Lenten Bootcamp

This year during Lent, we will be running a ‘Lenten Bootcamp' for children in Key Stage 2 and the Faith Leaders each Wednesday during Lent from 3:30pm until 4:45pm. 

The aim of the group will be to foster a deeper understanding of the Season of Lent as a time for change, growth and rebirth on our individual faith journeys. 

Lenten Bootcamp will begin on Ash Wednesday with the final Lenten Bootcamp taking place on the final Wednesday before the Easter Holidays. 

If you have any questions or would like your child to attend but no longer have the reply slip, please feel free to see Miss Armstrong in Year 3 after the half term. 

Week 1 - Lent Focus Bags

Today we put together Lent Focus Bags to take home. We put things in our bags to remind us of the things we are focussing on this Lent to help us grow, change and transform. 

To begin, we wrote Lenten promises to remind us of the extra attention we are going to give prayer, fasting and almsgiving this Lenten Season. 

Inside our bags we put candles and incense to will help us create prayerful spaces at home. We also included a pebble, to remind us of Jesus' time in the desert and to avoid temptation. 

We also included a prayer art card, to remind us that God will always love us no matter what and a special prayer for the people of Ukraine as they are especially in our thoughts. 

Week 2 - Bread making

This week at bootcamp, we shared scripture from Luke's Gospel 4:1-13, where we learnt about Jesus' time in the desert being tempted by the devil. 

We discussed the various temptations we face in life and how by facing these temptations head on and how the pillars of Lent, prayer, fasting and almsgiving, can help us to avoid temptation and continue to grow closer to God. 

We then baked bread as a reminder of Jesus strength during those 40 days. 

Week 3 

This week during bootcamp, we listened to Luke's Gospel (Luke 13:1-9) in which we heard about the importance of growing in faith by changing our hearts and lives. 

'Jesus told this story: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for some fruit on the tree, but he found none. ⁷ So the man said to his servant who took care of his vineyard, ‘I have been looking for fruit on this tree for three years, but I never find any. Cut it down! Why should it waste the ground?’ ⁸ But the servant answered, ‘Master, let the tree have one more year to produce fruit. Let me dig up the dirt around it and put on some fertilizer. ⁹ Maybe the tree will produce fruit next year. If the tree still doesn’t produce fruit, then you can cut it down."'

We discussed the ways in which we could do this before decorating our own plant pots, adding the words 'help me to grow closer to you' and planted Narcissus bulbs in them. 

Children were set the challenge of taking home their plants and giving them everything they need to grow strong and healthy. We discussed using their daily watering time as an opportunity and reminder to say a little prayer to God to help our relationship with him grow strong too. 

Week 4 

This week we shared the story of the Prodigal Son. We thought carefully about the message in this story and how willing the Father was to offer forgiveness to his son. Despite everything that had happened between them, because the son returned home ready to change his life, he welcomed him home with open arms. Just as God will always do for us.

Together, we created and enjoyed playing a board game telling the story of the events of the parable. 

Week 5 

This evening, in our final Lenten Bootcamp for this year, we heard the story from this coming Sunday's Gospel, which describes the events that took place that first Palm Sunday. 

We thought about how quickly things changed for Jesus from his triumphant journey into Jerusalem, to his crucifixion just days later. 

We thought about the sacrifice Jesus made for us later during that very Holy Week and how that sacrifice still changes us to this day. 

As a reminder of this, we created our own resurrection gardens. We added tea lights to represent the joy the Risen Christ brings as our Saviour and Light of the World inside the tombs, which will remain sealed until Easter Sunday.