Ground Zero Calling... All cadets: report to your space stations for blast off. If you were in the education building Sunday mornings at 9:30, you might hear this call to all children to head for the B.L.A.S.T. (Bible Learning Adventure Stations) where we use WoRM (Workshop Rotation Model) classes.
What is all this WoRM and B.L.A.S.T. stuff you may wonder if you haven't been around Children's Sunday school for 20 or so years. Let me bring you Back to the Future so to speak.
WoRM is a way of doing Christian Education that has proven to be the wave of the future in childrens education. It makes use of all the research done in the past decade on multiple intelligences, which informs us that children learn and retain what they learn best, when they use their preferred learning style.
Some of us learn better if the material is presented through art, others through music, others through drama, storytelling, science, etc. A theme is chosen for the overall program (our teachers chose a space theme) and set to transforming our childrens education rooms into the Faith Adventure Lab.
When you venture in, you'll find the walls and halls decorated with spacemen, rockets, asteroids and planet artwork. You will enter through the space tunnel where over the entrance you will read "All who enter these portals pass through time." Once in the space tunnel you will feel as if you are back in Biblical times as you move past the walls decorated with scenes from the lessons under study. Rooms are named according to the type of activity that goes on in them.
Children rotate each Sunday to a different room. On the first Sunday of the rotation, in the Galaxy Theater, children watch a movie (complete with popcorn and drink), which introduces the Bible story that is the focus of the month. Space Crafts is the station to which the cadets rotate on the second Sunday of the rotation. Here they read the story from the Bible and reinforce the message in their minds through a creative activity such as an art or cooking project. On the last Sunday of the rotation children rotate to the Have-a-Blast Station where the same Bible story is presented in a different way and the children participate in games, which reinforce what they have learned.
Presenting the same Bible story multiple times in multiple ways maximizes the childrens ability to retain what they have learned. Dedicated, enthusiastic teachers staff the space stations and instruct the budding cadets.