Sensory visiting bag, church jar

I have my visiting bag but I still want to make it more sensory.

For this I did some research on the internet (oh, how important google is in my job) and thought about previous ideas I have heard.

Based on this I've added various ideas, including a sensory & memory book and some scented jars.

But for this post I wanted to share the church jar with you. The church jar is inspired by some of the work done by the excellent charity, Winston's Wish. This charity do fantastic work helping children and families to cope with serious illness, death and also help those who might be involved with children in these situations. They do this in a variety of ways, some very simple, with advice and also some more creative ways. One of these ways is a feelings jar. It is a jar that has different layers of coloured salt in, each layer of colour chosen for a different emotion the child is feeling. Alternatively it can be used as a memory jar, with each colour representing a different memory. An example of this could be for feelings - red reminds the child of the love the child shared with their parent. An example of memories could be blue to represent the times they went swimming on holiday in the sea.

Based on this inspiring idea I decided to make a church jar. Not only will this be something interesting to share with the children, explaining a bit about church and exploring their feelings about church but it will also be a good for discussing where the idea came from. Some of the children I visit experience loss of a relative, someone from church they cared about or even of a much loved pet. As with adults, the children can experience these emotions in a variety of ways but by having this jar and talking about the inspiration for it may give the children ideas on creating one of their own or thinking about memories they have of someone who may have died or may have just moved away.

The jar I have created brings in the different things I associate with what my church means to me. Each layer relates to a different aspect of church.

layer 1 - white salt. To me this represents Jesus. The purity, the colour of a lamb and the innocence of Jesus. It is the first layer and this is because I think my church is built on the foundation of Jesus and should always be working harder at having Jesus as the focus.

layer 2 - multi-coloured glitter. This represents the people. There is such a variety of people, variety of ages, personalities, experiences, loves and dislikes. But even with their differences they still sparkle together when caught in the light. And glitter gets on everything, my experience when trying to put it in the jar can testify to this, and when we have Jesus as our foundation we can make a difference in all the situations we are in. We can have an affect on people and the situations we are in. There are also lots of different groups and things happening in church.

layer 3 - yellow sand. Very simply the joy and excitement that happens in church.

layer 4 - blue sand. Represents the stillness we have at church. The quietness and prayer time. That there is a place where people care and people listen.

layer 5 - red sand. This links to the communion we share at church and also the range of seasons we celebrate at church. The death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter, the birth of Jesus at Christmas and the thoughts of nature, food for others and more at Harvest.

layer 6 - green sand. Thinking about the different countries in the world that we think of and hoping for peace for all the world.

layer 7 - orange sand. This is partly because I ran out of colours but it just about represents the food we have a church, a lot of our events and groups involve food.

layer 8 - white salt. Jesus should be the beginning and end of all we do and all we are. The alpha and the omega.

I shall blog again with another part of my sensory bag.