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Reply to "Palm Sunday Celebration, Processions, and Pageant Ideas"

Multi-age Palm Sunday Celebration

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Cathy Hoop
Posted April 13, 2006

This year we were in between rotations so we had a fabulous multi-age Palm Sunday celebration. I was inspired by WAM's posting about using Jesus Christ Superstar, and opened with that. I then replayed the section of the song in which the Pharisees tell Jesus to quiet the crowds. He replies from Luke 19: 40, "if my disciples are silent, the stones will shout aloud." We had a rich conversation about what that means, and what that says about the power of God. Then we brainstormed some ways that stones can shout. They immediately came up with clapping them together, having them roll around together, etc. We also brainstormed "praise" words and what the stones might say. We then divided into groups for the following:

  1. Painting (store bought)stepping stones (6th grade)with praise words/symbols. The stones were placed at the entrance to the patio where we gather for our processional into worship.
  2. Decorating our concrete patio with sidewalk chalk to prepare for our Palm Sunday processional. The 5th graders drew palms, cloaks and wrote words of praise. It was beautiful!
  3. 1 - 4 grade boys made all kinds of shakers from stones and recyclable items - margarine tubs, coffee cans, tissue tubes, and lots of brightly colored duck tape. They practiced rhythms with their stone maracas and showed how their stones were praising God.
  4. 1 - 4 grade girls made an amazing palm Sunday diarama with colored stones, markers, glitter, etc. (We laid down a long piece of heavy paper for them to work on.) Their stones were the people and they wrote hosannas, etc. all along the path. At the end, each group took time to see what the others had done and to have prayer time with their shepherds.
    (I don't usually divide by boys and girls, but this seemed like an ideal time to do it - I gave the 1 -4 graders an option to choose the other station if they didn't like the one they were in, but everyone was VERY happy.) If I had planned ahead, I would have asked if the children could use their stone maracas during the processional!
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