This half term, Jenny and Anna have had loads of fun using the Zacchaeus Story Bag with Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 in Naburn and St Mary’s Primary Schools. During the story, the classes had to remember a repeated chorus all about Zacchaeus (see above). They also made some excellent sound effects for the noisy crowd trying to see Jesus, the rustling of the tree Zacchaeus was climbing, and the clinking coins as Zacchaeus repaid the money he had stolen.

After the story, we thought about how someone might change their behaviour because of having heard this story, perhaps trying to be more kind, or to be friendly to people who are being left out. We drew pictures of these actions on leaf shapes, and then stuck them on some backing paper to make a tree collage, with Zacchaeus hiding in the branches, and Jesus at the bottom. We finished off with a fun song about ‘Little Zac’ and lots of noisy instruments!

After noting how many children in schools are struggling with a bereavement or parental separation we have decided to trial a new programme to York’s schools called ‘Lost and Found’. This is a seven week nationally run course consisting of seven 50-60 minute sessions delivered by trained YoYo workers. The course is suitable for both primary and secondary school pupils who have experienced loss through either divorce/separation or bereavement.  The sessions cover the following topics:

1. What is loss? A general introduction to loss, looking wider than just loss through death.
2. What is happening to me? Looking at denial and shock.
3. It makes me so mad! A look at anger related to loss and ways to cope with it.
4. I promise… How and why we bargain when we go through big changes.
5. No way out? Sadness and how it affects us when we have lost someone close.

6. I’m just used to it now and life’s OK! Acceptance, forgiveness and hope for the future.
7. Evaluation session, and considering longer term one-to-one sessions with some pupils.

Each session also contains ‘Take a Look at the Book’ - a Christian perspective on the topic for the students to consider.

While on the surface, pupils may appear to be coping, inside they may be angry or even feel guilty. School work may suffer and behavioural changes may cause inexplicable outbursts or tears. The aim of the course is to enable students to identify feelings behind loss experiences and provide strategies to deal with and grow through such emotions.

If the trial goes well then we hope to be able to offer the Lost & Found course to York's schools throughout the year.

The primary team are busy visiting lots of schools from the 23rd January to the 10th February with the It's Your Bible programme.

This programme was written last year to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. However a few schools requested the Y6 lessons again this year, which consist of three one hour lessons taught over a three week period. These interactive 1 hour lessons present a memorable Bible overview. The lessons cover the following areas:

1. What is the Bible? How do you use the Bible? Exploring Christian beliefs about creation
   (RE Unit 6.5) and ‘the fall’ through Godly Play story-telling and class discussion.
2. Continuing to creatively go through the Bible from Noah to the prophets, including a study of the 10 commandments (RE Unit 6:3).
3. Continuing the story from Jesus to Revelation, exploring the hope that Jesus’ life, death and return offers to Christians (RE Unit 6:4). How do Christians apply this to their everyday lives?

We will also be doing an It’s Your Bible assembly in many schools, which show how the Bible fits together from start to finish, pulling together all the Bible stories the children have heard thus far. We will also be leading the children in our It’s Your Bible action song which you can download here.

To watch the drama we did in assembly click 'play' below:

[youtube: 400x200]

It was a wet, windy winter afternoon when Anna and Jenny intrepidly set out on their bikes to run a Christingle story bag lesson with 80 key stage 1 children at New Earswick Primary School. But what a fantastic afternoon they had!

In the hall, the children listened to, and used props to act out the story of three wise men who saw a bright new light come into the world - the star that showed Jesus had been born, and Jesus himself, who grew up to shine God's light into the world. They then learnt about what a Christingle is and what it means, and used it to help them remember the story. Next, the children separated into their classes in the hall, and each was given a plate with an orange, some red tape, four cocktail sticks, some dried fruit and a birthday candle to make their own Christingles to take home. We finished off by singing the Christingle song together. Whilst most schools decorated a giant class Christingle in their lessons, New Earswick chose to buy all the oranges to allow their children to make individual ones, providing a reason to talk about learning with their families.

It has been an absolute joy to do the Christingle story bag lesson in four schools this half term, although demand has outstripped supply, so that two schools are borrowing the bag to use themselves, and others have missed out this time. It has been so exciting to work with KS1 outside of It's Your programmes, and there is already interest in the up coming story bags for the rest of the academic year. Watch this space for a story all about Zacchaeus in the new year.

Exciting news! We now have another member of the YoYo team! Andy Barthow, who did a gap year with us back in 2007 - 2008, has been through the toils of university and is now back on team. He is job sharing with Malc and will be focusing on working with the secondary department, particularly the music ministry side of YoYo’s work.

From the 10th - 21st October the primary team will be visiting 24 primary schools in York to present their Harvest assembly.

The assembly theme is 'treasures in heaven' from Matthew 6. This tricky subject will be unpacked through videos, games, drama and a song - presenting the message that it is better to store up treasure in heaven than on earth.

These verses we chosen as Harvest is a time when we should be thankful for what we have, and be thinking about how we can be generous with what we have through loving and serving others.

The first week's assemblies have gone extremely well with one Y6 commenting "I'm going to start thinking of others before myself".

Next week we will be going into 11 more primary schools. Please pray that our message will be clear and challenging, and that the team will have good health and energy for the final week of the half term!

 

You can now follow YoYo team on Twitter! You can find us at: @YoYo_primary, @YoYo_secondary and the new band @This_Resistance. We'll update you on what we're up to and which schools we're in so you can pray for us.

Thank you for all your support!