Education
Education Opportunities - Become a Part of the Christian Education at Bishop Janes
Kim Dial
Director of Christian Education
(908) 766-1108 Ext 5
|
There are many opportunities to contribute your skills and talents
in the ministry of Christian education.
Contact Kim Dial, Director of Christian Education (766-1108 x5),
if you are interested in becoming a part of this important ministry
or would just like more information about these exciting opportunities.
Program | Opportunities for Participation
(See Program Description for more information)
|
| Rotation Workshop | Teacher
Shepherd
Curriculum Design
Room Design
Bulletin Board Content |
| Adult Education | Curriculum Design
Teacher
We welcome your input and leadership on this team.
Call Kim Dial at 766-1108, ext 5. |
Program Descriptions
Workshop Rotation - A New Model for Sunday School
The History
The Workshop Rotation Model was first developed in the Chicago
in the early '90s by a number of Presbyterian churches seeking
to solve their chronic Sunday School problems: boring curriculum,
boring classrooms, boring teaching methods, bored kids, and low bible literacy.
These churches wanted to teach bible stories in a creative manner every week.
The solution they developed, called the Workshop Rotation Model,
has been adopted and adapted by hundreds of churches in many different denominations.
Bishop Janes switched to the Workshop Rotation Model in September 2001.
The response from the students and their parents has been tremendous.
Key Principles
The Key Principles of Workshop Rotation Model are:
- Teach major Bible stories and concepts through kid-friendly
multimedia workshops:
Art workshops, Drama, Music, Games, Audio-visual, Puppets, Computers, Cooking
and any other educational media available through the skills and interests
of the congregation.
The rotation model reorganizes the way we teach, not what we teach.
- Teach the same Bible story in all of the workshops for five weeks,
rotating the children to a different workshop
(and a different learning experience) each week.
During that period of time, the story they learn is the same
in each workshop.
Children love repetition and need it to remember their lessons.
Because each of the workshops teaches though different styles
of learning, the students don't get bored.
Instead, this multiple-intelligences approach enhances the learning process
- The same teacher in each workshop for all five weeks teaching
the same lesson week after week to the different classes coming in.
Teachers teach in the workshop of their strength and adjust the activity
and focus in accordance with age appropriate modifications.
To enact these principals we are:
- Turning rooms into multi-dimensional learning environments:
For example a Drama room, Art room, Computer room, Storytelling room,
Movie room, Cooking lab, Map room, etc.
- Having adult volunteers work in rooms where
their particular passion and gift focus one entire lesson hour
on one main learning medium
- 'Rotating' a different set of children each week
to a particular learning environment - hence the concept
"Rotational" or "Multi-dimensional" learning environments.
- Repeating Biblical Stories (themes or units)
over a series of four-five weeks so that the children experience
the same story through different modalities over a short course of time.
- Giving permission to artisans and other creative people
from within our congregation to create "enhanced learning environments"
utilizing all the different ways of learning.
The Workshop Rotation Model Sunday School Schedule
A typical Sunday School rotation would look something like:
| Sunday # 1 | Sunday # 2 | Sunday # 3 | Sunday # 4 | Sunday # 5 |
| Grade 1 | Cooking | AudioVisual | Storytelling | Art | Drama |
| Grade 2 | Drama | Cooking | AudioVisual | Storytelling | Art |
| Grade 3 | Art | Drama | Cooking | AudioVisual | Storytelling |
| Grade 4 | Storytelling | Art | Drama | Cooking | AudioVisual |
| Grade 5 | AudioVisual | Storytelling | Art | Drama | Cooking |
2007-2008 Rotation Classes
During the school year 2007-2008, students from Kindergarten through Grade 5 will begin a new unit of study entitled
Test of Faith.
This study is divided into five sections of six weeks.
The fourth unit focuses on the story of Easter and is entitled I'm a Believer.
What does Easter mean to me? Is it chocolate bunnies and colored eggs soon eaten and forgotten? What is so powerful about the Easter story that it can transform my life forever? These are questions we will ask of our students during the fourth rotation.
Children will learn that the Resurrection story gives them faith, hope and love.
Through the cooking workshop, students make a tasty reminder that faith in Christ's resurrection is essential as food to their life.
In the Art workshop, children will learn of the greatest love - that God so loved the world that God gave God's only son.
Through the art activity, children will learn that the light of the Resurrection of Jesus illuminates God's love for us.
In the Mission workshop, we will explore love as action. The greatest act of love is giving yourself to others.
Hope for a peaceful and loving world is prayed for in all the workshop experiences.
2008 Winter/Spring Calendar
| January 6 | | Rotation classes begin |
| February 3 | | Celebration Sunday -9 AM Service– No education classes |
| February 10 | | Rotation classes resume |
| March 16 | | Palm Sunday. Student procession at 9 AM Service – no classes |
| March 23 | | Easter – Family Worship – no classes |
| March 30 | | Rotation classes resume |
| May 11 | | Last day of rotation classes. End of year party. |
| May 18 | | Celebration Sunday – 9 AM Service |
| May 25 | | No classFamily Worship – summer worship schedule begins. One service at 9:30 AM. Children ages pre K – 2nd grade leave during service for shortened class. |
Bishop Janes UMC Book Club
Wondering what to do with those Amazon and Barnes and Noble gift cards that you received for Christmas? The BJUMC Book Club has selected the books that we’ll be reading for the next four months. Use those cards to get these books then join our lively discussions! Meetings are the second Wednesday of each month at 7 PM in the Dutcher Center (either the conference room or rooms 3 and 4).
Meeting Schedule
Meeting
Date | Book/Author | Discussion
Leader |
|---|
| Feb 13 | Here if You Need Me: A True Story/Kate Braestrup | Karen Riccardi |
| March 12 | A Thousand Splendid Suns/Khaled Hosseini | Barbara Kleinert |
| April 9 | Grace Eventually: Thoughts on Faith/Anne Lamott | Ellie Lentz |
| May 14 | Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians
Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain/Maria Rosa Menocal | Kim Dial |
Here if you Need Me: A True Story
It may take ingenuity to interest browsers in a memoir by a middle-aged mother who, 11 years ago, was suddenly widowed, then became a Unitarian-Universalist minister, and now works as chaplain to game wardens in Maine. But good memoir writing does not depend on celebrity or adventure and Braestrup's insightful essays are extraordinarily well written, mingling elements of police procedural and touching love story with trenchant observations about life and death. Alert to comic detail even in grisly circumstances (bears, for example, like to play ball with human skulls), she tells stories of lost children, a suicide, drunken accidents and a murder, always with compassion and a concern for the big questions inescapably provoked by tragic events. Why did Dad die? her children ask, and her response describes not only her theology but also her reason for being a chaplain: Nowhere in scripture does it say 'God is a car accident' or 'God is death.' God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always—always—love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
If you are interested in joining us – just show up!
If you have questions, please call Becky Hyde.
22 South Finley Avenue, Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 - 908-766-1108
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