The Complete Guide to Godly Play

Revised and Expanded: Volume 6

Jerome W. Berryman, Cheryl V. Minor, Rosemary Beales

• Publisher: Church Publishing
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781640653436
• eBook ISBN: 9781640653443
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Support, challenge, nourish, and guide children on their spiritual quest.

Godly Play® is an imaginative approach to working with children, based on Montessori principles. It is more akin to spiritual direction and guidance than what we generally consider as religious education.

Revised and expanded, The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 6 offers new concepts and terminology, completely new illustrations, and a new structure that stems from more than fifteen years of using Godly Play with children across the world. More than 30 percent of the text is new or revised, including two new lessons, a revised introduction, and a full appendix.

Extension Lesson 1

Second Creation: “The Falling Apart”

“The Falling Apart and Coming Back Together in a New Way” (Genesis 2:4–3:24)

How to Use This Lesson

•Extension Lesson—to be used after the children are fluent in the Core Lesson called “Creation” (The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2, Lesson 5)

•Sacred Story—the stories of how God and people meet

•It is part of a comprehensive approach to Christian formation that consists of eight volumes. Together the lessons form a spiral curriculum that enables children to move into adolescence with an inner working knowledge of the classical Christian language system to sustain them all their lives.

The Material

•Location: Old Testament Sacred Story Shelves, middle shelf, under “Creation” (The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2, Lesson 5)

•Pieces: two trees (one with apples, one with little stars), Adam-Eve figures, serpent

•Control (a picture of the objects laid out in the appropriate order)

•Optional Extension material: A hollow apple filled with the “differences” on small laminated piece of paper

•Underlay: green felt

Background

The stories told in The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 6 extend the core narratives in The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2, which tell how the People of God encountered the elusive presence of God. In Volume 2 we began at the beginning with the first creation story (Genesis 1:1–2:3). Here we also begin at the beginning with a second creation story (Genesis 2:3–3:24). It tells the story of Adam-Eve and how they “fell apart” from God, from each other, from God’s creation, and from the image of God in their deep selves. We learn how these relationships were restored. This telling highlights God’s love for the creation and its creatures as well as the redemptive power of this love and its creative force. God never gives up on the People of God.

Notes on the Material

The material is placed in a deep wooden tray (12″ × 8″ × 3″). Each of the Extension Lessons in The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 6 has a “story icon”—an image, mounted on a wooden plaque (5″ × 2½″) attached to the tray, that identifies the lesson for the children and Godly Play mentors. The story icon for “The Falling Apart” is an image of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It can be attached to the end or the side of the tray depending on the size of the shelves, the room, or other considerations. The underlay is a piece of green felt approximately 18″ square with slightly rounded corners. It is folded to fit in the tray. In addition, you will need two wooden trees (one with apples, and one with little stars on it), figures for Adam-Eve, and a wooden serpent. A control for the lesson (a picture of the complete layout of the story) is placed in the tray for the children to use to check their work when they retell the story to themselves. A hollow apple filled with the differences written on small, laminated pieces of paper, can be used as an extension to this lesson. We recommend placing it on a small tray or basket on the shelf below this lesson.

Special Notes

The Core Lessons about the People of God are placed on the top of the Sacred Story Shelves. The Extension Lessons about the key people in the Core Lessons are placed on the lower shelves ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Extension Lesson 1: Second Creation: “The Falling Apart”
• Extension Lesson 2: The Story of Abraham
• Extension Lesson 3: The Story of Sarah
• Extension Lesson 4: The Story of Jacob
• Extension Lesson 5: The Story of Joseph
• Extension Lesson 6: The Story of Moses
• Extension Lesson 7: The Story of Ruth
• Extension Lesson 8: The Story of Samuel
• Extension Lesson 9: The Story of David
• Extension Lesson 10: The Story of the Prophet Elijah
• Extension Lesson 11: The Story of the Prophet Isaiah
• Extension Lesson 12: The Story of the Prophet Jeremiah
• Extension Lesson 13: The Story of the Prophet Ezekiel
• Extension Lesson 14: The Story of the Prophet Daniel
• Extension Lesson 15: The Story of Job
• Extension Lesson 16: The Story of Esther
• Extension Lesson 17: The Book of Psalms
• Appendix A: The Foundational Literature for Godly Play
• Appendix B: The Spiral Curriculum for Godly Play