This third week of our Digging Deeper Adventure varied a bit from our routine, but these girls persevered!
Several of our classmates attended Vacation Bible School (VBS) this past week so they were pulled away to sing in the main service for the VBS presentation. This left us with a skeletal crew for about twenty minutes at the beginning of class.
It so happened that this week I had two practice sheets for our warm-up time: a Creative Drawing Sheet and a Bonus Drawing Sheet. (I had trouble deciding which characters and elements to include in the practice sheet!!) With only about six girls left in class, I pulled the Bonus Sheet out and gave it to them. They worked on their drawing skills using this sheet while we waited for the others to return.
Our singers, of course, were a bit wound up when they returned to class – all that VBS singing and excitement! Before beginning our session, we took a few minutes to settle everyone down.
All focused, we entered our abbreviated Warm-up Time: Creative Drawing.
Then we quickly reviewed our two previous Digging Deeper methods: Praying the Scripture in Color and Verse Mapping.
These things done, we introduced our new method for the week: Scripture Journaling with/without Art.
Illustrated Bible Journaling (sometimes simply referred to as Bible Journaling) is very popular among adults right now but generally includes some reference to art – whether simple or complex. I chose to introduce this process to the girls as Scripture Journaling WITH or WITHOUT Art so that those girls who do not see themselves as artistic would not tune out or view the method as beyond them.
We read through the Scripture Journaling Sheet together and discussed all our options for journaling. I showed the girls some examples from my own personal Journaling Bible and then directed their attention to the examples I had hanging around the room.
The girls and their mothers began the process by choosing a verse or passage to journal and deciding how they wanted to journal it. Then the creative work began.
As in weeks past, some of the participants used one of my example verses (1 Peter 1:18-19 or Psalm 51:14-15), some chose a personal favorite verse, others consulted the list of Suggested Verses I had available for them.
- Each participant created a journal entry: some were composed of words only; some included art.
- Some of the art included: creative lettering from week one, doodling from week two, and/or drawing.
- One young lady asked if she could journal the same verse she used last week for Verse Mapping. (Oh yes, more time for her to spend with her Heavenly Father on this verse He keeps bringing to her mind.)
- Some of the girls brought elements of Praying the Scripture in Color and/or Verse Mapping into their journal entries.
- Discussion abounded as girls were searching for Scriptures on specific topics, asking about song lyrics to go with certain passages, and looking for creative ways to incorporate lettering and doodling into their work
- Dictionaries, thesauruses, and other reference materials continued to be consulted.
- Girls were excited to take their work home to share with family!
So far this method has been the favorite of most of the group. (I took a quick show-of-hands poll at the close of class.)
Next week they get to Dig Deeper using their method of choice as we wrap up our month with a Workshop event!
