Barrow benefice has organised several bespoke children’s nature trails over the past two summers. The first was at Barrow churchyard with Barrow CEVC School. They spent the morning of 8th July 2021 following our specially designed nature trail that weaves in and out of the abundance of wildflowers and grasses that we have left to thrive as part of our Eco Church initiative.
The children visited in their classes learning about God’s creation and there were four prayer stations set up along the route:
The Creation Story
The environment and our Eco Project
Psalm 8
Using floating mini prayer letters and thinking about the weather
God made the animals and humans
We are fearfully and wonderfully made and as animals have their own unique markings, so do we and we are all unique and loved by God. Children had Psalm 139 on a handprint card and even a fingerprint poster, illustrating our uniqueness that they made to take back to school. It was so encouraging to see the children being very attentive, listening carefully and keen to answer questions and to share their knowledge; we think we identified a future David Attenborough or Greta Thunberg in there somewhere!
The headteacher, Helen Ashe, wrote to say:
“Thank you so much for a really lovely morning for the whole school at the church. The feedback from the staff was very positive! It was lovely to see the church from a different perspective and spend time in the grounds. The activities were all lovely and very well run.”
In 2022 we ran the creation trail at St Giles Church, Risby for Risby CVEC primary school. We held a nature trail for Risby Pre School and Fornham and Risby Brownies came on a nature scavenger hunt.
Rev Nicola shares the Creation story with the school children from Risby School.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Fornham and Risby Brownies came on a nature scavenger hunt at St Giles Church, Risby June 2022
