Our Spiritual Education Program is divided into 5 age groups, Nursery (infant to age 2), Sunflowers (ages 3 to 5), Holy Cows (ages 6 - 8 ), Barn Kids (ages 9 - 11) and Youth (Grades 9 to age 19) 
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Moral Tales – Holy Cows
Every day our children go forth into a complex world where they are often faced with difficult decisions and situations. Moral Tales attempts to provide children with the spiritual and ethical tools they will need to make choices and take actions reflective of their Unitarian Universalist beliefs and values. As Kevin Ryan and Karen Bohlin suggest in their book, Building Character in Schools, stories such as the ones woven throughout Moral Tales can activate and inform children's learning about how to make moral choices.
The first five sessions make up the Seeking Truth/Discernment unit of Moral Tales. Participants are encouraged to draw upon inner resources such as conscience, intuition and empathy; spiritual resources such as faith, prayer and forgiveness; and external resources that include wise teachers and the larger community.
Each session has a central story in which participants meet real and fictional heroes and heroines who have displayed moral courage and spiritual greatness. They will hear about characters who have struggled, but who have chosen justice, goodness, and love. A letter to parents explaining the Gems of Goodness Project (introduced in Session 2 and continued through the remainder of the program) is attached. Children will have regular opportunities to create and share their own stories, in which they are actors for justice and goodness.
. Session 1: We Are All One
. Session 2: Conscience: Hearing The Inner Voice
. Session 3: Faith, Hope and Prayer
. Session 4: In Another's Shoes
. Session 5: Forgiveness
. Session 6: Welcome One and All
. Session 7: Seeing Others with Awe
. Session 8: Do unto Others
. Session 9: Generosity: Give and Ye Shall Receive
. Session 10: Footprints: Treading Softly on Earth
. Session 11: Do No Harm
. Session 12: Making a Difference
. Session 13: Justice for All
. Session 14: Courage
. Session 15: Courage and Perseverance
. Session 16: Working Together
Love Surrounds Us - Sunflowers
At the core of our Unitarian Universalist community are our seven Principles. The Principles encompass all the ingredients of a good and faith-filled life based on equality, freedom, peace, acceptance, truth, care, and love. This program explores all the Principles in the context of Beloved Communty of family/home, school, neighborhood. Participants engage in activities that emphasize the love they feel in community.
. Session 1: Love Surrounds Us
. Session 2: Love Surrounds Us Sharing
. Session 3: New Friends
. Session 4: Forgiveness
. Session 5: Love Surrounds Us Without Boundaries
. Session 6: Acceptance
. Session 7: Love Surrounds Us In Ritual
. Session 8: Love Surrounds Us In Our History
. Session 9: Love Surrounds Us In Our Search
. Session 10: Our Words Matter
. Session 11: Hear Our Voices
. Session 12: A Peaceful and Fair World
. Session 13: Peaceful Choices
. Session 14: Love Surrounds Us In Nature
. Session 15: Caring For The Earth . Session 16: Our UU Principles
Amazing Grace: Exploring Right and Wrong - Barn Kids
The purpose of Riddle and Mystery is to assist sixth Graders in their own search for understanding. Each of the 16 sessions introduces and processes a big question. The first three echo Paul Gauguin's famous triptych: Where do we come from? Wat are we? Where are we going? The next ten, including Does God exist? and What happens when you die?, could be found on almost anyone's list of basic life inquiries. The final three are increasingly Unitarian Universalist: Can we ever solve life's mystery? How can I know what to believe? What does Unitarian Universalism mean to me?
. Session 1: The Big Questions
. Session 2: Religion to the Rescue
. Session 3: Looking Toward Tomorrow
. Session 4: Thinking of God
. Session 5: Out of Nothing
. Session 6: Thinking of Death
. Session 7: Stuff Happens
. Session 8: Speaking of Fair
. Session 9: Right and Wrong
. Session 10: To Tell the Truth
. Session 11: Touching All
. Session 12: The Future and Me
. Session 13: Oh My Soul
. Session 14: Life as Mystery
. Session 15: What to Believe
. Session 16: UU Me | |
