THE
P RTAL
September 2016
Page 20
Catholics brave the elements!
Haley Tomlinson tells us about a Children’s activity at Pembury
At the
end of July this year we held our fourth annual children’s holiday club at St Anselm’s Church
in Pembury: ‘Catholics brave the elements!’. Thirty primary school-age children came to the church
hall for three days, 10 am – 2pm, for craft activities, games and a daily spiritual talk from Father Ed, on the
theme of weather. Previous themes have been ‘Catholics on safari’ (2013), ‘Catholics under the sea’ (2014)
and ‘Catholics in space’ (2015).
The pattern of each day is similar. There
is a short craft activity for the children
as they arrive (e.g. making name badges
on the first day), followed by ice-breaker
games in the paddock. The first craft
session is from 10:30 -11:15, after which
there is a break (11:15 -11:30). Fr Ed gives
his address in the church from 11:30 -12,
and the second craft session runs from
12 -12:45. The children eat their packed
lunches between 12:45 and 1:30, and go
home after a final games session outside.
This year, the focus of the first day was
‘sun’. After an introductory session (the
children were divided into groups and
produced large paintings on sheets to
illustrate sun, cloud, rain, wind, snow/ice and storms), participated, and to which all parents were invited.
they had a choice of making a sun fridge magnet, or a
sun mosaic, or of decorating sunglasses. For his talk,
As well as advertising the holiday club at our own
Father Ed took the subject of Moses and his followers church we also advertise at the local Catholic school.
enduring the scorching sun in the wilderness. On the Many of the children come back each year. We keep
second day the theme was rain.
the prices low (£15 for first children, £5
for siblings) in order to help families.
I showed the children several paintings
Our hope for the participants is that they
by the English artist J M W Turner,
will gain knowledge and understanding
talking to them about his fascination
of the world around them, of beauty
with dramatic weather conditions. The
and art, at the same time as growing
children subsequently made their own
in knowledge and understanding of
Turner-inspired paintings of a boat in
the faith. It’s important for them to
a storm, painting the sea and boat with
make friendships with other Catholics
conventional paintbrushes, but using
and have happy memories of churchpaint bellows (which squirt out paint
organised activities. This helps them
somewhat unpredictably) to create the
to be proud of their Catholic identity.
stormy sky. The children also made
Many of the helpers also return every
eye-catching umbrella models and rain
year.
gauges for their gardens. Fr Ed spoke
to them about Jesus calming the storm.
This year, there were eight adult helpers
On the final day we looked at wind and rainbows. each day, and three teenage helpers. The wider parish
Each child made their own set of wind chimes, and has a role to play too, e.g. collecting magazines for
the final activity was a giant rainbow collage wh