NEWS from Religious Education • Emily Carroll, DRE – July, 2019

As our main curricula finish, and most of our team of amazing volunteer teachers takes a time of rest, we turn toward the playful spirit of summer! Our mission is family ministry that develops wisdom and resilience with UU values and action, builds relationships across the ages, and serves by learning and building connections within the congregation and beyond!

We are delighted to offer two activities on any given Sunday in addition to our nursery class. For the first half of the summer Joyce Lombard will be leading a fabulous mask-making project where kids will form masks to their faces using wet plaster gauze! After painting and decorating, masks will be displayed in the Green Room Gallery! For the younger kids, we’ll have a Music and Principles curriculum where musician guests from the congregation will share their instruments with the kids as we uphold our 7 UU principles with story, craft, and song!

Part two of the summer starts July 28 with activities around reading “Magical Monkey King: Mischief in Heaven” about the Chinese trickster God who gets away with lots of mischief! It’s about taming the monkey mind and learning the meaning of kindness. We’ll create shadow puppets to act out the story as we go!

The other option for the second half of summer is to be part of a Growing Young Justice Makers curriculum for children and youth to understand the complexities of conversations on race, participate in service projects, identify and heed the voice of their conscience, and ground their justice work in UU values.

We are also over the moon excited for the second annual Peace Camp at UU Ventura which is in early August! It is a weeklong day camp for K-8th grade that uses a musical curriculum to teach peacemaking, conflict resolution, and social justice, including three field trips! Register at: tinyurl.com/y2xlxh3u

Wishing everyone a lovely change of pace as the season turns, and from a book I try to read every summer: “Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.” Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Three Cheers for Summer,
Emily Carroll, Director of Religious Education emily@uuventura.org