Let My People Go

All through God’s story, there are prophets. A prophet is someone who draws near to God and God draws near to them, and God often gives them a message to share – sometimes with His people, sometimes with a King or a Pharaoh. For the last three weeks, Mr Johnson and Ms Buckley told God’s message through the life of Moses in our morning worship.

God has set things in motion for His people; our part is to look, to listen, and to be still yet ready to move so that we are responsive to what God calls us to do. This is what Miriam does, what Moses does with the burning bush and at the Red Sea.

When we heard the story of Moses’ birth, the children discussed what they knew about babies. We wondered if God’s people could see fish in the water when the Red Sea parted to let them through. We learned what a wilderness is, and how to trust God when walking through it.

Over the last few years, Mustard Seed School teachers have begun implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into the curriculum and teaching practices. In the fall of 2020, teachers began a year-long professional development study in UDL with instructors from CAST. Universal Design for Learning says that all students should receive equitable opportunities to reach high standards.

In these three weeks of worship I wanted to incorporate these three UDL guidelines:

• Provide options for perception – offer alternatives for auditory and visual information
• Provide options for language & symbols –  illustrate through multiple media and promote understanding across languages
• Provide options for comprehension – activate or supply background knowledge, highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas, and relationships

As our preschool students are pre-literate, we convey information in non-written forms; through oral retelling in worship, illustrated books in our classroom library, a worship video on an iPad at the storytelling basket. Experiencing the worship story in many different ways helps build the children’s memory of the story. We even taught the class the first two verses of the song, Go Down Moses, using the call and response style of Louis Armstrong.

Students understood the story of Moses in new ways, making connections between the people in the bible, stories they have heard before, and their own lives.

Prayer

All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness

Show me your ways, O Lord,

And teach me Your paths.