Making cookies in First Day School

On Sunday I actually was inspired by the Presbyterian pastor’s children’s sermon to change my own lesson for First Day School. The original lesson that I was planning to teach was pretty lame. Or shall we say, it needs a little work.

The new lesson was: just as there are different recipes for cookies, so there are different recipes for church. Some people like one kind better than another, but they are all still really cookies/religious communities. I pointed out that it matters how you follow the recipe, using the pastor’s example of what happened when they used two cups of baking soda instead of two teaspoons. (Like bricks!) I even got to the point that there are some things you can change in a recipe, like using margarine versus butter, that don’t matter very much and there are somethings that if changed, they completely change what the result is. Like replacing oatmeal with chopped brussels sprouts – not oatmeal cookies anymore! But I did not get into the theological corollary of what can or cannot be changed in a religion. What I most regret not including is why I like the Quaker recipe best.

9:30 in the morning was a bit late to be changing the whole plan, but it worked out all right. I had time to run home and get all the ingredients and equipment we would need. This Sunday was our Meeting’s annual Children’s Day celebration, so it worked out well to have a lesson that could engage a wide range of children, ages 4-12. And then the children had snickerdoodles to contribute to the potluck.

If I had had a little more time to prepare, I would have worked out a better pedagogy for introducing the lesson and eliciting the conclusions. As it was, we talked a little bit about our favorite cookies and what we know about other churches and then we just made the cookies. The objectives of having fun and building community were well served.