Church Garden Opens This Weekend At NCC

Newtown Congregational Church Sunday School Garden program will open this week with students preschool through eighth grade attending the beginning of the 10 am worship service with their parents in the sanctuary. The Garden is open to all children, whether their families are members of the church, but parents are encouraged to attend the worship service if their children attend the Sunday School program.

Immediately following the Children’s Message, the younger students will go with their shepherds and the seventh and eighth grades alone to a brief chapel service, led by Carl Lindquist, and then to their classrooms.

During the month of September Grades K–6 will spend three class sessions studying Moses. K–1 will learn through experiences in art, cooking, and communion. Grade 2 will have communion, art, and games, while grades 3 and 4 will have games, communion, and cooking. Grades 5 and 6 will have cooking games, and art.

Cindy Dunn and Renate Williamson will read stories of the Exodus from Egypt and then help the students to make unleavened bread used for Passover.

Corny Dunn and either Larry or Linda Whippie will be helping the children make bricks as Moses’s people did, of clay soil, shredded hay, water, and sticks and rocks. The teachers will explain how God, through Moses, freed the Israelites from slavery and how Moses was saved by his mother when the King of Egypt ruled that all Hebrew (Israelite) baby boys should be thrown in the River Nile.

Barbara Bigham and Kelly Walker will be teaching the games based on themes used in the study of Moses. The younger children will sit in a circle and using a cassette or CD player will pass around a toy frog. When the music stops, the child holding the frog will take a card from provided stack and try to answer the question on the card. If the child does not know the answer to the question, he or she may ask a friend for help.

The older children will be divided into two teams for a Bible quiz based on the study of Exodus. They will use a timer and point system.

Vicky Truitt and Doug Body will be teaching the Communion Course based on the Passover celebrated by the Hebrews before the Exodus from Egypt.

The preschoolers will be taught by Dee Dee Herdy, Dawne Kornhaas, and Sarah Cappelli. Seventh and eighth grades will be led by Tammy DeMarche and Jerry Cole. Shepherds, who go with their students into their appropriate classroom each Sunday, are Liz Eaton, Mike Peterson, and Carol Anderson.

Children not already registered, whose parents want them to be a part of the Church Garden, may register them Sunday morning (September 16). Any adult wishing to volunteer in the program or has questions should call Mrs Fiorella at 426-7059 or 733-2015.