In 1996, under the leadership of Ardys Sabin, Spirit of Hope United Methodist Church took the plunge and converted our traditional Sunday School to the workshop rotation model. (Learn more about the workshop rotation model at: www.rotation.org) Essentially, the new model is a “hands-on” lab based approach that takes advantage of the fact that people learn in different ways. At Spirit of Hope we used seven different labs.
– Church Mouse (computers)
– Mary and Martha’s Kitchen (cooking and foods)
– Thou Art (arts and crafts studio)
– Abundant Life Theater (videos and popcorn)
– Matter of Faith Science Center (science)
– Father Abraham’s Arcade (games)
– Parable Productions (videotaping of puppets and live drama)
The kids still are grouped in classes by age, but they will go to a different lab on each Sunday. The teachers work with a specific lab rather than a specific grade. For instance, during a five week unit on “Creation”, the first graders might be in the computer lab the first Sunday creating their own multi-media creation stories on the computer. The next Sunday, they might be in the science center learning about the miracle of creation from a scientific point of view. The next week, they might be in the puppet lab performing the story of creation with shadow puppets and having their performance videotaped.