A message from Sunday School

To all our beloved Sunday School families


Happy feast day of our wonderful Saints Peter and Paul!


It feels so long since we have worshipped and gathered together, in Church and Sunday School. I hope everyone is doing as well as can be! I certainly really miss all the dear children and all the parents, my friends, very much. I kept thinking that maybe by now we may have been able to be together, but looks like not for a while yet.

I just wanted to touch base to share some of the best links and resources that I usually use in preparation for the Sunday School lessons, just in case you might be looking for some quality things to do with the children. I totally understand there are those who already feel there is plenty on the plate and I don’t mean to add more pressure, so please don’t feel like you aren’t doing enough, or should be doing more. For others, you may like to add some ‘religious’ activities to your usual routine, or maybe just on special feast days. For me personally, faced with potentially another round of 'remote online learning,' I've decided we will tackle things quite differently this time with less focus on the school assigned tasks and more ‘doing our own thing,’ what we personally consider to be ‘the one thing needful.’ 

Wherever you’re at, I hope these resources will be useful in keeping us and the kids connected to our faith and the Church in these trying times when we are not there physically. I encourage and remind all that we can and should turn each of our homes into a little church, while at the same time not becoming complacent with the current situation (as Fr Nicholas said in this morning’s wonderful sermon). Praying at home is great, but can’t replace our physical connection to liturgical life.

Good luck and God bless you all and please do reach out if I can help any more with the resources or for any other reason.
Fiona xx

P.S Feel free to forward these links on to anyone not on this email or other Orthodox families you know who might benefit.

1. https://orthodoxabc.com

a wonderful site, more geared for younger children with great printouts about the most important aspects of our faith, and a video series 

2. https://orthodoxpebbles.com

Another great one for the younger kids, I would really encourage a good browse around the site, to see just how much it offers

3. http://ww1.antiochian.org/christianeducation/letusattend

This is great because it caters to both younger and older children, with printouts and audio. The gospel is covered for each Sunday of the year (just make sure you look at the right date for our calendar!)

4. https://myocn.net/orthodox-christian-childrens-newsletter/

These short weekly bulletins are really sweet, and speak directly to the little ones. It has been running for a long time, so there’s a huge library of material! I used to like reading them out to my kids in the car on to the way to church on Sunday mornings. Good little activity pages attached to it too if you click through (word searches, lives of Saints etc). I really love them!!

5. http://dce.oca.org

This is one amazing resource, something for all ages and stages and could keep you occupied for a very long time. I’ve printed out so many amazing books and activities over the years including these free downloads I printed and bound for my older 3 kids for the last lockdown, kept them busy for the 8 weeks! Amazing. 
http://dce.oca.org/page/activity-books/

Enjoy! :)