A New School Year!

We are ready to welcome our children and youth back for a new year of Religious Education!

This year, our lessons will be about World Religions. This will work nicely with our first Sunday services, also about World Religions. Teens will be in those services as an introduction to each religion. During the rest of the month, they will use art, drama, food, and field trips to deepen their understanding of each World Religion topic explored.

Leading this group are six terrific moderators: Chad, Karen, Meg, Drake, Will and Beth.

The Early Learners will continue the Spirit Play model we introduced last year. Spirit Play, modeled partly on the Montessori method of learning, encourages children to ask questions of wonder. Stories from all traditions, including our own, introduce children to promises (principles) of Unitarian Universalism. To reinforce these, children have independent work time as part of the lesson. The stories this year will mainly focus on the World Religions topics explored during the first Sunday service each month, along with some of our basic UU lessons.

Teaching this year is a group of familiar volunteers, as they were all teachers last year. Beth, Kari, Kathy, Sarah, Jan, Hala, Christine, Carl, Martha and Carolyn. Thanks so much for coming back!

All teachers and moderators met on August 17 for a teacher orientation and all are excited for another year of teaching the youth of UUFC.  The first session will have already taken place on August 31, along with our parent orientation.

Safety First

The events in New Orleans earlier this summer have reminded us to have a good plan for emergencies. Currently, Reverend Terre, Cecil Huey, Beau Blackwell and DRE Theresa Pizzuto are working on a safety plan for similar situations. Once completed, this will be presented to the teachers, parents and congregants. Look for a date in early November for a congregational-wide fire drill during Sunday morning. The classes will have several practice drills before that date. Stay tuned for more details.

In the interim, we have asked teachers to please keep cell phones with them in class. In case of fire, look for your children at the shed behind Founders’ House. Also know that our check-in and check-out process is a way of protecting your child.

Spotlight: Carolyn Turner

Carolyn is not ashamed to admit that she was shamed into getting involved. She realized how few of the youth she actually knew and decided to change that. Beginning as a part-time substitute, Carolyn ended up serving on the RE committee as well as teaching Spirit Play. She is currently in her third year with the committee and teaching. With her experience as an early elementary school teacher, we are happy to have Carolyn’s help! She enjoys teaching, in part, “because I've enjoyed see their development, both intellectually as well as developmentally. They are a very diverse group and full of interesting insights and information and most of all, energy. Hugs are always most welcome, too.” We’re sure the children enjoy the hugs as much as Carolyn does.