23 May ~ Declaration of the Bab

Today we celebrate the Declaration of the Bab. The Bab (Whose title means The Door or The Gate) declared in 1844 that he was the Promised One that many people were expecting to appear at that time. His Mission was to prepare the way for Him Whom God Will Make Manifest, Baha'u'llah. The Bab and Baha'u'llah are known sometimes as The Twin Messengers.

We read the story of "Mulla Husayn and the Bab" from Children's Stories from the Dawn-Breakers. Mulla Husayn was a man who had been studying the propheses and preparing himself to find the Promised One, the Bab. He found the Bab in the Persian city of Shiraz.

"It was about two hours after sunset when the Bab, with great love and joy, told Mulla Husayn Who He was. Mulla Husayn was so astonished that at first he could not belive the good news. But as the Bab went on talking, Mulla Husayn knew that no one else could be so wise."

"This night," the Bab said, "this very hour, will, in the days to come, be celebrated as one of the greatest and most significant of all festivals."

Mulla Husayn was the first to believe in the Bab. "Later eighteen souls would find the Bab, just as Mulla Husayn had done. But Mulla Husayn was to tell no one about the Bab, for each person had to find Him without any help. When all eighteen had learned the great Secret, the Bab would send them out to tell the whole world that a new Teacher had come."

Before reading the story we talked about one of the prayers revealed by the Bab. I was surprised to find out that my 3-year-old son had it memorized! So we talked about the meaning of it.

Is there any remover of difficulties save God? Say: praised be God, He is God. All are His servants and all abide by His bidding.

After reading the story we made some pretty nine-pointed star "stained-glass windows." The night before I used the 9-point star cookie cutters from Special Ideas as a pattern to cut out the frames from construction paper, and I cut up a bunch of little pieces of colored tissue paper. (From gift bags!)

To make them, I glued a star to one side of a piece of waxed paper and then turned the paper over. I covered the space inside the frame with glue and the kids stuck the bits of tissue paper to that. When they were done, I put some more glue on and covered it with another piece of waxed paper. Then I cut the waxed paper away from the frames and wrote Declaration of the Bab in the middle with a Sharpie pen.

9 May ~ God Sends Messengers

In The Light of a Good Character, Lesson 5 is called God Sends Messengers.
We started with the songs and reciting prayers.

The lesson is about how God lets us know what He wants us to do through Messengers. The book, which is published in India, says, "Messengers of God or Avatars." American (and perhaps other) Baha'is usually say "Messengers" or "Manifestations of God," so I used those terms for the lesson.

"The names of some of the Messengers are:
Krishna
Moses
Zoroaster
Buddha
Jesus Christ
Muhammad
The Bab
Baha'u'llah

Can you remember these names?"

We sang the song that goes:
Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster,
Abraham, Moses, Christ,
Muhammad, the Bab, Baha'u'llah,
The Spirit's the same.

Then we did a craft out of Baha'i Crafts for Children. The book has a page with the names and symbols of the Manifestations that I scanned and printed on card stock. In the book, it says to hang each cut-out symbol on yarn and tie them together at the top to make a mobile. That probably would have been too difficult with a 3yo & 5yo, so it's probably for the best that I forgot the yarn at home! The friends' house where we meet is loaded up with craft supplies, and we used a couple pieces of ribbon and glued the symbols on there.

25 April 2010

Lesson 4 in the Light of a Good Character is called the Worship of God. It talks about God as Creator and that we pray to God because we love Him. And we can show our love for God by helping others. (And by being obedient to our parents. This is a great book!)

There has been emphasis in all the prior chapters about cleanliness that I skipped because, I don't know, I guess I just expect my children to be clean. And at the ages the little guys are, cleanliness for them is still mostly my job. But this lesson, after saying we can show our love for God by being clean, went on to say, "when we clean this place where we have our classes we are helping other people. We are all happy when we see a clean place. God wants us to help other people, to be clean, and to be happy."

I thought this whole lesson tied in nicely to our Baha'i community's plan to adopt a park, so I took the little guys (3yo and 5yo), my big kid (13yo), and a trio of brother and sisters (ages 9-12) to clean up Waterfall Park. And play. Helping. Cleaning. Happy. We got it!

I also read a version of the Lion and the Mouse for the little guys before we left for the park.

I was concerned that the amount of litter at this rather large park might be too much for such a small group to handle, but I went back today and it wasn't too bad. whew! We'll see about formally adopting it during the week.

Tomorrow is the Twelveth Day of Ridvan. Ya Baha'ul-Abha!

18 April ~ God and Creation

We did Lessons 2 & 3 from The Light of a Good Character. They are pretty short!

We started with the song God Wants All Girls and Boys to Pray and recited some of the prayers they already know. Then I taught them "O Thou Who art the most manifest of the manifest and the most hidden of the hidden!" from Baha'u'llah's prayer that begins "Create in me a pure heart, O my God, and renew a tranquil conscience within me, O my Hope!" My 5yo likes that prayer, it seems, and recites it unbidden during our morning prayers.

I read to them Lesson 2 - God is Near. It discusses - Can we see the sun? Hear the sun? Can we see the wind? Hear the wind? Can we see or hear God? Well, no, but "we know that God loves us because He has given us so many good things." That sort of leads in to Lesson 3 - God is Our Creator.

But before that, I read to them a book of Baha'u'llah's "Blessed is the Spot" prayer. Lisa Blecker beautifully illustrates: "Blessed is the spot, and the house, and the place, and the city, and the heart, and the mountain, and the refuge, and the cave, and the valley, and the land, and the sea, and the island, and the meadow where mention of God hath been made, and His praise glorified." The book steps through many beautiful pictures of God's creation.

We learned a new song as part of Lesson 3. This song is also by Roberta Christian and Eugene Babcock. The lyrics are as follows.

Here's a song I like to sing,

God created everything.

I do not know just what He is,

But everything that is, is His.

As a craft to go along with God and God's creation, I found something at http://perpetualpreschool.com/christianthemes/bible_themes/creation_art.htm. They decorated little boxes and I wrote "God's Treasures" on the top of each box. Then we went on a nature walk and collected things that God made. After they had collected a bit, we sat on the grass and I pulled from my pocket pieces of paper with Baha'u'llah's name and a nine-pointed star printed on them. They put those in their boxes. Then I pulled out a photograph of each of them to put in their boxes. My 3yo wanted to know what else was in my pocket!

2010 April 11 ~ Prayer

Lesson 1 in Light of a Good Character is on Prayer.

We started with the suggested song God Wants All Girls and Boys to Pray. I had learned it the night before from a songbook a friend copied for me years ago. I don't have the cover but many of the songs are by Roberta Christian and Eugene Babcock, including the one for this lesson.

We checked on memorizing the Remover of Difficulties (5yo has it) and added from the lesson "Greater is God than every great one." Then we read the story in the lesson, though I left out addressing them as "Children." ;)

Then I shared some quotes from 'Abdu'l-Baha.
"These children are even as young plants, and teaching them the prayers is as letting the rain pour down upon them, that they may wax tender and fresh, and the soft breezes of the love of God may blow over them, making them to tremble with joy."
"Praise be to God, thy heart is engaged in the commemoration of God, thy soul is gladdened by the glad tidings of God and thou art absorbed in prayer. The state of prayer is the best of conditions, for man is then associating with God. Prayer verily bestoweth life...."

Tying this back to the words in the lesson "We pray to God because we love Him," we did this craft. http://www.emmanuel.kiev.ua/Kids/Make5E.html (Hopefully I typed the link correctly. Not sure how to get this thing to copy and paste into the blog.)

There is a picture to print of hands that the kids can color, cut out, and fold into the praying hands shape. Then you cut out a heart and glue it inside the hands. I wrote "God's love" on the hearts and told the kids the prayer connects us to God's love. I also told them that you don't have to hold your hands that way to pray, but that is a symbol in our culture of praying.

Also, because my 5yo was asking me the day before about "What is spirit?" we read the article on page 8 of the November/December 2007 Brilliant Star called Working Out Your Body and Soul. It explains the soul and talks about prayer. And on page 17, there is an article called Listening to Your Spirit which is about meditation. I took them outside to read that, but their attention span had wandered. :)

We sang the new song again and headed home.

Easter ~ Manifestations of God

It was Easter and my 5-year-old goes to preschool at a Catholic Church, so I knew they had been talking about that.

We worked on the Remover of Difficulties Prayer. Then we talked about Jesus and the Resurrection. I did kind of gloss over the crucifixion with the words "He died."

"Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things." ~ Baha'u'llah

And from 'Abdu'l-Baha's Some Answered Questions:

"Therefore, we say that the meaning of Christ's resurrection is as follows: the disciples were troubled and agitated after the martyrdom of Christ. The Reality of Christ, which signifies His teachings, His bounties, His perfections and His spiritual power, was hidden and concealed for two or three days after His martyrdom, and was not resplendent and manifest. No, rather is was lost, for the believers were few in number and were troubled and agitiated. The Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body; and when after three days the disciples became assured and steadfast, and began to serve the Cause of Christ, and resolved to spread the divine teachings, putting His counsels into practice, and arising to serve Him, the Reality of Christ became resplendent and His bounty appeared; His religion found life; His teachings and His admonitions became evident and visible. In other words, the Cause of Christ was like a lifeless body until the life and the bounty of the Holy Spirit surrounded it.

Such is the meaning of the resurection of Christ, and this was a true resurrection."

Then I talked to them a little bit about how Jesus was a Manifestation of God and that God has sent other Manifestations too. I even tried to sing the "Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Bab, Baha'u'llah - the Spirit's the same" song for them. (It'd help if I had a firmer grasp on the melody!)

Then they made a cut-and-paste timeline of the Manifestations project. (They love the cut-and-paste!) I found the symbols on the internet.

We showed the project to the grown-ups and my friend Beth said it reminded her of the book The Light of a Good Character, which is published by the Baha'i Publishing Trust in New Delhi, India. She pulled it off the shelf and gave it to me for next week.

2010 March 28 ~ Kindness

O SON OF SPIRIT! My first counsel is this: Posess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting.

It's been a few weeks, so I'm trying to remember what we did. I believe we talked about that quote and also started memorizing the Remover of Difficulties prayer.

I read them a book from the library called The Kindness Quilt by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. It's about students making a crafty project about acts of kindness.

I read from page 19 of Stories of Baha'u'llah, compiled by 'Ali-Akbar Furutan, about when Baha'u'llah found a boy crying because his teacher had dismissed him without giving him penmanship work to do. Baha'u'llah made for the boy a beautiful example of writing as a gift.

Then we made a kindness quilt project out of construction paper. My 5-year-old drew his own pictures and I helped my 3-year-old with that aspect. They both enjoyed cutting and pasting paper decorations.

Why this blog?

I decided to finally do Baha'i Classes for my kids. I've been meaning to.... I've been meaning to....

I must admit that I need, for my own enthusiasm level, and I believe the kids need stories with illustrations and crafts more engaging than coloring sheets.

This blog will be a record for me of what I've done with them, in case I'm asked to do it again for another group of wee ones. And also because I just love internet gadgets and Facebook-y type things. ;) And maybe it will be of help to someone else saying, "I'm not an educator! How do I do this?!"

I am pretty much flying by the seat of my pants and cobbling together classes from sources such as Ruhi Books, Brilliant Star Magazine, a book called The Light of a Good Character, library books, and internet searches.

My youngest boys are 3 and 5 years old. I totally welcome advice!

Our small group ususally starts Sunday mornings with prayers and music (I have a Baha'i songbook I made for us a few years ago, and I kinda-sorta play guitar. It's a glorified autoharp in my hands.) and then breaks into groups for classes.