3/02/2008

Firstday School lesson on Walk with Earth

SF Friends Meeting Firstday School Lesson on Walk With Earth, 3/2/08, followed by real walk in the neighborhood!

Today was our last chance to have a lesson on Rolene Walker's Walk With Earth before she departs in a week. She leaves from San Diego, Calif., to go to Santiago, Chile, taking about two years.

Meanwhile, Ruah Swennerfelt and Louis Cox, Vermont Friends who are doing their own walk for Peace With Earth from Vancouver, B.C., to San Diego, Calif. And they happened to be in the Bay Area this weekend! So they came over to join us after meeting, when a large group of us walked from the Meetinghouse about two miles down to the foot of Market Street at San Francisco Bay.

Here is the lesson plan, followed by photos of the walk this afternoon.

Introductions: Say your Name, and A Time When You Walked Really Far

Objectives:
· Learn about Rolene Walker’s Walk With Earth
· Imagine what it’s going to be like for her
· Learn a short hymn that includes the earth
· Prepare a banner for the walk down Market Street this afternoon

Strategies:
  1. Lecture for five minutes about the Walk with Earth:
    where Rolene’s going, how long it will take, why she’s doing it: to raise awareness about the earth especially its beauty and not just the problems we know about
  2. Learn about where she’s going and imagine what it’s going to be like:
    how long will it take? how many seasons will she walk through? how many steps will she take?
  3. Learn “For the Beauty of the Earth” – 1-3 verses plus the refrain
  4. Write out these words on a butcher paper banner, one sheet per word:
    Walk, With, Earth, .org
    - Use open letters and have the children decorate them
    - If we need to fill more time, ask each child to sign his or her name
Affirmations:
1. Look at each other's banners.
2. Line up behind the banner(s) as we go into the meeting room, and sing the song
(I had hoped for some "group discernment" on what the group wanted to do when we went back in, but it was too late to bring that much focus back to the group. Plus we had a dozen participants today, from six to 11 or 12 years old or so, and that was too big an age range to add such a discussion on at the end.)

Here are some photos:

Rolene Walker:


Rolene's cake (the number of steps refers to the calculation I did in Firstday School a month ago):


Pete gets a boost from the kids: This was really amazing. Pete hadn't plugged his scooter in properly during meeting, so the batteries didn't have enough energy to take him two miles. Fortunately, human power worked fine, and the kids had a blast pushing him for blocks and blocks and blocks. What a great example of community for them!


Young Adult Friends carry the banners the kids made (thank you so much, YAFs!):

2 comments:

cubbie said...

as i said to pete as we were walking, "be earth friendly! reinstate child labor!" ;-)

Unknown said...

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