by Admin | Mar 16, 2020 | Children Programs, Children's Curriculum, News (home), Religious Ed News
Dear Families,
Here is a DIY Religious Education lesson from a colleague Andrew Coate! If children complete all seven, they will earn an embroidered badge!!
To ensure folks have adequate resources, are feeling safe, and to see what type of support you’d like from us, from digital worship video, Hangouts for your children/ youth, activity kits, and book bundles, please let us know! Huge shout out to Krista Mendelsohn, Kendall Lynch, and Tim Holmes for helping me reach out to all families
The story on Sunday involves a family making a bird feeder at home! Laurie Lemson and I are going to put some kits together on Wednesday morning, and folks are welcome to pick up bird feeders from the church on Wednesday afternoon! Please be in touch.
Lastly, I’d love for the UU Ventura Parenting Group to be a space you can ask for help. If you need supplies, someone to watch your kids, if someone falls ill and you need support, or if you just need to vent, I am here for you. We are here for you!
Armfuls of love,
Emily, Director of Religious Education
Pronouns: She/ her/ hers
by Admin | Mar 15, 2020 | Children Programs, Children's Curriculum, News (home), Religious Ed News
Our First Principle
There are 7 principles in Unitarian Universalism. Our first principle is “Every Person is Important.” Read or listen to Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña and then complete two of these three challenges.
Challenge 1: CJ and his grandmother travel from their church to a soup kitchen where they help out. There are a lot of different places and ways you can help out, too. Think of a way you could help out or volunteer and then draw a picture of that activity. Examples might be donating clothes, writing letters to lawmakers, or helping fix up a trail you like to hike on with your family. Have your parents send me a picture of your art!
Challenge 2: While they’re traveling CJ and his grandmother are on the bus they travel down familiar streets across their city. Use Google Maps Street View to take a virtual walk around the neighborhood. Then pick somewhere else far away. It may be a city in another country you don’t know anything about or an address near a faraway friend. Take a virtual walk around that neighborhood and talk about what it might be like to live there. What is similar to your neighborhood? What is different?
Challenge 3: At first CJ is bored on the bus, but then he starts noticing the people around him on the bus. Call a friend and ask them how they are doing. Maybe make plans to talk again soon or try playing a game together on the computer or via video chat.
Which challenges did you complete?
by Admin | Sep 29, 2019 | Children's Curriculum, News (home), Religious Ed News
After a lovely summer, it has been powerful to come back together as a community for ingathering and fall classes. One parent said it’s amazing to see how comfortable her son is in this community after he stood and volunteered to speak in a worship service. We seek to provide a space for children to feel a sense of safety and belonging, and also learn and grow in a community that holds us all accountable when we see injustice.
One community I have belonged to for over ten years is the young adult camp at De Benneville Pines, a Unitarian Universalist campground in the San Bernardino mountains. The theme this year was radical resilience, and I experienced the value of centering joy to promote resilience, as collective joy disrupts oppression, and is a revolutionary act. With all that each of our hearts is holding, and as our hearts break with all that we see, may we not take this community for granted. May we offer a meal, a cup of tea, a warm hug, a listening ear, a smile, and center joy, as we work, despite it all.
The Religious Education team is excited about our fall course offerings! The youth are undertaking the longstanding tradition of Unitarian Universalist teens visiting other faith communities within our city. Crossing Paths is the latest rendition, which uses the lens of analyzing what problem each religious notices, and which solution they provide. The upper elementary students will use Sing to the Power, a Tapestry of Faith curriculum that affirms our Unitarian Universalist heritage of confronting “powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.” Participants experience their own power, and understand how it can help them to be leaders. The lower elementary will use the Soul Matters theme-based ministry packets for religious education to deepen the connection to the monthly themes with age appropriate activities, including a wonder box! I’d love to speak more with you about these classes if you have questions or comments.
With Armfuls of Love,
Emily Carroll
Director of Religious Education
by Emily Carroll | Feb 14, 2019 | Children Programs, Children's Curriculum
Dear UUCV Community,
This month we explore what it means to be a people of trust, and one way we do that is by creating covenant. Every congregation has covenanted to “affirm and promote” our 7 Principles and at the end of that statement, it continues ”As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.” That is a beautiful north star or guide post as we interact with each other, and yet we fall short!
Despite the horror of God deciding to destroy most life with a flood in the story of Noah, there is a beautiful mention of promises I’d like to lift up from the Bible: “And as a sign of my covenant with you I will put a rainbow in the clouds. And every time you see a rainbow it will remind you of our covenant to create and preserve life.”Genesis 9:12-13
So in this rainy season when I’ve already seen several rainbows, I invite you to consider the north stars of your own life and remember what guides you. We are here to support each other, love each other, and bring out the best in each other in community, as we are a people who crave love, connection, and belonging.
May we remember and trust that change is possible, and love each other tenderly as we work to change the world. In the words of Katie Covey, “When trust is broken, we are wounded, and wounds leave scars… Sometimes, our own Unitarian Universalist denomination betrayed the trust of Unitarian Universalist people of color… Right now, by telling stories and understanding racism, we are trying to take steps to create the trust we wish we had.”
Armfuls of love,
Emily Carroll
Director of Religious Education
emily@uuventura.org
by Admin | Jan 23, 2018 | Children's Curriculum
Rainbow Connection! An introduction to the 7 UU principles, which are strong values and moral guides. We use storybooks to focus on the values inherent in each principle.
A central concept of Unitarian Universalism is the seven Principles that all congregations affirm and promote. These principles are considered to be strong values and moral guides that each of may use to guide our lives.
Although preschool children are too young to memorize the Principles, we can begin to acquaint them with the ideas behind the Principles. We can focus on the values inherent in each.
The Rainbow Connection uses storybooks for preschoolers to discuss those values inherent in the Principles and in Unitarian Universalism. Four sessions are devoted to each principle, helping preschoolers to explore the values that unite us as UUs.
by Kitty Merrill | Dec 15, 2015 | Children's Curriculum
Honest, accurate information about sexuality changes lives. It dismantles stereotypes and assumptions, builds self-acceptance and self-esteem, fosters healthy relationships, improves decision making, and has the potential to save lives. For these reasons and more, we are proud to offer Our Whole Lives, a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum, in the winter/spring of 2017 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ventura (UUCV), for youth grades 10th-12th this year.
Although developed by two religious organizations, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, Our Whole Lives contains no religious references or doctrine. The program helps participants make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and behavior, and equips them with accurate, age-appropriate information in six subject areas: human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture. Grounded in a holistic, secular view of sexuality, Our Whole Lives provides facts about anatomy and human development, and empowers participants to clarify their values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional, and social aspects of human sexuality.
Our Whole Lives uses approaches that work, and is widely taught in the United States in both faith based and non-religious settings, including public, charter, and private schools; after-school programs; youth groups; home schoolers; colleges; correctional facilities; and more. The curricula is based on the Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education produced by leading health, education, and sexuality professionals assembled by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. For more information about OWL, visit: http://www.uua.org/re/owl/
We begin OWL at the end of January 2018 with a Parent Orientation (Overview of the entire OWL Program) at UUCV from 12:00 -1:30 in the Green Room. We will provide lunch and childcare. This is a great opportunity to ask questions and learn about the program. A calendar of class dates will be available at the orientation. The first class will tentatively begin February 2018.
We require a minimum of ten committed students to offer OWL, which runs for 8 – 14 weeks on Sunday afternoons, except for holiday weekends. This program is open to all children and youth of Ventura County, and friends of UUCV youth/children are especially encouraged to participate. Each participant must commit to attend all the classes, except for cases of illness or emergency. Parents are required to attend the Parent Orientation and to give written parental permission for their child to attend the program. Parents will also be expected to provide a lunch for their student each week and snacks for one session for all students in their child’s class.
To register your child, please contact me at emily@uuventura.org. I encourage you to email with any questions as well. This is fantastic opportunity, and we want as many children and youth to have the chance to participate as possible.
805-644-3898 (x103)
emily@uuventura.org
