wonderful to be able to celebrate Easter with the children and I look forward to being able to do assemblies next term outside!
Rev Barbara