Fall 2016 Classes

Last week, we began our new season of classes for the children and youth. We've made some changes that should make for an even better learning experience.

We've expanded our offerings to three classes: Elementary Learners, Advanced Learners and the Teens. We are excited to have many of our Early Learners grow into a new class with a curriculum that will help them consider their own beliefs and theologies. The teen class is becoming more of a youth group, with conversations with the minster and times together to cook and share food.

Classes are on Sunday mornings. The children and youth start in the service. After Together Time with the minister and then assisting collecting food for Clemson Community Care, they go to classes. Elementary and Advanced Learners finish by 11:40 (usually around the end of the service.) Teens go a little longer, until noon.

Elementary Learners: Spirit Play

Kindergarten through 3rd grade (Ages 5 – 8)

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 fall will mainly focus on the themes and historical UU’s explored by the congregation each month, as well as earth-based holidays, and some of our basic UU lessons.

Teachers: Beth Carraway, Kari Carson, Kathy Gillcrist, Rhonda Powell, Christine Prado, Olivia Sparkman, Pamela West

Advanced Learners: Toolbox of Faith

4th through 7th grade  (Ages 9-12)

Toolbox of Faith invites participants to reflect on the qualities of our Unitarian Universalist faith, such as integrity, courage, and love, as tools they can use in living their lives and building their own faith. Each of the 16 sessions uses a tool as a metaphor for an important quality of our faith such as reflection (symbolized by a mirror), flexibility (duct tape), and justice (a flashlight).

Teachers: Sarah Harcum, Karen Hiebel, Meg MacArthur, Carl Thompson, Martha Thompson

Teens: World Religions Exploration

8th grade through 12^th grade (Ages 13 -18)

This fall the teen program will utilize a Youth Ministry approach with teens in the service on first Sundays and meeting afterward for lunch and discussion with the minister, other Sundays will focus on Social Justice discussions, Coming of Age activities, and Food & Fun in the kitchen (life skills preparation).

Teachers: Mandolin Bright, Chad Carson, Cindy Lee, Riley Stevens, Kristin Trowell

We hope you consider bringing your children to these classes to help them consider their spirituality. 

Also, we thank everyone assisting in these classes. If you are interested in being involved, teaching is an excellent way to learn and develop your own theology as well. 

Cleaning It Up

An important goal for the RE program is to pass the seven principles along to our children and youth.

Those principles are: 

• The inherent dignity and worth of all people.
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
• The right of conscience and use of the democratic process.
• A goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.
• Acceptance of others and encouragement of spiritual growth.
• Respect for the interdependent web of life of which we are a part.

While lessons involve drawing from many spiritual practices, we also teach them the value of stewardship. The children help every week as we take up canned goods to donate to Clemson Community Care. They also help in other ways throughout the year.

The latest project also speaks to the seventh principle of the interdependent web of life, by selling laundry detergent made from gentle and natural materials.

The children and youth will sell homemade natural laundry detergent after services for $5 per container until we run out. Each container will clean approximately 12 to 32 loads of laundry. They made the detergent on April 10^th with RE teachers during class in honor of Earth Day. Proceeds from the sales will be given to the UUFC as part of their Stewardship fundraising this year.  Support our youth in their fundraising efforts and clean your clothes at the same time! For more info contact Theresa Pizzuto at Theresa.pizzuto@gmail.com.

Turning the Tables

Every Sunday, we take time in the service to talk to the children and youth. They then collect our canned goods for Clemson Community Care while the ushers collect the offertory.

We call this time Together Time. Sometimes, the service leader will share a story or a book. Perhaps they have an object to discuss. Other times, the service leader has a conversation with the children. This particular Together Time in this blog post highlighted, we let the children present to us.

Max, Alexander and Adam all shared a significant figure they studied for Black History Month. Each talked for a few minutes on each person. Adam discussed Neil Degrasse Tyson, the American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science communicator. Alexander, of course, talked about a soccer player: Tim Howard. He has been a star player despite having Tourette Syndrome. And Max discussed James Herman Banning, an early pilot.

Not only did they all talk about pioneers in their fields, but it was great to see such great presentations from our children! Nicely done, guys!

February RE Committee Meeting

Your RE Committee is hard at work, considering the future and the goals of Religious Education at UUFC.

We first discussed a vision and goals. Preliminarily, these are:

Vision: We are a safe community for independent thought and spiritual exploration with a foundation based on UU principles.

The committee’s goals are:

•  To ensure that Unitarian Universalist principles are incorporated into the religious education program;
•  To provide support for the activities of the religious education program;
• To maintain and ensure communication among members of the committee, teachers, parents, the DRE, the minister, and the Fellowship as a whole;
• To provide input to the DRE, minister, and/or worship committee regarding multigenerational events and worship experiences which include children and youth.

With that in mind, we can consider more specific, measurable goals for our program. We feel that the program has made terrific strides over the years. The DRE and the RE committee has consistently provided prepared lessons, more easily executed by trained teachers. We have regular multigenerational services, in which the children and youth participate and even plan and execute. We are proud of what we offer. Some goals we would like to accomplish this year:

• Establish a family ambassador program, in conjunction with the membership committee, so that visitors with children can get consistent information about the RE program.
• Create awareness of the program (and UUFC) with some targeted marketing. 
• Grow the program to create a third class for middle schoolers.

We would love your thoughts and input on how we can achieve these goals, as well as your help. If you are interested in seeing a program become successful, ask us how you can get more involved.

RE Souper Supper

We had a tremendous turnout at the November Souper Supper, with more than 50 people coming to enjoy vegetarian stew, chicken mulligetawny, salad, cornbread and an array of desserts. It was a great night of fellowship and fun, as well as some good food. Thanks to everyone on the committee that contributed food.

We're not sure what brought everyone out: was it the ensuing board meeting? A break before cooking for Thanksgiving? An advance menu that appealed to many? Or perhaps it was the fabulous fun of the photo booth.

People young and old took advantage of the silliness. Thanks to the MEN WITH BEARDS who helped demonstrate the fun of the photo booth and braved the props to dress like a cat, a Sonic, a fox, a viking and a dapper Dan.

After dinner, others played in the fun. Some people might have even gotten pictures suitable for the Christmas card. Here's a few of  our favorites. The entire collection can be found here. (To keep the pictures protected, you have to create a shutterfly account.)

 

Fall events!

Loving the Black Cats (and all the other animals too)

Parents, do your youth love wearing their costumes everywhere? Let them show off on Sunday while helping raise money for a great cause.

And to everyone else, don't you love seeing children in costume that you see on a regular basis?

On SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, it's time for the kids to wear the costume one more time as they collect money for the local animal shelter. In the past, we've collected for groups such as UNICEF, but we decided to keep the need closer to home. The teens decided that the Anderson Humane Society was a group they wished to support.

So prepare for the influx of superheros, monsters, princesses and animals this Sunday and bring your small bills and change!

Decorating the Tree

Last year's ornament party was such a success that we're doing it again! Come to the Social Room on November 14, from 10 am-noon and find four stations for making ornaments. The RE committee is making angels. Look for other tables along with an assortment of hot beverages and tasty snacks!

Souper Supper

The RE committee is hosting the event on November 18 this year. We'll have vegetarian and meat soups as well as salad and cornbread. Also, we'll have a photo booth for everyone to enjoy, with props for fun! Babysitting will be provided, so let us make dinner, bring the family and enjoy some social time.

We Love Our Parents

We had a terrific parent orientation this past Sunday. Thanks to everyone who came and participated in the open discussion about Religious Education at UUFC. We are lucky to have a diverse group of parents from a wide range of backgrounds. However, they all share the same goals for their children: an opportunity to explore a broad range of beliefs and principles, so they can find their own theology and spirituality in a safe environment.

Also beginning as a resource for parents is our Parents Circle. While we had a Spiritual Parenting group, this was a more closed Covenant group. Instead, we are building an open community of parents to support and inspire each other, as well as discuss parenting issues we face.

The first meeting is Sunday, October 20 in the social room after the service. Bring your own lunch (or you can place a delivery/take out order before the meeting). We will enjoy lunch together from 12:15-12:45, and our meeting will be from 12:45-2:00. Each session will have a topic open for discussion. Childcare will be provided free (with love offerings accepted). 

The Parents Circle will meet the third Sunday each month. Look for further announcements about this supportive group. Contact Kari for more information.

If you still need to register your child or youth for the year, you can do so here.

A New Year, a New Chair

We enter Fall 2015 with excitement for a great year. This year will continue to build upon the work we have done in the past several years: great Spirit Play stories, more developed Teen curriculum, more Fifth Sunday get togethers and more holiday activities.

And, we have a new chair! Thanks to Meg MacArthur for her leadership for many years. We look forward to Karen Hiebel leading our great committee in the future. Karen brings a lot of ideas and experience to the program. She has taught religious education over the years since bringing in her toddler (now 15) to the program. She's served just about every post imaginable at UUFC: from membership to finance to president. We are grateful for her experience and energy as we develop programming for the children and youth.

Fellowship and lunch among teachers

Teacher Training was August 16. A special thank you to all our teachers who took time to not only teach, but to come to this session. Keeping a Safe Church environment was discussed, along with expectations from teachers among themselves as well as with the children. We also practiced a Spirit Play class, which some of our teachers did some method acting as the part of the children.

Our teaching year began on August 23. The children had an introduction to rituals and more specifically, the Water Ceremony. This is an important UU tradition practiced by many congregations: it is the time when we return from our summer adventures and gather as a community to start a new fall together. We share water from our travels both near and far, mixing the water together to show the bond we share as a congregation. The children had a chance to discuss what a ritual, as well as this ritual, meant and we then had a small water ceremony to bond as a class.

Spirit Play Water Ceremony

Things to look forward to in the fall:

• Parent Orientation is Sunday, September 13. We will provide food. In addition to covering the necessary topics, we also hope to hear from you and what you and your family hope to gain from the program. Please come ready for an engaging discussion.
• Spirit Play will continue to mirror the first Sundays in the service, exploring a variety of world religions throughout the fall. In the spring, we will use the stories to explore a variety of topics. 
• The Teens will also continue to finish out the world religions. We also hope they can find time in their busy schedules to get together for some painting and fellowship.
• We hope to put together a Crop Walk group of children and youth for the October 4 walk.
• A Pumpkin Carving party is planned for the fall.
• Our next Fifth Sunday is November 27. Might be a great day to get together with our Thanksgiving leftovers!

A Crafty Summer

With summer vacations, we took a little break from World Religions this summer. We asked those in the congregation who have a hobby that involves using their hands to share it with the children and youth. We had crochet, coloring mandalas, card making, basketweaving, knitting and even cake decorating. The children could see what those in the congregation enjoy making, and the congregation got to spread word on a favorite hobby.

Finger knitting to the right, learning to spool yarn on the left.

Christine (the author of this post) ended up teaching knitting. I brought a lot of the more whimsical stuff I've made over the years: a fox hat, a hedgehog toy, shark mittens. And then with a bag of scrap yarn, I taught the children to finger knit. You wrap the yarn around each of your four fingers to create the first row, and make the stitches by wrapping the yarn across all four fingers, and pulling the previous row over the new loop, for each finger. This makes a long tube (since most people can only make four stitches.) I turned my sample project into a snake, which has since become a favorite cat toy in our house.

By the end of the hour, we had children from age 6 to 16 making knitted tubes, even some of the youth who had felt craft-challenged over the years.

This was a great way to spread the love of making something by hand to the next generation. Thanks to all the people who shared a craft: Meg MacArthur, Kathy Crain, Ginny Loy, Karen Hiebel, Christine Prado, Kari Carson, Sarah Jaeschke, Michelle Bostick, Mary Orem and Sandra Sanderson (as well as anyone that Christine left off this list!)

Enjoy the pictures from the summer fun.

We started the summer by learning about mandalas.

An experienced crocheter shows her blanket project to a classmate.

A field trip to the labyrinth at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, in Seneca.

Card making with recycled materials proved to be a fun project.

Teaching: a Review and Summer RE

Teaching

Sometimes teaching RE is fantastic, sometimes it can be a little frustrating. Sometimes, as a teacher, you wonder if you are making an impact. And sometimes, you get a lesson that does show that you are actually teaching something to the children.

Elizabeth and Christine had this happen recently. We spent much of June repeating a few favorite lessons, including one about religious symbols. While we discussed each symbol, we talked about some of the stories we told throughout the year. Even we had to go back and look at the stories and review them. Unlike a year ago, almost all of the children knew the symbols. The bonus was that when prompted by some of the story titles, at least one of the children could summarize what that story was about.

While it was a little more of an active and perhaps rowdy class than we night normally conduct, it was thrilling and fun to see the children recall some of the stories and meanings from the past year. One of our newer children was overheard telling her father that it was awesome.

(Are you interested in enrolling your child? If you're already part of the congregation, are you interested in being part of a child's life as a teacher? Contact a member of the RE committee [Michelle, Karen, Sarah, Meg, Rhonda or Christine] or our DRE, Theresa.)

Summer RE

This year, we're trying something a little different. Look for some of our talented members of the congregation to share their craft with the children and youth! We have everything from labyrinths to crochet to basketweaving. Join us!

Here's the schedule:
7/5: Mandala coloring
7/12: Crochet
7/19: Field trip to the Labyrinth at the Episcopal Church in Seneca
7/26: Knitting
8/2: Card making
8/9: Cake and cookie decorating
8:16: Basket making

Teen Time

We hope everyone comes to enjoy the service on May 31. We will be talking about transitions of all ages, which will include a naming ceremony. On May 15, the teens got together with Theresa and Terre to help plan the service. One of the teens, Emily, tells us a little bit about what happened in this session:

We enjoyed a dinner from Pot Belly Deli, which was very good, then we decided to attempt to do some Israeli folk dancing. After some rather interesting attempts at dancing we finally started to plan the service. The topic we choose was change. That went well and after we did some juggling with stuffed animals. Then the sleepover started, which we kicked it off watching "Wreck It Ralph" with popcorn. In the morning we played Uno and danced to Meghan Trainer.

Thanks Emily! We look forward to seeing what the teens have cooked up for us.

Service Sunday

What's the best way to keep a group of little boys busy on a rainy Sunday? Put them to work!

Sunday was our planned service day. We combined all our projects into one day, and made it a bit of a party. A good mix of teens, older children and young kids worked well together to plant seeds, made laundry soap and make dog biscuits. Let's take these one at a time.

 

The Plants

The service project for this year was to benefit the South Carolina Botanical Garden. We had gone earlier in the fall to do some work to some of the plants. For the spring, we decided that we wanted to give some plants for the butterfly garden. Led by teacher Carolyn Turner, the younger class planted Scarlet Runner Beans. The flowers that the beans produce are delicious to both the butterflies and the hummingbirds. After mixing up the dirt, the children planted the seeds in peat pots, with stakes so that the beans could germinate.

This was Carolyn's last project with Religious Education before she moves to be closer to her daughter and grandchild. Thanks for all you have done for us Carolyn! We will miss you and are grateful for your work in the classroom and with the committee.

We will plant the seedlings at the garden on May 17, at noon, following class. Plan to meet at the Hayden Conference Center at the garden.

The Soap

The teens made laundry soap before and sold it to great acclaim. We decided to make it again. The soap contains washing soda, baking soda, borax and fels naptha. The first three ingredients come in powder form, but not the fels naptha. Grinding that soap is the tricky part of this project. We chose several methods: we ground it in a meat grinder, we grated it and we microwaved it. While microwaving it is entertaining as the soap expands like a balloon, it also creates a strong smell and it takes a while to cool off, so you can crumble it into a powder. Fortunately, it turns out that all these methods are fun for boys, and we got 21 containers of soap made in quick fashion. Look for the soap at the next Trading Post on May 10. We have seven containers in each scent: unscented, lavender and purification. They are not strongly scented. The purification is good for removing strong odors from clothes.

The Biscuits

This is our third year making these bones, which are very popular with our congregation's dogs. They contain egg, flour, oats, dry milk and every dog's favorite: PEANUT BUTTER. Two teams of three worked to make about 100 biscuits, and everyone worked to make the tags to go in the bags of biscuits. We sold some at the auction; look for Max to sell the rest! The proceeds from the sale of the biscuits go to the UUFC general fund.