The OUUF Children’s program is off to a tremendous start! We have already completed the five weeks of the year with a few of the projects from the Tapestry of Faith, Windows and Mirrors curriculum. Learn more about the children’s program on the Children’s Religious Exploration (CRE) page.

Week 1: Return, ice breaker, hello again!

Together with the younger students, we celebrated the return to in-person classes at the sanctuary, got to know each other again, and created a covenant that established how we would create a safe and supportive environment for each other. Each of us signed the covenant.

Then, we each drew a picture of a chalice using crayon resist and watercolor. After that it was a rousing game of charades.

Week 2: Review

This week, Amara reviewed the previous year’s study of world religions by showing the activities we kept in our notebooks to Asha and Arun, our newest members. Then we went outside since it was still nice outside and fall was on the way. Better take advantage of that before the rain comes!

Week 3: Jelly Beans

This is the week we started the Tapestry of Faith Windows and Mirrors program, with the Me in Faith/Faith in Community unit.

Learning Objectives

• Hear a story in which a lesson from church helps a child solve a problem, and extrapolate how their own religious education can be relevant to their own, daily life experiences

Story: Jelly Beans

We read the story Jelly Beans.

Discussion questions:

• Have you ever been like John in this story-bothered by someone who is mean to you?
• What have you done when “your Bob” has bothered you?
• Has it worked?
• Have you ever behaved like Bob? Bothered someone else?
• What is an enemy?
• What does “feed your enemy” mean?
• Why might this work?
• How did it work in this story?
• How do you think Bob felt when John was nice to him?
• Has anyone ever tried this with an enemy or with someone being mean? Can you think of a situation where you might try it?
• Why might you not want to try it?
• What else, besides feeding, might work as an act of kindness?

Activity

We used the unit worksheet to calculate how much money we could save in a year if we saved 10 cents a day in different scenarios. (Since the original worksheet was written in 2010, we figured out how much that would be worth today. That turned out to be .09 cents, so we rounded up.)

Then we created piggy bank jars to save those dimes. Our homework was to decide with our families which charity we would be donating the money to at the end of the year.

Weeks 4 and 5

These weeks will get their own posts. Stay tuned!