Today's class, led by Mrs. Turner, covered lesson two in the We Believe booklet: God Meets Us in the Law: The Ark of the Covenant.
We had a small, but enthusiastic, group for the second Sunday of our school year: Noah, Chris, Sean, Penelope, Cate, Madeline, Sami, and Brendan.
The children began by spending the first few minutes of class with the Ark of the Covenant Word Search and coloring a picture of the Ark. We then formally opened our assembly by lighting a candle, singing the doxology, saying the Lord's Prayer, and reciting the Apostles' Creed. We told the children that memorizing the Apostles' Creed would be one of our projects for the year. (Teachers: all three prayers have been printed on a single card, and these can be found in the resource bin).
Mrs. Turner then explained what the Ark was, how it was built according to specific instructions given to Moses by God, and how it was used to hold the tablets on which Moses had carved the Ten Commandments. She pointed out that the Ark was considered sacred and that only the chief priests were allowed to come into contact with it; it was always treated with the utmost reverence and respect. Mrs. Turner described for the children how Moses had been leading the Israelites in the desert for many years, and how the Ten Commandments were God's way of giving the Israelites rules to live by. We also talked about some rules that we use today, some that we like, and some that we might not like so much. The kids offered some examples: we have to do our homework (in the "rules we don't like" category), but we also have rules that protect our way of living (like free speech).
We then turned to our bibles and opened to Exodus 25:10-22. The children took terms reading different verses from the passage. Here we read God's instructions to Moses to build an Ark "made of acacia wood," of specific dimensions, and with a very particular design (including two cherubim on the top). We paused briefly to describe what the word "cubit" means.
The children then worked on a project, gluing pieces of paper on which were printed each of the ten commandments to paper "tablets."
At this point, we ran out of time and concluded our lesson. Next week, Mr. Tobin leads, assisted by Mrs. Mandracchia. We will continue with lesson three, learning some more about the Ark.
The photo above comes from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. It shows Indiana Jones and his friend Sallah after they discovered the Ark in an archaeological dig. Fictional, of course, since we learned in class that the Ark has been lost for centuries.
