These are activities for the third week of FPCA Arts Camp! To join our email list, and see info about other weeks, head to the Arts Camp Main Page. See what we are creating in our Arts Camp Gallery, and share your own creations!
July 12 – July 18
You – a child of God – are created to create! Learn, explore, and create with the ideas below.
A Gathering
Join our Sunday Arts Camp Zoom Gathering on July 12th at 3 pm!
This 30-minute gathering at the start of each week is designed for children and families, but all ages are welcome. (We may break into two groups – adults and children.) Email Julie if you want the Zoom invite and password.
A Story – The Parable of the Good Samaritan
A man asked Jesus what the most important commandment was. Jesus said he already knew: to love God and to love his neighbor. Then the man asked: But who is my neighbor? And then Jesus told this parable.
Watch the story, told by Ms. Carol using materials from one of our Godly Play rooms, then wonder about it. Ms. Carol shares some good wondering questions in the video. If you are watching as a family, take time to pause the video and share your wondering aloud with one another. If you are alone, maybe you want to write (or draw/color/sing) your thoughts. I wonder where you are in this parable?
An Art Idea – Salt Dough with Cathie Dodson
Watch our artist video below as Cathie Dodson shows us how to make our own play dough and create with it! Cathie shares two different recipes below and explains some of the differences in the video. She gives a number of fun ideas to create with what you make. Ornaments, shapes, creatures God made, a Nativity – what will YOU create?
Here are the two recipes Cathie recommends for salt dough – one is cooked, and one is not.
No-Cook Recipe for Salt Dough and you can read the step-by-step online here. Basic recipe is just flour, salt and water – color/decorations are optional.
Cooked Recipe for Dough and here is the step-by-step online. This recipe adds cream of tartar, vegetable oil, and can add food coloring to make bright colors.
Have fun squishing your dough together! What can you create with salt dough and your own imagination? How would you make something from the parable? Take a picture of your creation and send it to Julie here. Or you can upload through our Arts Camp Gallery, and see the creations of others!
You can also upload to Facebook or Instagram with #artscampfpca.
A Picture Book
Lydia and Nate share this week’s parable with us through the picture book: Who is My Neighbor? Written by Amy Jill-Levine and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, illustrated by Denise Turu.
Blues and Yellows just don’t mix, and that’s how it’s always been—until the day Midnight Blue takes a tumble along the road and a Yellow named Lemon stops to help him.
Listen to the book as a family. Then talk together: What does the word neighbor mean? Name some people who are your neighbors. Who else could be on that list?
Here’s a coloring page for you with Blue and Yellow, from the book. Can you imagine a world where blues and yellows don’t mix?
What other kind of coloring or art does this story make you want to create?
A Song
Learn “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself” from Jeremy. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Be gentle, kind and true. Love your neighbor as yourself, for God has first loved you.”
A Mission Project
Have you taken part in our Mission Project yet, to make and share an art kit with our neighbors at BeLoved Asheville? What a wonderful way to live out the Parable of the Good Samaritan this week! There are other ways to donate to BeLoved for their food pantries this summer, too. Any of these items, including our art kits, can be donated.
Let’s help our friends at BeLoved Asheville have a creative summer too! We are making and donating Art Kits! Fill a gallon ziplock with the items listed, and drop it off at BeLoved. Be sure and add your own artwork or note that tells the recipient “You are loved!” Take a picture of yourself making or dropping off your art kit, and send it to us so we can keep track of how we are loving our neighbors. Questions? Ask Meagan!
A Family Activity
Here’s another picture book with some related activities. Maybe I Can Love My Neighbor Too is about a little girl who learned some ways to love her neighbors. The video is a children’s time we shared in worship a few months ago, but it goes great with our arts camp parable this week! It includes some concrete ideas for ways you might love your neighbors today, and there are more ideas below.
Try these activities as a family: a Bingo board of ways to be a good neighbor. And an activity pack with some more printables.
Great Links
Want more ways to get creative with our theme this week? Check out some of these ideas we spied online, all about how to pray with Play Dough! (And send us pictures of your prayers if you like…..)
Jesus Heals PlayDough Play and Pray Mat: Use some of the dough you made to help pray for people who need healing. Print out the play dough mat, then fill in the hearts with dough while you pray for people.
Play Dough Prayers: Here is a way for you and your child to pray with some of the dough you made. You can pray intercessory prayers for the world, the church, other people, yourself, and more.
Here’s another way to pray with play dough. This is probably more suited for older elementary, youth and adults. Pray using some of the scripture related to clay, God as a potter, and other images.
Growing Faith at Home 