More Thoughts About Advent

Learn about the Basic Idea for the Stone Soup Advent Calendar
Add to the Advent Brainstorm.

Having brainstormed with people here and talking to people around about, here's my current thinking about what I want to create within Stone Soup, for this advent calendar:

The basic calendar will look like 24 different numbered Christmas balls against an evergreen background.  Rebecca and maybe other Kluempens are painting balls (circles) that we will scan into the computer. Each day a new ball will be open.  I think that each opened ball will have 4 different buttons that you can click to do different things.

1) Every day will have a new piece for a creche set that you can arrange in whatever way you like.  I'm going to take pictures of a friend's beautiful and large nativity set for this purpose.  People who want to save their arrangement will probably have to download the nativity set to their computer, but I think I can make it so that they only get the pieces that match the days.

2)  Some sort of story or explanation for them to listen to.  A piece of the Bible story, explanation of the words of a Christmas carol, explanation of a memory verse.  I want to keep this short.  I hope to have pictures to go along.  I will probably start this out as a Powerpoint presentation and then record it in Camtasia.

3)  A fun game/quiz to see if you were listening to the story. If it was talk about a Christmas carol, this piece would be a video of the carol, so that they could learn to sing along.   If it was an explanation of a memory verse, this might be a game to help learn the verse.

4) Something fun and different.  Might be a challenge some days.  Might be something educational like a map with ways to learn about how Christmas is celebrated around the world.  Might be just a picture game.  Decorate the wise men's robes.  Put together a crown for King Jesus.  Drag and drop pictures?

We are still at the brainstorming phase:  Anyone have ideas for specifics for this?

Brainstorming divisions of stories, etc.

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it

The next big project for Stone Soup (right now that's just me, but I'm trusting it will not be just me for long)
is going to be an electronic Advent Calendar.  In case anyone is wondering, that means we have a lot to do before December 1, though not all of the pieces need to be firmly in place when it starts.  Ultimately, I'd like it to be available as an app for various mobile devices, but probably for this year it will be a page on Miss Becky's Bible Blog.  Each day, I want there to be something different to do.  Some days might be just listening to a Christmas Carol or a part of the story (told with pictures).  Some days will be games.  I want the games all to be Christmas themed in some way, and as we think of them, we need to think about ways that they would work with both a touch screen and a computer.  Maybe (probably) this year the calendar will not be on touch screen devices, but by next year, I'd like to have an honest-to-goodness app that people can buy (for a dollar or two?) and put on their mobile devices.  It won't have to be totally different from this year's, but we might freshen things up and use what is best from this year, and try some new things.

So here's the first thing that we need.  I need some help brainstorming to create a long list of things related to Christmas (and winter).  They don't have to be particularly religious, but for this purpose, I want to stay away from things like Santa Claus.  So, snowflakes--yes, elves--no.  I think I'm going to put the brainstorming on a separate page.  Put your responses in the comments, and I'll add them to the list.

Click on the wreath to go to the Advent Brainstorm:

SOME NOTES ON HOW STONE SOUP IS GOING TO WORK:

Eventually, there will be a private page that is just for members of the group and their parents.  (It is important for the purpose of internet safety that parents be permitted to see what their children are doing on the internet.)  We'll still have this public page to invite new members in, but our real work will be secret until we are ready to put it on display.  With no members yet, I'm not quite ready to do that.

I am envisioning something of a point system eventually, where you might earn points by contributing to projects.  I want to keep track a little bit of who is contributing at what level.  For now, it's just so you can feel good about yourself.  Later, it may be for earning real things, like the right to take courses (paid for by Windmill Songs Publications) that would help you do things for Stone Soup.  It may also be for the right to take on certain assignments.  If we know that you have contributed successfully in the past, it will be easier to put you on a team, or put you in charge of a team to create something in the future.

For now, whether you want to be part of Stone Soup or not, feel free to make additions to the Advent brainstorm.  And earn a point for each new suggestion you make (i.e. one that someone else hasn't made yet.)

What is the Stone Soup Bible Group?

Stone Soup Bible Group is an idea I've had for quite a while.  I want to create software and books that will help young readers learn to enjoy the Bible. I want to make things that will help them learn the stories, memorize meaningful verses, explore the Bible and get comfortable with how it works, all while having fun at the same time.

I don't want to do this all by myself.  I want to form a group of people who share this vision and want to work together to do this.  I think that those of us who live somewhere near Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania might try to get together once a month or so to talk things over, but I think that we might find people who could only join us by means of the computer because they live too far away.

In my mind, a number of these people will be children 10 years old and older.  That's because I think that children are good people to write simple computer games.  It is a very good way to learn programming, and programming is best learned when you have quite a bit of time to experiment with it.  But I am beginning to think that there may be other people who have time and energy and a willingness to apply themselves to some part of the puzzle.  I think we need people who are willing to learn more than we need people who know how to do this already.  Some of what we need are people who are willing to do some very simple things.  Some of what we need will tax someone's creativity and ingenuity to the limit.

We need, or could use:

People who like to draw
People who like to take photographs
People who have brilliant ideas
People who are willing to work to make other people's brilliant ideas happen
People who like computer games
People who would like to make computer games
People who want to work with recording sounds
People who want to work with editing recorded sounds
People who want to make music
People who want to write songs
People who enjoy researching things
People who want to test things
People who want to figure out what works and what doesn't work

There are probably a lot of other things that we can use that I haven't even thought about yet.

Are you interested?  Would you like to be a part of the Stone Soup Bible Group?

Coming soon will be some information about this.  I may put together a series of Survey Monkey Forms (because for free you can only get forms with 10 questions at  a time), that will help me learn more about what people's interests and resources are.

 Right now, I am spending a good deal of my time learning how to do things, and figuring out what will work and what we will need.  You can see what I have done so far at Miss Becky's Bible Blog.

If you would like to be part of this, or to learn more about it, leave me a comment, or send me email with Stone Soup in the subject line at rrhowell41@aol.com.