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0 Our new Atrium space is finished and open for children to interact and learn about God!
The past month our friends Dan Aerni, Dane Miller, Dennis Bishop and Steve Whitlatch have been hard at work preparing our new classroom space for our Wednesday night Atrium religious education program. We put in a new wall in order to have two separate classrooms to divide up our age groups, repainted, and set up all of the different interactive stations.
Putting in the drywall and getting it painted.
About two weeks ago, all of the construction was completed and we were able to set up our classrooms and start our children’s programming. We have childcare for children under 3 and have two different classes for children ages 3-10 years old.
Here are some of the children in our 3-6 year old program working at some of the different stations.
Our 3-6-year-old classroom is using the traditional Atrium programming material from Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Using a Montessori-style setup, the children learn the different Bible lessons. Each week the children enter the Atrium space, wash their hands, prepare to be in the space, and hear a story lesson together. After the lesson, they then have the freedom to choose different interactive stations to explore and learn about the lesson more. Last week they learned about the Good Shepherd (John 10) and how he protects and loves his sheep. Next week it will be a preschool favorite: the colors of the liturgical year.
This semester, while we are waiting for materials for the older children’s Atrium curriculum, our 7-10-year-old group is learning about different Bible parables with activities to go along with each of them.
This past week, our group learned about the parable of the Two Builders (Matthew 7:23-27). To help visualize this lesson, the children used toothpicks and marshmallows to build houses on bricks of rock and bricks of sand to see which foundation is stronger for a storm.
We have many more fun, interactive lessons planned for our kids at Atrium this semester and we are looking forward to seeing how God works through us as we try to make impactful experiences for the Lydia’s House and neighborhood children who attend our program.
