National Bahá’í Schools

Ideas from the Committees—Binding Hearts in Fellowship Activities

“Bahá’í Timeline” from Iowa National Bahá’í School

The highlight of their weekend was the storytelling/timeline aspect of the school. Everyone was divided up into small groups and asked to select a story from the history of Bahá’u’lláh’s life. Each group plotted their story on a 40' long paper timeline. Then they did research and prepared a presentation for the rest of the school.

This activity was age-integrated: children, youth and adults together. There was also a lot of diversity in ways to tell stories. Some had dramatic presentations, skits, songs, PowerPoint presentations, video presentations — an amazing array of creativity!

The school’s timeline will be brought to each school session, to be added to with a different theme of Bahá’í history each time. After a few years this will be a very full history of the Faith, while at the same time creating a “history” of the school itself, as friends look back and see what others have added.

Another simple step they took to increase people’s interactions was to cover the long tables at which the friends sat during classes with butcher paper, and provide baskets of crayons or markers at the table — drawing and doodling went on all weekend, resulting in some nice artwork and interchanges.

You can write to Amy Lugsch at: ibsc19@yahoo.com for more info on these activities from Iowa.

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