Tapestry of Faith: Wonderful Welcome: A Program for Children Grades K-1

Closing

Activity time: 5 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Wonder Box poster
  • A piece of left-over cardboard from Activity 4, Community Playground
  • Copies of Taking It Home for all participants
  • Newsprint, markers and tape

Preparation for Activity

  • Display the Wonder Box poster.
  • Write the closing words on newsprint, and post.
  • Customize, print out and photocopy the Taking It Home section for all participants.
  • Choose a piece of cardboard left over from Activity 4, Community Playground, to attach to the Wonder Box.

Description of Activity

Gather the children in a circle. Show them the Wonder Box poster and explain that it looks like the Wonder Box to remind us about our intangible gifts. Invite a child to tape or glue the piece of cardboard to the poster. You may say:

This little piece of cardboard isn't much, is it? But, when we all worked together we put ideas and materials together to make something none of us could have dreamed up alone: a community playground that all our dolls today seemed to like and, if we really built one like it, kids would, too.

We can see our model playground and we could play on a real one, if we built one together. But the intangible gift is the gift of community.

Tell the children you are happy and thankful you all could be together this morning. You may say:

Giving thanks for being together is giving thanks for all that we can be and do when are together, and how good it feels to be a community. Let us say our closing words of gratitude together.

Invite the children to hold hands. Show them where you have posted the closing words. Ask them to say each line with you, and say the lines slowly:

We are thankful.

We are thankful to be here.

We are thankful to be here, together.

We are thankful to be here, together, now.

Then ask one child to very gently squeeze the hand of the person to their left, and have that person continue to pass the squeeze until the squeeze has returned to the person who started it. Tell the person who started the squeeze to signal that it has returned to them by raising their arms, still holding hands with the people on either side. When this happens, instruct everyone to raise their clasped hands, together. If you like, suggest a word for them to say at this moment, like "Good-bye!" or "Shalom," or the name of this session's intangible gift - "Community!"

Extinguish the chalice. Distribute Taking It Home handouts. Thank and dismiss participants.