Ideas for a Spirit Play Start-Up And Extension Beginning Steps 1.        Identify parents or others in congregation who have Montessori connections and invite them to talk   about and look at the Spirit Play concept.   2.        If you have a curriculum team or committee, get them interested by presenting a story for them. 3.        Start using Spirit Play or Godly Play stories in your chapels or for children’s stories during the service.   4.        Visit a Spirit Play or Godly Play classroom.  Have others visit. 5.        Buy the Godly Play books recommended.  Pass them around. 6.        At every opportunity, talk about the importance of our method of religious education, Montessori vs. classroom model and the spiritual needs of children. Newsletter, in person, at meetings. 7.        The Introductory curriculum is available at www.spiritplay.net. Contact Dr. Nita Penfold at 781-620- 1138 or nitapenfold@aol.com or the website for availability of trainings where you receive a complete curriculum. Getting Serious 1.  Present a proposal to the Religious Education Committee to look into the benefits and costs of Spirit Play. 2.  Work with the RE Committee on presenting a proposal to the Board or Parish Committee to fund the project in one classroom.  We started with 4 to 6 year-olds and then added another classroom as they grew. Some churches have converted preschool through 8th grade to Spirit Play. Costs vary; some people have started programs in shared spaces using as little as $100 and others as much as $4000, depending on the materials used and whether or not they had furniture already available. 3.  Get the parents interested through workshops or more stories at events.  Have an open meeting for members of the congregation to present this method, and find out who is interested in training and making materials. 4.  With your curriculum team, entire committee or congregation (depending on its size), brainstorm stories that they feel are important for the children in your community and what concepts they feel the children should spend time with.  The more people are involved, the more they feel ownership and connection to the program.  Even if all you do to include the congregation is put an index card in the order of service on Sunday morning and ask the participants to write down one or two stories that they felt were important spiritual ones in their lives, it will give you a great deal to choose from. When choosing stories, find those that are simple enough to have limited pieces; too many pieces can get confusing for the storyteller as well as the children.  Sometimes we made more pieces, but cut them out later when we realized the essence of the story could be told without them. Cut an underlay only slightly larger than you need to accommodate the materials so that there is a frame around the story; try to color code the underlay to the story’s theme.   5.  Put together a group to make materials for the stories.  Make sure that anyone making stories knows the method behind it if they are making stories from scratch. ( See resource list in another file) 6.  Make your stories using the most attractive materials you can find.  They last longer this way and the children use them more readily.  If all you can afford are laminated tagboard pieces, then start anyway and replace the materials as you can.  Garage sales, EBay, toy stores and catalogs, craft stores and fabric stores are places to look for items. Organization 1.  Go over the Spirit Play materials, and decide where the stories fit in the room.  Categorize your shelves so that the stories make sense by theme.  Sample shelf maps are provided in this curriculum.  We also found it good to label the place on the shelf for the teachers, and use symbols for the children.  On each basket or tray, the symbol was repeated.  The Promise stories were all color coded so that they could be found easily. 2.  Collect or buy furniture for the room.  Many materials can be donated, such as baskets and trays.  We had a wish list our second year to encourage monetary donations and raised enough for better shelving and wooden Nativity sets.  People gave specific amounts to buy specific items.  Tables and chairs are not often in Godly Play rooms.  Materials are used on small rugs.  Easels can are used for large paint activities.   3.  Set up your room. 4.  Train teachers and doorkeepers. (You can bring in Nita Penfold to do a training.  See information on Training costs) 5.  Have an orientation for parents. 6.  Start your class with the orientation for children to the space modeled after the one in Young Children and Worship (Berryman and Stewart). 7.  After a few months, evaluate the program.  Is there better attendance, do the children need more time, do the storytellers and doorkeepers need additional training, do you need to have one of the trainers come in for a workshop?  At the end of the year, decide if you should expand to another class, adding more stories.  Be sure to keep the basic lessons as a continuing part of the shelves.   8.  Don’t let parents or others visit the class until the year is about half over.  This gives the children a chance to develop their community without the room being over-adulted.  Visitors should be given specific instructions about their presence in the room not distracting the children and having respect for the process unfolding.