Curriculum (Grades K-8) 2020-21
In this unprecedented time, the UUFA is dedicated to providing a quality educational experience for all of our students. To that end, supplemental activities and class activity materials (art supplies, worksheets, take-home activities) are being provided to registered families. Materials can be picked up between 1:00 and 5:00 pm on the dates listed on this page (subject to change, depending on weather and family availability, families will be notified ahead of time of any changes), and others will be delivered to homes after 5:30 pm during these weeks. Please contact the Religious Educator (releducator@uufames.org) if you would like to arrange delivery or schedule a different pickup time.
Curriculum Overview
Kindergarten and First Grade:
This year, the Kindergarten and 1st grade age group will learn from two separate curricula. Introductions to each curriculum are listed below. Students will receive all necessary lesson plans in advance, whether they are delivered or picked up from the fellowship.
Wonderful Welcome:
Welcome. Welcome in love. Welcome in friendship. Welcome in faith. The Wonderful Welcome curriculum engages and challenges leaders and children alike to explore how and why we are willing to welcome others into our lives. We welcome not only strangers, but family, our peers, our neighbors and even entities that are not people such as our animal friends and nature itself. How do we welcome? We welcome by sharing intangible gifts, those positive qualities which we all have inside us such as kindness, love, invitation, covenant and empathy. In this program, children learn to articulate and express a variety of intangible gifts, empowering them to share these gifts with others.
The intangible gifts explored in Wonderful Welcome are all components of welcoming itself, a core Unitarian Universalist value. This program helps children understand and practice other values central to Unitarian Universalism such as friendship, hospitality, and fairness. It offers children safe, positive and intentional ways to relate to one another, the people in their families, and the world around them as they investigate how they use gifts they can't see or touch to welcome others into their lives. Children will think about the intangible gifts they bring into the world, and the intangible gifts they receive. When and how do they get love from others? When and how do they show empathy? Who has given them the gift of friendship? How do they show that they want to be someone's friend? What does "helping" look like?
Objectives:
- Expand children's understanding of their relationships with others, including people they know, people they will meet and all life that shares our planet
- Create opportunities for children to identify and practice a wide variety of welcoming behaviors; activate children's capacity to welcome many manifestations of the interconnected web of life, including people, animals and the natural environment
- Teach children the concept of "intangible gifts," qualities that can be shared but cannot be seen or held
- Teach the importance of welcoming as an act of Unitarian Universalist faith and as an expression of our Unitarian Universalist Principles
- Develop and enrich children's sense of belonging to their religious education peer community, their congregational community and the larger Unitarian Universalist faith community
- Introduce practices of stewardship
- Help children create a shared atmosphere that encourages a sense of reverence, awe, gratitude and wonder.
Love Surrounds Us:
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 Community. The program concentrates on the communities that are most recognizable to kindergarteners and first graders—their Beloved Communities of family/home, school, neighborhood. Participants engage in activities that emphasize the love they feel in community.
Objectives:
- Teach the seven Unitarian Universalist Principles
- Develop connections among love, the Principles, and the communities of home, school, faith, and world
- Lift up Unitarian Universalism and the Principles in activities and stories
- Teach children skills for forgiveness, love, sharing, acceptance, caring, and peace in a loving community
- Explore rituals that help us focus on and celebrate UU Principles.
Second and Third Grades:
This year, the 2nd and 3rd grade age group will learn from Cartuuns. This is a brand new curriculum to this fellowship, and involves both in-class and optional take-home activities including crafts, recipes, and more! Introduction to Cartuuns is below. Students will receive all necessary lesson plans in advance, whether they are delivered or picked up from the Fellowship.
Cartuuns
Capturing a child’s attention today can be difficult. Widespread television viewing, video game playing, and internet surfing has created an environment where children need visual stimulation, and some form of entertainment, to maintain interest. There is no reason why children can’t have fun while they are learning; judicial use of children’s entertainment can be used to help children process their feelings and for exploration of values and ethics. This curriculum uses animated shorts from Pixar and Disney to facilitate discussion around values, ethics, and feelings. The shorts are short in length, with most running between three and eleven minutes; the short length will alleviate boredom, and allow all children to see the animation in its entirety, grounding the discussion in a shared experience.
Objectives:
- Give students flexibility during class time
- Allow children to use UU language outside of class
- Challenge children to question media and become open to other interpretations
- Engage children in video media through a shortened timeframe
Fourth and Fifth Grades:
This year, the 4th and 5th grade age group will learn from two separate curricula. Introductions to each curriculum are listed below. Students will receive all necessary lesson plans in advance, whether they are delivered or picked up from the fellowship. This class will participate in short-term “Faith in Action” projects, which will be administered via class or in their handouts. There will not be a Faith in Action project each week, but the students will learn about the projects before they happen. FIA projects could be as simple as reading an internet article, or as broad as completing a “challenge” (like writing a short paragraph about a subject, or completing a worksheet with an adult.)
Windows and Mirrors
Windows and Mirrors nurtures children's ability to identify their own experiences and perspectives and to seek out, care about and respect those of others. The sessions unpack topics that lend themselves to diverse experiences and perspectives—for example, faith heritage, public service, anti-racism and prayer. The program teaches that there are always multiple viewpoints and everyone's viewpoint matters. The metaphor of windows and mirrors represents the dynamic relationship among our awareness of self, our perceptions of others, and others' perceptions of us. Beginning in Session 2, an ongoing art activity gives children a way to respond to the metaphor creatively and concretely. Participants do guided work on individual Window/Mirror Panels in each session to explore looking inward and looking outward in terms of the session's topic. As a mirror, the panel reflects the individual child. As a window, it represents their view and connections beyond themselves to the congregation, other communities to which they belong and the world.
Objectives:
- Present Unitarian Universalism as a faith that is lived out through identifying and acting on responsibility toward one another
- Introduce the reality and the impact of multiple perspectives and multiple experiences as we live in this world
- Use the metaphor of a window and a mirror to help children better understand themselves in relation to others
- Present the windows and mirrors metaphor as an effective tool for understanding and living our Unitarian Universalist Principles
- Guide children to identify and respect their own values, views and needs as well as those of others in a variety of contexts; teach that to do so is a faith practice
- Provide children with practice in observation, interpretation and critical thinking
- Develop children's empathy, open-mindedness and respect for differences, seen and unseen.
Sing to the Power
The word "power" often has a negative connotation. It may remind us of the corruption that seems inevitable when people pursue power for its own sake. We may feel overwhelmed by the power of giant institutions. But everyone has power, and the capacity to choose how and when to use it. Sing to the Power 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. Sing to the Power uses a metaphor of the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—as a framework to explore different forms of power. Four four-session units explore each element. The four elements are illustrated with a large paper or fabric wall hanging begun in the first session and decorated throughout the program.
Objectives:
- Explore kinds of power that can be used to create positive change
- Enrich Unitarian Universalist identity with stories of people who used their power for the sake of "justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love"
- Develop participants' sense of themselves as leaders
- Promote exercising one's own powers to create positive change, even in very small ways
- Build community, with an emphasis on the power of religious community to change the world for the better.
Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Grades:
This year, the middle school age group will learn from the new Building Bridges curriculum. The introduction to this curriculum is below. Students will receive all necessary lesson plans in advance, whether they are delivered or picked up from the fellowship.
This program will bookend well with Holy Days and Holidays/World Faiths, which each student in the middle school age group will have completed, and the Coming of Age program. Please contact the Religious Educator with any questions.
Building Bridges
Building Bridges is a world religions program to deepen youth's understanding of the dynamic, fascinating, and varied world in which they live. It seeks to broaden their knowledge of humanity and embolden their spiritual search.
The program is organized roughly chronologically, capturing the strong parallel between societal change and religious evolution over human history. The Religions Time Line helps illustrate the emergence of religions in clusters at different points in history. However, this is not a history course. It is a series of workshops that attempts to lovingly and reverently examine some of the closest kept treasures of the human heart. This exploration nurtures participants' positive outlook toward other faiths and the people who follow them. To study religion together is to invite a certain amount of discomfort for individuals and conflict in a group. This program provides youth a unique opportunity to engage the world's diversity of faiths in a safe, affirming atmosphere that is grounded in Unitarian Universalist faith. As facilitators, acknowledge tensions and disagreement and model how to work toward understanding. Help create an environment where respectful exploration and questioning are encouraged, where differences are encountered with open minds and hearts.
Objectives:
- Increase knowledge of religions practiced around the world and in local communities
- Understand how religion addresses basic human needs
- Fosters acceptance of the diverse forms that religious expression takes
- Build awareness of the diversity of followers within every faith; understand that to know someone's religious identity is not the same as knowing what that person thinks, believes, or practices
- Support the faith development of participants
- Empower youth to better appreciate human diversity and connect with others and be able to respectfully discuss important matters with people with whom they disagree
- Nurture open-mindedness and critical inquiry.
Faith in Action Project:
The 6th-8th grade class will complete a long-term Faith in Action project, which they will work on through the program year. This project will be to create a fundraiser to raise money for their chosen charity. This charity will be chosen by the students in April of 2021, with the fundraiser beginning that month as well. Students will need to discuss ways to raise money and awareness for their chosen charity which could include the possibility of reaching out to other congregations, talking to classmates or family and even creating a video/speech to read in service.
Students will receive handouts and materials for each class. Among these handouts will be a “Response to service”. This worksheet can be completed during the last service of each month, which middle students may attend instead of Soul Matters. When students complete the “response to service”, they can then share it with their class during the start of the next month’s classes during the following week. Completing these take home worksheets will earn the students ‘points’, which they can use while voting for their charities in April. The more Soul Matters services you attend, the more worksheets you can fill out, and the more points you can earn! If you have more points, you have more votes when it comes time to vote for charities for the Faith in Action project.
Schedule 2020-2021
| Kindergarten and First Grade: | |||
| September 13, 2020 | The Gift of Covenant | ||
| September 20, 2020 | The Gift of Forgiveness | ||
| September 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Renewal) | ||
| October 4, 2020 | The Gift of Invitation | ||
| October 11, 2020 | The Gift of Friends | ||
| October 18, 2020 | The Gift of Helping | ||
| October 25, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Deep Listening) | ||
| November 1, 2020 | The Gift of Families | ||
| November 8, 2020 | The Gift of Mutual Caring | ||
| November 15, 2020 | The Gift of Protection | ||
| November 22, 2020 | The Gift of Stewardship | ||
| November 29, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Healing) | ||
| December 6, 2020 | The Gift of Learning Together | ||
| December 13, 2020 | The Gift of Ourselves and Spirit | ||
| December 20, 2020 | The Gift of Community | ||
| December 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Stillness) | ||
| January 3, 2021 | Love Surrounds Us | ||
| January 10, 2021 | New Friends | ||
| January 17, 2021 | Forgiveness | ||
| January 24, 2021 | Acceptance | ||
| January 31, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Imagination) | ||
| February 7, 2021 | Love Surrounds Us in Ritual | ||
| February 14, 2021 | Love Surrounds Us in Our History | ||
| February 21, 2021 | Love Surrounds Us in Our Search | ||
| February 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Beloved Community) | ||
| March 7, 2021 | Our Words Matter | ||
| March 14, 2021 | Hear Our Voices | ||
| March 21, 2021 | A Peaceful and Fair World | ||
| March 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Commitment) | ||
| April 4, 2021 | Peaceful Choices | ||
| April 11, 2021 | Love Surrounds Us in Nature | ||
| April 18, 2021 | Our UU Principles | ||
| April 25, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Becoming) | ||
| May 2, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 9, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 16, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 23, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 30, 2021 | Religious Education Sunday | ||
| Second and Third Grades: | |||
| September 6, 2020 | Mike's New Car | ||
| September 13, 2020 | Lou | ||
| September 20, 2020 | La Luna | ||
| September 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Renewal) | ||
| October 4, 2020 | Tin Toy | ||
| October 11, 2020 | Jack-Jack Attack | ||
| October 18, 2020 | Mater and the Ghostlight | ||
| October 25, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Deep Listening) | ||
| November 1, 2020 | Sanjay's Super Team | ||
| November 8, 2020 | Geri's Game | ||
| November 15, 2020 | Presto | ||
| November 22, 2020 | Partysaurus Rex | ||
| November 29, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Healing) | ||
| December 6, 2020 | The Legend of Mor'du | ||
| December 13, 2020 | Dug's Special Mission | ||
| December 20, 2020 | BURN-E | ||
| December 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Stillness) | ||
| January 3, 2021 | Partly Cloudy | ||
| January 10, 2021 | Bao | ||
| January 17, 2021 | Paperman | ||
| January 24, 2021 | Red's Dream | ||
| January 31, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Imagination) | ||
| February 7, 2021 | Lifted | ||
| February 14, 2021 | Boundin' | ||
| February 21, 2021 | Piper | ||
| February 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Beloved Community) | ||
| March 7, 2021 | Day & Night | ||
| March 14, 2021 | Feast | ||
| March 21, 2021 | The Blue Umbrella | ||
| March 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Commitment) | ||
| April 4, 2021 | Lava | ||
| April 11, 2021 | One Man Band | ||
| April 18, 2021 | Olaf's Frozen Adventure | ||
| April 25, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Becoming) | ||
| May 2, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 9, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 16, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 23, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 30, 2021 | Religious Education Sunday | ||
| Fourth and Fifth Grades: | |||
| September 13, 2020 | Me in Faith Community, Faith Community in Me | ||
| September 20, 2020 | We Need Not Think Alike to Love Alike | ||
| September 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Renewal) | ||
| October 4, 2020 | Building a Community of Forgiveness | ||
| October 11, 2020 | The Blessing of Imperfection | ||
| October 18, 2020 | All Ages Offer Gifts | ||
| October 25, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Deep Listening) | ||
| November 1, 2020 | Eyes on the Prize | ||
| November 8, 2020 | Lean on Me | ||
| November 15, 2020 | Service is the Rent We Pay for Living | ||
| November 22, 2020 | Privilege is a Blessing We Give Away to be in Community | ||
| November 29, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Healing) | ||
| December 6, 2020 | Making Visible the Invisible | ||
| December 13, 2020 | Images of Injustice | ||
| December 20, 2020 | Choose to be UU | ||
| December 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Stillness) | ||
| January 3, 2021 | The Power of Earth | ||
| January 10, 2021 | The Power of Roots | ||
| January 17, 2021 | The Power of Growth | ||
| January 24, 2021 | The Power of Stillness | ||
| January 31, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Imagination) | ||
| February 7, 2021 | The Power of Listening | ||
| February 14, 2021 | The Power to Shine | ||
| February 21, 2021 | The Power of Passion | ||
| February 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Beloved Community) | ||
| March 7, 2021 | The Power of Action | ||
| March 14, 2021 | The Power of Reaching Out | ||
| March 21, 2021 | The Power of Water | ||
| March 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Commitment) | ||
| April 4, 2021 | The Power of Persistence | ||
| April 11, 2021 | The Power of Gathering | ||
| April 18, 2021 | The Power to Make a Change | ||
| April 25, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Becoming) | ||
| May 2, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 9, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 16, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 23, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 30, 2021 | Religious Education Sunday | ||
| Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Grades: | |||
| September 13, 2020 | Treasure Everywhere | ||
| September 20, 2020 | Unitarian Universalism: The Journey Starts at Home | ||
| September 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Renewal) | ||
| October 4, 2020 | Indigenous Religions: The Earth Speaks | ||
| October 11, 2020 | Hinduism: One God, A Thousand Faces | ||
| October 18, 2020 | Judaism 1: The Birth of the Abrahamic Tradition | ||
| October 25, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Deep Listening) | ||
| November 1, 2020 | Judaism 2: People of the Law | ||
| November 8, 2020 | Introduction to Eastern Religions | ||
| November 15, 2020 | Taoism | ||
| November 22, 2020 | Buddhism 1: Waking Up | ||
| November 29, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Healing) | ||
| December 6, 2020 | Buddhism 2: Right Living | ||
| December 13, 2020 | Christianity 1 | ||
| December 20, 2020 | Christianity 2 | ||
| December 27, 2020 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Stillness) | ||
| January 3, 2021 | Islam 1: Peace by Surrender | ||
| January 10, 2021 | Islam 2: Contemporary Issues | ||
| January 17, 2021 | The 1800s: Five New Religions | ||
| January 24, 2021 | Evangelical Christianity | ||
| January 31, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Imagination) | ||
| February 7, 2021 | The Quakers: Lamb and Lion | ||
| February 14, 2021 | Humanism: Just Us...And Everything Else | ||
| February 21, 2021 | Atheism and Agnosticism: Not in Temples Made with Hands | ||
| February 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Beloved Community) | ||
| March 7, 2021 | Cults: Lose Your Will, Lose Your Soul | ||
| March 14, 2021 | Neo-Paganism: The Sacredness of Creation | ||
| March 21, 2021 | Wider and Stronger | ||
| March 28, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Commitment) | ||
| April 4, 2021 | Faith in Action Project | ||
| April 11, 2021 | Faith in Action Project | ||
| April 18, 2021 | Faith in Action Project | ||
| April 25, 2021 | Soul Matters for Kids Large Group Activity (Theme: Becoming) | ||
| May 2, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 9, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 16, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 23, 2021 | Prepare for Religious Education Sunday | ||
| May 30, 2021 | Religious Education Sunday | ||