God wants us to know Him and His love, and to share that love with the rest of the world through our lives and the way we choose to live them. During the first few weeks of Chapel, we’ve used a popular hand signal to start teaching a simple, yet incredibly important truth, the truth that we are each made in the image of love.

To begin our teaching, we put our hands together to form a heart, and then we all “look through our hearts” to see each other. As we do this the children smile at each other, and we tell them we’re all seeing love. We share with the children that this special shape can help us think of love, and that when we look through our “heart” we are always able to see love, and this is a special gift. Truro Preschool and Kindergarten (TPK) knows that every child is a gift made in the image of love and uniquely created to be a blessing in this world. Throughout the year, we strive to reinforce this truth during our Chapel times.

Our Chapel time monthly themes are as follows:

1. God made ALL of Creation…He made the Earth & everything in it.
2. He made everything out of and because of His great Love.
3. Creation is a gift/we are each a gift.
4. People are unique in creation.
5. People have the gift of free will, which means we can choose our relationships. We can choose to love God and love each other.
6. Love is born of God, He is 3 in 1 (Father, Son/Jesus, Holy Spirit).
7. God is a relationship of Love, in fact He is Love.
8. God invites each of us to be part of this relationship. He invites each of us into His Family.
9. God wants each of us to grow in the love and knowledge of Him, and share this love and knowledge with others.

We started our year in Chapel by teaching about God’s glorious Creation (Genesis 1 & 2) through the different learning styles of visual (see it), auditory (hear it), and kinesthetic (do it) activities. We hope to help the children see themselves and others as the wonderfully created gift they are, enabling them to be better equipped for all the challenges the world can hold. In our uniqueness as people, we are each given the special ability to make choices; every day at TPK we have the privilege of watching your sweet children make so many good choices. They happily share their good choices through the love they demonstrate with us and with their peers, revealing the goodness of Creation within their own daily lives and relationships.

The TPK community believes in the strength and importance of love and relationships. In Chapel, we reinforce this belief and encourage children to build friendships with their classmates, grow their family bonds, and discover that God longs for a loving connection with each of them. Through many examples of relationships, we teach the children about the different aspects of God’s love, assisting them in their ability to demonstrate His love to others and grow in their knowledge of who God is. We teach them of the love we see in scripture, and share many Bible stories during our Chapel time. Each week the Bible helps us teach different aspects of God’s love and how we can live in His likeness.

Our Children’s Chapel is a color filled room with large “stained glass windows,” a special place where we joyfully present scriptural truth each time the children visit the Chapel. During our time together, we all sing our weekly song (“Today is Our Favorite Day”), dance if they choose to, and pray if they like. Their sweet voices are such a delight to hear, and their prayerful words of thanks, praise, and requests for help and healing are precious. The children are eager to hear and take part in our weekly lessons, showing their excitement in their enthusiasm to volunteer for each opportunity to help that the Chapel teachers offer. Each week when our Chapel time ends we share a blessing and the children “catch it and put it in their heart.”

We encourage families to discuss the story of Creation at home and ask your children to share the “Days of Creation” movements with you. Families can also ask children to draw pictures of the different things God made on each of the six days. They loved sharing their ideas for various things in space, plants on the land, creatures of the sky and sea, and so many different animals. It’s been a joyful first few weeks, and we look forward to the many weeks yet to come.

The Children’s Chapel is located on the first floor of TPK. Our Chapel teachers welcome family members of students to join us and observe a Chapel time. We are also happy to answer any questions about our Chapel lessons, so please feel free to come by the Chapel on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons when you pick up your children, the Chapel teachers, Penelope Hayes (Miss Penelope) and Jo Wedan (Miss Jo) would love to meet you. There will be a future Practical Parenting session this year which will be focused on our Chapel teachings; please consider joining us for this opportunity. Fiona Bracy, our director, will let you know the date and time.