Escondido's Children's Day Camp: A Great Success!
Suzy Hawthorne created hands on activities to deepen the meaning of the Christmas story. The day started with learning about the advent candles and what they represented. Each child was given an advent calendar to take home. A star was to be placed on the calendar each day. We placed 14 stars to catch up with the date.
Then we discussed Christmas traditions: singing carols, reading the Christmas story, sending card, decorating cookies, wrapping presents, decorating a tree, putting up a nativity scene, lighting advent candles and then they proceeded to complete those tasks. The gift wrapped was a Rubix style cube with the Nativity story. Cards were created with stamps and personalized. Cookies were decorated, songs sung and stories read.
When discussing the trip Mary and Joseph made to Bethlehem, the children were given tasting plates with the types of food they would have carried on the journey. Smoked fish, dates, bread, goat cheese, pomegranates, almonds, olives and water. The group was divided into two teams. They packed their backpacks with water, food, cloth for swaddling the baby when he arrived and started on their journey (around the Escondido church).
For lunch, we had pizza, fruits and vegetables. We ended the day with a birthday cupcake and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.
After lunch, they made a Christmas cookie tree and decorated it.
They played Nativity bingo and searched for the stars hidden in the sanctuary. Each activity had a matching story that told the Nativity story from a different perspective. When we talked about the three kings, there was a treasure box that contained gold flakes, frankincense, and myrrh. They were able to hold the gold container and touch and smell the frankincense and myrrh pieces and learn about their significance.
They last activity was painting a “stained glass” Nativity set. Each character had its own stand and each child personalized their Nativity.
It was a very enjoyable day. Lots of laughter and sharing with each other while learning about Christ's birth. Wonderful friendships were established and they look forward to being together again.
- Marsha Rastle
